Rineke Dijkstra at Marian Goodman Gallery

Text: Aran Cravey
Image: Rineke Dijkstra, Ruth Drawing Picasso

Adolescence isn’t pretty, at least mine wasn’t. Transitioning from childhood into young adulthood was, for me, an experience in awkward adjustments and unfortunate fashion choices. For Dutch artist, Rineke Dijkstra, however, the perilous uncertainty of life’s pubescent purgatory has provided an abundance of inspiration from which to create.

Renown for her strikingly honest portraits of  individuals in periods of transition, Dijkstra talent lies in her ability to reveal an intense intimacy with the subject, while capturing a stirring universality. The raw simplicity of her images heightens the profound sense of isolation and emotional vulnerability within the subject’s reality. In her 1992 series Beach Portraits, Dijkstra’s adolescent subjects stand facing the camera washed in a stark light that contrasts with the surrounding seashore landscape, creating a tension that seems to hang on the verge of transition, as if waiting for an impending storm.

In her new works at Marian Goodman Gallery, Dijkstra offers another glimpse into the portentous passage of adolescence with  three large-scale, Hi-Def video installations. With her signature, detached and
equamanious touch, Dijkstra’s lens seems to effortlessly capture the raw vulnerability and self-conscious awareness of her young subjects, as made so painfully and yet, at times, humorously apparent in the video installation shown on the lower level, The Krazyhouse, Liverpool, UK (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee), 2009. Following in the same vein as her Buzzclub/Mysteryworld, 1996-97, Dijkstra asked five teenagers from a Liverpool nightclub to dance to their favorite song for the project.

Against  the stark, white studio backdrop, the dancers’ meticulously crafted appearances and self-consciously choreographed movements become plainly apparent as the learned affectations of the culture in which they were raised. In each of the five individual videos, the viewer will recognize the clothes and dance moves, as those seen in advertisements or music videos. The teenagers have defined their own identity through the identity of the images surrounding them, a behavior that defines the self-conscience passage from child to adult. Though despite their attempts of affectation, the dancers are made all the more transparent by their protective posturing.

In comparison, the young subjects in  her two new video installations shown on the ground floor, The Weeping Woman and Ruth Drawing Picasso, appear unaware of the camera’s presence, though, no less self-conscious than their fellow subjects. For these two installations, Dijkstra collaborated with the Tate Modern in observing groups of visiting school children, as they discussed works found in the museum’s collection.

In the three-paneled installation, The Weeping Woman, a school group is asked to express their observations of Picasso’s painting, Weeping Woman, 1937. Their discussion starts slowly, with a scant few words of opinion volunteered. Yet, with each suggestion, the confidence of the children grows and their imagination expands to construct a collective narrative that crescendos in a cacophony of cathartic expression. Questions as to the nature of the woman’s expression, as well as to Picasso’s own inner motivations are responded to with stories of loneliness, alienation, sorrow, loss, and greed, all of which reverberate with an achingly personal intonation.

It has often been noted that Dijkstra’s portraits are reminiscent of those of the Dutch masters, such as Vermeer, whose ability to capture the essence of his subject’s being in a tilt of the head or luminosity of cheekbone transformed the most banal of commissions into eternal works of art. Through the minute details of the ordinary image, a larger truth is revealed. A similar sentiment could be said for Dijkstra’s portraits. Hyperbole aside, Ruth Drawing Picasso, exemplifies Dijkstra’s talent for subtlety and understatement. The single shot video shows a seated student thoughtfully sketching the work of art before her. The portrait conveys a truth and purity of intention that resonates far beyond the logistical parameters of its seemingly ordinary elements. Under the powerful perception of her lens, Dijkstra captures a poetic reality, too painfully truthful to be seen anywhere, but in art.