BERLIN.- Join the artist talk with Rineke Dijkstra and Dr. Friedrich Meschede: the former director of the DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Program, invited Rineke Dijkstra with a scholarship to Berlin in 1998/99. Together they look back on Dijkstra’s time in Berlin, her artistic development and the portrait series in Berlin’s Tiergarten, which is the starting point for the current exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie.
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Rineke Dijkstra (*1959) is one of the most highly acclaimed photography and video artists in the world. The central theme of her portraits is the depiction of identity. She is particularly interested in those stages in life and those moments when identity is taking shape: childhood, youth, but also formative events in adulthood, such as the birth of a child. This major retrospective at the Berlinische Galerie presents eight series with about 80 works dating from the early 1990s to the present day, including some photographs never yet exhibited from the artist’s own archives. Pared down to essentials, her works are visually very powerful and easily accessible to a broad public. They create a space for meditation and invite reflections about individuality, representation and personal expression.
Dijkstra uses her camera as an opportunity to explore people in depth. She approaches them carefully, slowly but surely pursuing her concept, although without ruling out spontaneous tweaks and variations. She often builds a strong connection with her subjects over a long period. This empathetic approach comes across in a particular sensitivity that is reflected in her photographs: Dijkstra’s works capture fragile moments, subtle gestures midway between a conscious pose and an unconscious attitude. She has a gift for drawing out a person’s dignity, but also their insecurities.
The artist works with a large-format 4x5” plate camera, capturing her motifs from a frontal perspective. The resulting images are exceptionally precise and faithful to detail, their composition meticulously thought through and implemented. Every exposure requires its own sheet of film, making patience, time and concentration essential for both the photographer and the subject. While these preparations are underway, the people being portrayed have a chance to relax and adjust to the unfamiliar situation.
The portraits reflect not only how we present ourselves to the world but also what it means to be documented by the media. They might even be described as studies in how people behave in front of a camera. Today, when social media are all around us, they offer an opportunity to think about the image’s claim to authenticity and about evolving strategies of (self-)presentation.
Rineke Dijkstra was born in Sittard, The Netherlands in 1959. She attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam from 1981-1986. She has been honored with the Johannes Vermeer Prijs (2020), the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2017), SPECTRUM, International Prize for Photography of Stiftung Niedersachsen (2017) and The Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize (1999). Rineke Dijkstra was recently the subject of a mid-career retrospective on view at Museum De Pont, Tilburg, the Netherlands (2018) Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2017), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2012). In 2013, the Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) Frankfurt showed the first comprehensive filmic retrospective of the Dutch artist’s work worldwide.
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