Justification
Acquisition Record
undated document


[transcription]

Rineke Dijkstra

b. 1959, Sittard, the Netherlands
Lives and works in Amsterdam


Golani Brigade, Orev Unit
Elyakim, Israel May 26, 1999
1999

chromogenic print, edition 1 of 10
150.5 x 179 cm (framed)

donor: Alison and Alan Schwartz
Appraised by: Galerie Max Hetzler and Marian Goodman Gallery
Provenance: From Marian Goodman Gallery to the Donors
Exhibited:


Artist Biography
Rineke Dijkstra was born in 1959 in Sittard, the Netherlands. Dijkstra first began exhibiting her photographic work in 1992 and in a relatively brief time, she has developed an international reputation as one of the most critically acclaimed Dutch artists of her generation. She has had solo exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover (1998), Museum Boymansvan Beuningen in Rotterdam (1998), Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London (1999), the Herzliya Museum of Art (1999), the Art Institute of Chicago (2001), and the Frans Halsmuseum (de Hallen) in Haarlem (2001-2002).

Dijkstra has also participated extensively in group exhibitions including those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1997 and 1999), the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (1998), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1999), the Fotomuseum im Müchner Stadtmuseum in Munich (2000), the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (2000), the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis (2000), the Portland Art Museum (2000), the Milwaukee Art Museum (200), and the Tate Liverpool (2001). Her work was included in the 42nd Venice Biennial (1997) and the Berlin Biennial (1998).

Dijkstra is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery in New York and Max Hetzler Gallery in Berlin. She lives and works in Amsterdam.

Artist in Context

Dijkstra's work is influenced by practices as diverse as August Sander and Diane Arbus. The former is known for his interest in typologies of people, developed serially and providing a general sociological statement, while the latter is known for her specific self reflective images that remove the subject's ability to control the way in which they are represented. Dijkstra quotes Arbus in saying she too is interested in "the gap between intention and effect" in the way people present themselves and the way they are perceived. Dijkstra's portraits are distinguished by a singular empathy with her subjects. She has said 'For me, it is essential to understand that everyone is alone. Not in the sense of loneliness, but rather in the sense that no one can completely understand someone else. I want to awaken definite sympathies for the person I have photographed."

Works Under Consideration

The work under consideration is a frontal portrait of a young man who is a member of the Golani Brigade. The soldier is photographed dressed in military garb and holding a firearm while standing alone in a simple landscape. This work, as with her portraits generally, resembles a classical portrait with the young man depicted standing, frontally posed and isolated against a minimal background. The work is part of a series of portraits Dijkstra completed on members of the Golani Brigade.

Dijkstra often works in series and she



typically documents people in transitional moments: mothers who have just given birth, young people entering the military, matadors who have been bloodied in bullfights, young club goers just off the dance floor and prepubescent bathers on American and European beaches. A sense of detachment that is almost clinical in tone is apparent in Dijksta's work that can appears almost as a documentary of a particular group in a quasiscientific photographic series. However, Dijkstra's work also exposes her subjects in vulnerable moments. Her work draws on the ability of the camera to capture a significant or "true" moment, while simultaneously revealing the photograph as a construction that is arranged and recorded by the artist.

Justification

The Gallery has five works by Rineke Dijkstra in the collection. Dijkstra's practice, characterized by formal classicism and conceptual rigor, finds parallel in work by Jin-me Yoon, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Angela Grauerholz, already in the Gallery's collection. Dijkstra's work is an important addition of contemporary conceptual photography to the collection. The work is in good condition.

Recommend acceptance.


Bruce Grenville
Senior Curator

Research: Emmy Lee
Assistant Curator