Photography by Rineke Dijkstra – approach through slowness

It is not too far-fetched to think of Rineke Dikjstra’s photographs as being reminiscent of 17th and 18th century Dutch portraiture. On the one hand, the photographer was born in Holland in 1959 and lives and works in Amsterdam, on the other hand, she herself said that as a child she admired and absorbed all the masters in the major museums. The Dutch Baroque portrait art was unique in Europe for a long time because the artists tried to capture and penetrate the subjects in their entirety. In doing so, they largely avoided idealization, but did not exclude the ugliness and emotional states such as melancholy or resignation. Of course, it would be presumptuous to draw a direct line from Rembrandt, Vermeer and others to the present day to Rineke Dijkstra’s portraits, but her approach and her focus on the subtle details and poses of those she portrays allow the great role models to shine through.

After studying at the Amsterdam Art Academy and temporarily working as a freelance photographer, Rineke Dikjstra began intensive work on her first portrait series in the early 1990s, with which she quickly became known. The photos of children and young people on beaches in Holland, the USA and numerous countries in Western and Eastern Europe caused a stir. In the early 90s, when contemporary European photography was influenced by the large-format abstractions of the so-called Düsseldorf School around Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer, their images brought a breath of fresh air into artistic photography. At that time, East German photography, with its very own humanistic view of humanity, was still waiting to be discovered and hardly played a role in the international photography scene. In contrast to the cool wax figure-like portraits of Thomas Ruff that were in vogue at the time, Dijkstra’s protagonists had a distinctive individuality and communicated something about themselves that was not consciously staged, controlled or intended.

One way of approaching is slowness. Taking the time to make the protagonist in front of the camera an actor in their own cause and working on the portrait together describes Dikjstra’s working method. Her pictures are characterized by the calm and concentrated expression on the faces of the people portrayed. On the one hand, this is due to the technology. Dikjstra works with a large format camera, which – you need a tripod and the camera has to be set up – makes quick snapshots technically impossible and almost forces you to get involved in the process of being photographed. The fact that her protagonists are so completely present in front of the camera and seemingly open up to the viewer has, of course, just as much to do with the psychological skill of the actor behind the camera, with her life experience and her feel for the production. The subjects portrayed usually stand frontally in front of the camera, isolated from their surroundings due to the blurred background. The supportive light and the slight underside give them something sublime, while the large format allows every little detail to become part of the story.

What characterizes her pictures are the calm and concentrated expressions on the faces.

Anyone who has ever made the attempt knows what a challenge it is for a photographer to get closer to the person in front of the camera and to explore their essence through a portrait. Not only are cameras in the form of cell phones omnipresent today; Along with “social media,” a mistrust of photography has become established for fear of a loss of control, which makes it increasingly difficult to deal with being photographed impartially. On the other hand, there is a natural fear of revealing oneself to the camera in isolation from one’s surroundings, so that most people either tense up in front of the photographer’s lens or adopt an artificial pose. Hardly anything is as photographically challenging and requires caution and human competence as the portrait.

The examination of the portrait genre has shaped Dijkstra’s oeuvre. After and alongside the beach series, portraits of mothers were created who were still marked by the birth that had taken place immediately before. The “realness” in the faces at the moment of seemingly superhuman effort interested Dijkstra. She also traced this type of authenticity in her torero portraits from 1994. She photographed Portuguese bullfighters immediately after leaving the arena. Shot frontally and against a neutral background, the visible traces of the fight, blood spatters on clothing and the exhaustion on faces became a reflection of an existential borderline experience.

However, her main focus was and is still on children and young people, whether in the beach portraits or in the park series, for which she observed and portrayed children playing, including in the Berlin Tiergarten. Dijkstra also has an ongoing fascination with nightlife. In 1994 she began portraying young people in a Liverpool nightclub during dance breaks. For her, the clubs exemplify the transition from childhood to adulthood, as a place where young people use poses, clothing and make-up to discover their effect on others and practice dealing with the opposite sex. They may be smoking or have a beer in their hand, but their cool gesture still seems awkward and their self-confidence seems fake.

With this subject at the latest, Dijkstra became aware that the medium of photography has its limits; Ultimately, a photo can only capture the moment, and the possibility of telling stories using one (or more) images is limited. So she discovered video as a narrative tool and sound, movement and editing found their way into her work. A year later she returned to Liverpool to learn and tell more about the young people through moving images.

It is definitely worth taking the time to watch the video works in the exhibition. The video installation “I See a Woman Crying” in particular illustrates what Dijkstra is all about. In it we see a group of English schoolchildren describing a painting that remains invisible. While the children can hardly be distinguished at the beginning because of their school uniforms, when describing and interpreting the painting the individuality of the individual soon becomes apparent and it quickly becomes clear how much the interpretation depends on their own influences and reveals something about the child themselves.

In addition to a selection of her video works, the solo exhibition in the Berlinische Galerie presents a well-founded overview of Dijkstra’s entire oeuvre to date. With her images of young people and their imperfections and grace, the photographer teaches us to see the beauty and vulnerability of youth – and to appreciate it, because it will pass.

Rineke Dijkstra, »Still – Moving. Portraits 1992–2024«. Until February 10, 2025 in the Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobsstraße 124-128, Berlin. The catalog was published by Distance Publishing, 160 pages, €40.