Rineke Dijkstra

by Rineke Dijkstra (Photographer)

Artist Rineke Dijkstra has appropriated the formal qualities of the studio portrait from the early part of this century--taking the convention of the full length, frontal and centrally composed portrait to its logical limits, she is able to penetrate to the core of her subjects. Each photograph is marked with a precise date and location, suggesting a conscious evocation of the work of the early 20th century photographer August Sander and his project to document the ''Citizens of the Twentieth Century.'' Dijkstra's photographs stand by themselves, bearing no reference to personal circumstances or the specific geographical details of the location--the power of her images lies in an intimate psychological connection between artist, sitter, and viewer. For Dijkstra's best known series of photographs--an extensive series of beach portraits of teenagers and children taken on beaches all over the world between 1992 and 1996--the artist sought out a certain introversion or unease in her subjects, capturing with rare perfection the human condition of feeling not-at-home in the world. This brilliant new monograph documents Dijkstra's recent photographic and video work.

Genres: Photography

Hardcover

First published June 6, 2001

About the author

Rineke Dijkstra is a contemporary Dutch photographer. Known for her single portraits, usually working in series, she often focuses on particular groups and communities of people, such as mothers, adolescent and teenage boys and girls, soldiers, etc., with an emphasis on capturing the vulnerable side of her subjects. “With young people everything is much more on the surface—all the emotions,” the artist observed. “When you get older you know how to hide things.”

Born on June 2, 1959 in Sittard, Netherlands, she studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Dijkstra’s seminal series, Beach Portraits (1992–1994), is composed of life-sized color photographs of young teenagers in bathing suits taken on both American and European beaches. The project was shown in 1997 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in New Photography 13, bringing the artist widespread attention and critical acclaim. Dijkstra has gone on to work in video, as seen in her filmed portraits of dancing teenagers, The Buzzclub, Liverpool, UK/Mysteryworld, Zaandam, NL (1996–1997).

She has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including “Rinkeke Dijkstra: A Retrospective,” which was shown at both the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2012. The artist currently lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Today, her works are held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Goetz Collection in Munich, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others.

Reviews

[miriam s. · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for the photographs and negative 5 for that intro... wtf!!! Can’t remember the name of the woman who wrote it and I’m not bothered to check because she doesn’t deserve the time. Extremely bigoted and ignorant descriptions of queer, disabled and non white Americans which was so uncalled for and uncouth. Girl byeee

[James Moes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her work is too clinical for me.