If you enter the studio of artist Bas Kosters in Amsterdam-Noord, you will be overwhelmed by all the colors and cheerful dolls and creatures that you allow. “I have also made black and gray clothing, but somehow colorfulness attracts me much more,” Kosters says with a smile on his face.
For his exhibition An Exercise in Joy Together with a small crew, Kosters investigated the phenomenon of joy, and whether joy can be trained.
Central is Kosters’ self -designed Teddy Bear. He called it the Jobe, or the Joy Bear, and made this bear in ceramics and dust and in all kinds of cheerful colors. “The Teddy Bear is a symbol of love for me. You give a bear to another and it will make it happy again,” says Kosters.