CHOK
MAMA presents, in association with CHOK, the first solo exhibition of Rotterdam illustrator Younes Chokry. CHOK is an initiative, established by his friends, celebrating the work of Younes Chokry, who unexpectedly ended his life last summer. Younes left behind thirteen sketchbooks, providing insight into an incredibly rich inner world inhabited by monsters, skeletons, and bizarre characters. Visit MAMA’s showroom and discover the strange universe of this extraordinary young illustrator.
CHOK
Known as Chok to his friends, the development of Younes Chokry’s personal visual style can be followed through his sketchbooks. The first books are cautious and sketchy when compared to later sketchbooks, where the cartoonish style is sharper and the subjects grimmer. We see pentagrams, symbolic references to the Illuminati, drooling octopi, and elaborately worked covers. Black humour spills from the pages: a disconcerting sword piercing a piece of cheese, cute monsters welcoming you to hell, and a one-eyed, mutant Mickey Mouse with four arms and rotten teeth. The characters in his sketchbooks evoke morbid excerpts from Ren and Stimpy and also show a kinship to Rotterdam-based graffiti collective Lastplak.
Window Project
CHOK is a window project: from 7 to 16 April, MAMA’s windows are covered in Younes’s creations. In close cooperation with his friends, a selection of his sketchbook work is translated into a visual spectacle filling all of MAMA’s windows. Inside, his original sketchbooks are on display and T-shirts with prints of Younes Chokry figures are for sale. The exhibition is hosted by Younes’s friends, for whom the cooperation with MAMA is the starting point for CHOK, an ongoing tribute to Younes Chokry’s work, with different outcomes and presentations.
About HOME
HOME is the leitmotiv by which we encourage conversation about conceptions regarding belonging, representation and identification. HOME is a fundament, the place you return to and anchorpoint for the journey onward. HOME (offline as well as online) is the start of feeling connect to others. Under the name HOME we also present exhibitions in the showroom of MAMA. In collaboration with young makers we express interpretations about HOME | IN REAL LIFE | NETWORKS.
