Solomon R Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY
June 29- October 8, 2012
Over on the Flak Photo Network, a couple days before I would see this retrospective, I posted a simple query... "Has anyone seen this exhibit yet?" I wanted to hear a few reactions to Dijkstra's work. Maybe get some insight into things to look for because I was generally unfamiliar with anything beyond the Beach Portraits and a tiny amount of The Krazyhouse. For readers unfamiliar with the Flak Photo Network (FPN), it is a discussion group on Facebook created by Andy Adams, founder of FlakPhoto.com. The idea behind the FPN is to encourage thoughtful and extended conversations about contemporary photography inside a modern social network setting. Facebook is the perfect venue for that to occur and at the date of this writing, the FPN has just under five thousand group members. Photographers are an opinionated bunch, as I'm sure anyone who has ever been part of a local photo club can attest. Imagine a global photo club and you will get an idea of the debates and discussions that often occur on the FPN.
So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by the mini fire storm that erupted in the comments responding to my question. You can read the comments yourself by clicking the link above. I'm not going to respond directly to any of them here in this review, but the discussion over the merits of Dijkstra's work became quite passionate from both sides of the aisle. The liveliness of this discussion really whet my appetite in anticipation to see the full career spanning presentation of photographs and videos presented at the Guggenheim Museum. Not only was this a first visit to the Guggenheim for me, it was also a first face to face meeting with photographer Andi Schreiber. Andi was one of the five selected winners featured in last year's My Own Wilderness exhibition and book. We have stayed in touch after that, especially via the FPN, so it was nice to have a chance to meet in person and check out this exhibit together. (She is, by the way, every bit as nice and wonderful in person as she is online, not to mention being a knowledgeable student of the photographic arts).
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| Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (2012) |
The architecture of the Guggenheim is such that one is unaware of a beginning or end. A spiraling cork screw with various offset gallery rooms; the Rineke Dijkstra retrospective is exhibited throughout the entire building in multiple galleries on all levels of the museum. The seamless flow of the museum serves to enhance those same qualities within Dijkstra's work. Many of the series presented in this retrospective are studies in the nature of time. Exploring subtle changes that occur unnoticed before our eyes and in the mirror on a daily basis, and the unique ability of photography to wave the evidence of these changes in our faces. Dijkstra's time based works range from spans of many years to just several days. Her ongoing Almerisa series began in 1994 with a single photograph of a young Bosnian girl at a Dutch refugee center for asylum-seekers, and has grown as Dijkstra continued to photograph her regularly for more than a decade, as she became a young woman with a child of her own. Dijkstra has taken portraits of new initiates to the Israeli army, photographing female soldiers in their uniforms after induction and then again in their civilian dress. The Olivier series (2000–03) follows a young man from his enlistment with the French Foreign Legion through the years of his service, showing his development, both physically and psychologically, into a soldier. Dijkstra is brilliantly talented in the use of time based portraiture, and I found the Almerisa and Olivier series to be among the strongest work presented. It is gut wrenching to see the transition of Olivier from innocent youth to hardened warrior in three short years. Only a photograph can capture this dramatic evolution, and Dijkstra's genius is in her easily overlooked and under appreciated use of consistency, allowing us a soft illusion of time warp. There is little to distract us from absorbing the essence of these subjects, slowly and seamlessly. The results are enchanting.
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Rineke Dijkstra
Olivier, The French Foreign
Legion, Camp Raffalli, Calvi, Corsica, June 18, 2001
Chromogenic
print, 90 x 72 cm
Courtesy the artist and
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Rineke Dijkstra
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Rineke Dijkstra
Almerisa, Asylum Center Leiden,
Leiden, Netherlands, March 14, 1994
Chromogenic print, 94 x 75 cm
Courtesy the artist and Marian
Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Rineke Dijkstra
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The same is true for Dijkstra's usage of serial typology. In 1992, she started making portraits of adolescents posed on beaches from Hilton Head, South Carolina, to Poland and Ukraine. These Beach Portraits are the images Dijkstra is best known for and are presented in the lowest level gallery along with portraits of new mothers photographed soon after giving birth, and photographs of bullfighters immediately after leaving the ring. The new mothers are presented on a wall directly across from the bullfighters. The bullfighters proudly display the blood of death while one of the young mothers seems to be completely unaware of a small stream of her own life giving blood running down her leg. Here Dijkstra presents us with the essential nature of the moment. The lack of any artifice is achieved via physical exhaustion of the portrait subject. This concept originated from a 1991 self portrait Dijkstra took after spending several hours in a swimming pool while rehabbing from a bicycle accident. Dijkstra attempts to find a magic moment that exists between self-consciousness and natural indifference. She often quotes Diane Arbus, who said..." Our whole guise is like giving a sign to the world to think of us in a certain way but there's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you." Arbus called this place the "gap between intention and effect"(1) and Dijkstra continually seeks to place her subjects within this gap.
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Rineke Dijkstra
Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal,
May 8, 1994
Chromogenic print, 90 x 72 cm
Courtesy the artist and Marian
Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Rineke Dijkstra
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| Rineke Dijkstra , New Mothers from Concientious (2005) |
Perhaps the most fascinating (if not disturbing) presentation in this retrospective is the twenty six minute two-channel video projection The Buzz Club. This video was shot over a span of two years, but seems as if it all takes place in one or two nights. A voyeuristic trip through beat clubs in Liverpool, UK and Zaandam, Netherlands, the film is rhythmic and hypnotic, alternating channels in sometimes subtle minimalism, and at other times oddly off sync. The club kids dance as well as smoke, chew gum, and drink beers (often simultaneously). Whereas the adolescents on the beach appear vulnerable and awkward, the kids in The Buzz Club exude confidence and power. Dijkstra has entered their world and they are in control. Dijkstra captures this world in her familiar usage of extended timing and anticipation. The video is excruciatingly slow at times, revealing much more of a photographic nature than the fast pace typical of video. Patience is required for viewing all of Dijkstra's videos. Five are included in this retrospective, ranging from a charming single channel video of a self-conscious young girl lip syncing to a Back Street Boys song, to the 2009 four channel HD video The Krazyhouse (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee).
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Rineke Dijkstra
The Buzz Club, Liverpool, UK/Mystery World, Zaandam, NL, 1996–97
Two-channel video projection, transferred to HD, with sound, 26 min., 40 sec., looped
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Rineke Dijkstra
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Rineke Dijkstra
The Buzz Club, Liverpool, UK/Mystery World, Zaandam, NL, 1996–97
Two-channel video projection, transferred to HD, with sound, 26 min., 40 sec., looped
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Rineke Dijkstra
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One of the best results of my query to the Flak Photo Network were from the members who posted links to reviews and articles previously published about Rineke Dijkstra. I have used these after seeing this retrospective as a way to process my reaction to the work and to gather research for this review. I'm grateful for the FPN on so many levels. It has been a valuable resource for information and camaraderie. Here is a list of some of the links I found interesting...
(1) Quote from "Why Photography Matters As Never Before" by Michael Fried (Yale Univ. Press) 2008 pg. 208
