This book is an initiative of architect Tomas Dirrix. On a family visit to Cees de Rooij, he became fascinated by the interior as a place for undisturbed and endless creation.

This meeting formed the starting point for a project that unfolds this inner world, as if it were a guided tour for a wider audience.

Private View reveals a world that never seemed intended for other people’s eyes. Paper sculptures, cardboard models, photo collages, garments, portraits and life-sized textile works are stacked up high within the walls of an Amsterdam apartment. A cavernous space, a forty five square metre-sized tangle of artistry.

This book about Cees de Rooij (1941) brings together encounters, documentation, and conversations. Visual artist Simon Wald-Lasowski explored the apartment and captured it in a photo series filled with tender compositions and personal vistas. In a two-part essay, writer Maurits de Bruijn examines not only the boundaries of what it means to be an artist, but also themes of queerness, visibility, care, and the transience of things and memories.

Private View does not start with an oeuvre, but with a way of living—one in which nothing is discarded and everything is marked by the love of making and remaking. What does it mean to create without an audience, or without the act of giving? Is art still art if no one sees it?