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27/9/2007

Inside-Out

Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam

Photos from Amsterdam Collections and Archives

The city of Amsterdam contains within its perimeters a treasure of high quality photography. Much of this photographic wealth can be found in various leading collections and archives, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Stadsarchief Amsterdam and Maria Austria Instituut. Foam Photography Museum Amsterdam has compiled an exhibition showing work from the holdings of all four of these institutions.

Although there are major differences in the origins, composition and aims of these collections and archives, there is also an obvious similarity. In much of the work the subject is people: people of all shapes and sizes. Dress, expression and pose are key elements that form the basis for our judgment and assessment of people. The often complex relationship between external characteristics and a person’s (desired) identity was the theme for the compilation of Inside Out. The show includes work by Johan van der Keuken, Ed van der Elsken, Cor Jaring, Koos Breukel, Bertien van Manen, Rineke Dijkstra, Hellen van Meene and Celine van Balen.

From the start people felt the desire to use photography to record their own image. As the technology of photography improved, portraiture developed into a highly popular genre in its own right. At first it was mainly members of the social elite who had their photo taken. They generally had a specific idea about how they wished to be portrayed. Clothing, position, location and attributes all contributed to the image that the subject wished to convey. Image, self-image and desired image, reality and illusion all come together in photography.

Although this kind of setting and staging went out of fashion, no portrait photography is ever neutral. Certainly since the photographer’s influence on the final result has continued to grow. More even than the identity of the subject, portraits tell us about the historical, social and cultural context in which the photo was taken: how we saw ourselves; how we saw and judged each other; what mattered about our appearance, whether fashion or pose.

These questions are not only relevant to portrait photography itself; they also have a bearing on other forms of photography in which figures appear. Besides being a unique individual with a unique identity, every person is after all a conduit for a range of attributes, be it racial, social, religious or sexual. In addition to ‘who’, everyone is also a ‘what’.

Inside Out: Photos from Amsterdam Collections and Archives features work by Dutch photographers. These photos provide an insight into the wealth and diversity of the photography that can be found in Amsterdam.

FOAM Photography Museum
Keizersgracht 609 - Amsterdam
Open daily 10.00-18.00, Thurs/Fri 10.00-21.00.
Tickets: euro 7.00

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