Rineke Dijkstra

As someone who has fairly recently taken their interest in photography to the next-ish level, I was curious to check out "Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective" on exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. This was also my first visit to 'the Guggenheim.' Hey, the Upper East Side is kind of annoying commute-wise.

Ms. Dijkstra photographs using a 4x5 large format camera (a type of view camera) which is not much different than the first commercially available cameras back in the mid-19th century except with the obvious technological advancements. Her work is primarily portraiture especially as a series.

The exhibit is spread out over several galleries within the museum and first series one encounters are the Beach Portraits she began in 1992. Others who were in attendance seem to be taken by them but I was not among them - I found this group of portraits lacking. Perhaps they looked too much like a straightforward vacation photograph where the subject is dead center and not much going on anywhere else. And I was also reminded of the disturbing American Apparel advertising campaign(s). Even as I write this, I still struggle with how to convey my lack of connection to these images - there was just  'something.'

But I must tell you that the other series on display are very compelling. Olivier follows a young French male taken over four years and his enlistment in the French Foreign Legion and subsequent postings. Almerisa chronicles a Bosnian refugee over a decade and a half beginning as a child of six transitioning to motherhood. The bullfighters who have just emerged from the ring with blood on their clothes and faces. Young Israeli soldiers from their civiliam lives to induction. I was intrigued by the park series taken in Amsterdam, Brooklyn and Madrid especially the Tiergarten series taken in Berlin.

Dijkstra has also done video work and some of these are also on display in various rooms. One series depicts teenagers at dance clubs in which they simply dance in front of the camera. Grumpy Old Man alert! My lack of tolerance for what passes for dance music these days precluded me from giving the video the attention it deserved but still not enough that I cared for it. That being said, one series of videos was displayed split screen so the added information of 'change' allowed me to take it in further than I would have.

Another series of videos involved school children at the Tate Liverpool. Ruth Drawing Picasso, a schoolgirl really zoned in on her sketching of Picasso's Dora Maar Seated - watching her refocus after various distractions is endearing. Another video, I See A Woman Crying, captures the observations of a group of schoolchildren as they look upon Picasso's Weeping Woman - it's really fascinating as well as entertaining.

Overall, very interesting. And, indeed, something to be experienced especially the large format portraits - viewing the images online simply cannot provide the grandeur of the moments captured. Unless, of course, your display is a 60"high-definition television.

"Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, June 29 -  October 8.