Residency #136
OCTOBER 12 – NOVEMBER 1, 2009
Application deadline: May 22, 2009

RINEKE DIJKSTRA, visual arts

Dutch photographer and video-artist Rineke Dijkstra was born in Sittard, Netherlands in 1959. After studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam Dijkstra began working as a free-lance photographer for journals such as Elle, Avenue and Elegance. At that time she portrayed scholarship recipients of several art-awards by order of art funds. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Dijkstra has worked with a large format camera and concentrated on portrait series in color. The photographer's first independent series, her famous portraits, Beaches,  came into existence between 1992 and 1996. The numerous works consist of body-photos of children and adolescents, who were photographed by Rineke Dijkstra in their bathing attire at the beaches in Europe and the eastern coast of the US in front of the ocean as a simple but highly symbolical background. In 1994, a series of large format portraits of bullfighters and a series of three women, who were being photographed by Dijkstra soon after giving birth with their babies in their arms, followed. Her strictly conceptual approach follows a tradition that reaches from August Sander and Diane Arbus until today. Her works go beyond documentary photography and recording moments, in which the portrayed are exposed to changing processes caused by developmental or extreme physical or psychological experiences. Since the mid-1990s, Dijkstra has used the camcorder/video camera, transfering her artistic aims to this new media. Young disco-visitors, which are portrayed in their behavior patterns and poses, are in the center of the videos The Buzzclub, Liverpool, UK/Mysteryworld, Zaanda', NL (1996/97) and Annemiek (1999). Dijkstra received international approval with her invitation to the Venice Biennale in 1997. Her work can be seen at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, at the Folkwang Museum in Essen, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Residency Statement

For me, the starting point of work is observation; how do you look at things and how can you capture an emotion or an idea in an image? How do you relate to your subject and what exactly inspires you when you look at something or somebody? What inspires you when you look at other works of art?

Application Requirements

Applicants should send a CD with 10-20 images of recent and older works, which shows their development over the past three-five years. Also, a short statement about their work and intent as well as a biography, or/and if they have a website link. Artists should bring their own equipment that they would like to work with for this residency. Also, please bring anything that inspires you, such as books, pictures of artworks, films/dvd’s, etc.

*For more information about Rineke Dijkstra please http://www.mariangoodman.com/Dijkstra/