Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective

This volume is the first comprehensive monograph on Rineke Dijkstra to be published in the United States, accompanying the first U.S. mid-career survey of this important Dutch artist's work in photography and video. The catalogue features the Beach Portraits and other early works such as the photographs of new mothers and bullfighters, together with selections from Dijkstra's later work, including her most recent video installations. Also featured are series that the artist has been working on continuously for years, such as Almerisa (1994), which documents a young immigrant girl as she grows up and adapts to her new environment. Exhibition curators Jennifer Blessing, Senior Curator, Photography, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Sandra S. Phillips, Senior Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, contribute essays accompanied by an interview with the artist by Jan van Adrichem, selected interviews with several of the artists subjects, and entries on the artists series by Chelsea Spengemann, as well as the most comprehensive exhibition history and bibliography to date.

Review :
Dijkstra has remained somewhat under the radar in the U.S., but her first major American retrospective is now on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and wll travel to New York's Guggenheim in June. "She's not a flashy person, and her work is subtle, not obvious," says Sandra S. Phillips, SFMOMA's senior curator of photography, "but I think profound."--Julie L. Belcove "Elle Magazine" The Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra, whose images have appeared in W, makes naturalistic portraits and videos of those whose lives are in transition: young adults, soldiers, new mothers. The subject of a major retrospective at New York's Guggenheim Museum, Dijkstra uses a 4x5 field camera, in part, she says, because its slow, cumbersome operation creates "a space where things can happen. The people I shoot really have to open themselves up to me. And I have to open up, too. It's an interaction."--Fan Zhong "W Magazine" Dijkstra captures young subjects going through transitional times, reflecting the vulnerability of lost innocence.-- "American Photo" The book and exhibition emphasize photography's role as a tool for empathy and understanding.--Jennifer Blessing "Photo District News" Ms. Dijkstra, 52, whose 4-by-5-inch field camera requires slow, laborious work with plates, doesn't like to talk much during a shoot. She tries to create room for something genuine to happen. When you take a photograph, she said, "you look in a more objective way," but there is also a connection between photographer and subject. "It's recognition, as Diane Arbus said. "I'm not just an observer," she added. "We have to respond to each other. It's a kind of tension which I like."--Hilarie Sheets "The New York Times"