THE HAGUE.- Emotional vulnerability, a search for personal identity and physical change are all key characteristics of adolescence. Contemporary photographers like Paul Graham, Rineke Dijkstra, Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff create portraits that attempt to convey the transition to adulthood. In the 1990s, they captured the euphoria of adolescents at the end of an era. The End of an Age in the Vincent Award Room features a selection of their images.

Rineke Dijkstra (b. 1959) made her international break-through with a series of portraits (1992-1994) of young people on beaches in Belgium, Croatia, America and Poland. In Long Island, N.Y., U.S.A., July 1, 1993, two boys in beach shorts pose for the camera with the sea in the background. Their expression is uncertain and their body language hesitant. Dijkstra’s image powerfully conveys the growing but still shaky self-confidence of the two adolescents. Their tough-guy stance is a transparent disguise for their actual bashfulness.

British photographer Paul Graham (b. 1964) photographed youngsters dancing, partying and getting drunk in a nightclub somewhere in Europe. His End of an Age series (from which this exhibition takes its name) captures them at unguarded moments: alone in a corner or standing isolated on the edge of the dance floor. Although the images are clearly stylized, Paul Graham – unlike contemporaries – is unafraid of technical errors like red eyes, excessive use of flash, or hazy colours. Indeed, in this series he deliberately emphasizes them. This is the first time the series has been seen in public.

Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) and Thomas Struth (b. 1954) both trained with German photographer couple Bernd and Hilla Bercher (the Bercher Schule) and have each developed his own distinctive kind of strongly abstract portrait photography. In Thomas Ruff’s Portraits series, faces blank of emotion gaze directly at the viewer. The subjects of the portraits are simply dressed and invariably blue-eyed. The series evokes associations with passport photographs but the large format and uniformity of the images makes them somehow disconcerting and disturbing. The effect is to place unusual stress on the physical identity of the subjects.
Monique Zajfen Collection & The Vincent Award

De Monique Zajfen Collection is a contemporary art collection belonging to the Broere Charitable Foundation. It contains work by top contemporary artists like Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Thomas Schütte and Stephan Balkenhol. The basis of the collection consists of acquisitions of work by winners of the Vincent Award, a biennial prize for European contemporary art. Launched by the Broere Charitable Foundation in 2000, the Vincent Award was established in memory of Monique Zajfen, a beloved friend of the Broere family and former holder of Galerie 121 in Antwerp. It was her commitment to and passion for contemporary art that inspired the Broere Charitable Foundation to institute the award and to seek to encourage artistic talent in Europe.

Since 2014, the Monique Zajfen Collection has been on long-term loan to the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. The museum holds twice-yearly exhibitions featuring items from the Monique Zajfen collection together with works from its own holdings. These exhibitions are held in the Gemeentemuseum’s dedicated Vincent Award Room.