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Erik Kessels

Black-and-white portrait of Erik Kessels, arms folded, his name set in large white type across the image.

Erik Kessels

Erik Kessels is a Dutch artist, designer, curator and lecturer with great interest in photography. Since 1996 he is creative partner of KesselsKramer, a communications agency in Amsterdam and works for national and international clients such as Nike, Diesel, J&B Whisky, Oxfam, Vitra and Citizen M. 

As an artist and curator Kessels has published over 70 books of his ‘re-appropriated’ images.

Glue Amsterdam

For the 2022 edition of GLUE, visitors are welcome to step into artist Erik Kessels’ mysterious mind; he created a total experience, a one-off live performance and a (simplistic) conceptual whole to be admired. Inspired by Kessels’ book A Pictorial History of the Empty Chair, Hans Lensvelt embraced the idea and brought it to life by producing and developing the chair and offering it as a package: Buy the book get the chair.

"EMPTY CHAIR is a work that deals with the subject of absence. Looking at an empty chair makes us wonder who could sit or who might be sitting there. Not knowing or seeing this makes us more curious and makes it more exciting. Will the empty chair be able to carry the weight and who will be its new companion? Will we ever know?” - Erik Kessels

The book EMPTY CHAIR is made by Erik Kessels in collaboration with Karel De Mulder.

Check out the empty chair
Two men laughing and clasping hands over a dinner table, the evening the Empty Chair collaboration began.

The collaboration

One wintry evening, Hans Lensvelt's good friend Erik Kessels dropped by at the Lensvelt HQ carrying a mock-up of a new book. Kessels had assembled a selection of photos with a random empty chair from his immense collection of photos, collected at markets around the world.

Because all the chairs in the pictures are on the right side of the photo, it gives a kind of comic and reinforcing effect to the visual story. The photos are placed in chronological order so that it also becomes a journey through time where the reader is taken into the ambience and furniture design starting from the early 20th century to the present. This collection of 160 photos presents a unique and rich history of furniture design through the years.

Erik Kessels & Hans Lensvelt

The Empty Chair

CEO Hans Lensvelt was instantly charmed by the original booklet and decided to publish it. At the same time he thought it would be very fitting to produce a real Empty Chair. He immediately contacted his R&D manager Rick Minkes who was working on location with one of the manufacturers at the time and promptly had a prototype made.

Lensvelt presents the Empty Chair during design route Glue Amsterdam, at the Lensvelt Gallery. The chair is offered as a package with the original book A Pictorial History of the Empty Chair. 'Buy the book and get the chair'.

Kessels produced a brochure for Lensvelt with several unique photos of the Empty Chair photographed by Bert Teunissen.

Empty Chair by Erik Kessels: an all-white steel chair with EMPTY CHAIR stencilled through the backrest.

Empty Chair_ produced by Lensvelt

Pale blue cover of the book A Pictorial History of the Empty Chair, its title set small in the centre.

Empty Chair book

Lensvelt booklet cover: a white Empty Chair against a raw concrete wall, EMPTY CHAIR lettered on its back.

Lensvelt booklet
White Empty Chair on the pavement against a vast dark brick wall, from the Empty Chair booklet by Erik Kessels and photographer Bert Teunissen

A spread from the Empty Chair booklet which Kessels produced with photographer Bert Teunissen

White Empty Chair among grazing belted cows in a dry meadow, for the Empty Chair booklet by Erik Kessels, photo by Bert Teunissen

Unpublished images for the Empty Chair booklet by Kessels and photographer Bert Teunissen

White Empty Chair on a red traffic island beside a blue keep-right arrow sign, photographed by Bert Teunissen

A picture for the Lensvelt booklet, by photographer Bert Teunissen

White Empty Chair alone against a raw concrete wall, EMPTY CHAIR pierced into its backrest.

Image of the Empty Chair which appears on the cover of the Lensvelt brochure