Rineke Dijstra | Solo Exhibition | Galerie Max Hetzler | 09.11.-20.12.2024

On show are photographs by Rineke Dijkstra at Bleibtreustraße 45, in Berlin. This is the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Rineke Dijkstra, one of the most highly regarded photographers of our time, achieved international recognition in the early 1990s with her portrait series of teenagers and young adults. In her photographs and video works, she develops a close connection with the people shown and captures their humanity through individual details such as a direct gaze or a characteristic gesture. Dijkstra accompanies some of her models for years to establish a trusting relationship. The artist’s works embody the human condition through universal aspects such as uncertainty, curiosity and vulnerability. Although the photographs have a spontaneous character due to their naturalness, the technical process of creating them is complex, as the artist uses an analogue large-format plate camera with a tripod. The concentration this requires from both the artist and the subjects creates an intense and intimate atmosphere. The people portrayed, including adolescents, schoolchildren, clubbers, bathers, emigrants and mothers, are united by a fundamental search for identity.

The current exhibition presents photographs from various well-known series by Dijkstra, such as ‘Beach Portraits’, ‘The Buzz Club’, ‘New Mothers’, ‘Streets’ and ‘Parks’. During a two-year period of revisiting her archive, the artist had a fresh look at her oeuvre and subsequently published works that had never been shown before. In particular, she focused on photographs of duos or groups and the question of how the relationship between people becomes visible. Her protagonists wear matching clothes, pose similarly, hold hands or seem connected precisely because of their striking differences. Depending on the type of expression, every picture reveals a distinctive tension. The individuality of each person manifests itself in these works, especially in their relationship to others.

Kolobrzeg, Poland, July 25, 1992, 2023, from the ‘Beach Portraits’ series, shows seven girls in swimwear against a minimal background of sea and sky. Facing the camera directly, they simultaneously emit a sense of youthful lightness and insecurity. Change and the extreme contrasting emotions that accompany it can also be seen in the work Tia, Amsterdam, June 23, 1994, 2024, which depicts a mother with her newborn baby. In the works from the series ‘The Buzz Club’, Dijkstra examines the meaning of self-imposed uniforms. Julia, Amsterdam, March 7, 2022, 2024, is based on the seventeenth-century painting De Briefschrijfster, 1655, by Gerard ter Borch. In both Borch and Dijkstra’s works, the protagonists are absorbed in their activities, seemingly oblivious to the outside world. Respectively lost in letter writing or the glow of a phone, they are shown in an intimate atmosphere focused entirely on them. This effect is intensified by the chiaroscuro (light-dark) technique, whose aesthetic Dijkstra here translates into photography.

Dijkstra reinterprets the portrait genre with a unique visual language. Her exceptional eye for detail conveys subtle nuances and emotions in her photographs. Every work tells a story of its own. ‘I don’t want a pose in which people comply with a certain image they try to control and that reveals only the intention of how they want to be perceived,’ she explains. ‘What they have naturally is far more interesting to me.’ ¹

Rineke Dijkstra’s work will be the subject of solo exhibitions at the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, opening 8 November 2024; and the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, opening 13 December 2024.