Over fotografie, losse beelden en visuele verhalen. Van straatfotografie tot landschappen, met focus op verhaal en betekenis achter de beelden.
A large exposition in Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam of the work of David “Chim” Seymour. On show is an extensive display of his work, covering all stages of his life. From his youth in Poland (born as Dawid Szymin) to last photos during the Suez War, where he was killed by gunfire.
Leads you intensively through the 30s, 40s and early 50s, showing Chim’s impressive work and sometimes iconic pictures.
Exhibition ends 10 March 2019.
I Will Be Wolf – Bertien van Manen’s Debut Masterpiece
Published in 1975, I Will Be Wolf marks the remarkable debut of Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen. This photobook offers an intimate glimpse into everyday life through Van Manen’s distinctive lens.
A European Answer to The Americans
Van Manen’s work in I Will Be Wolf clearly shows the influence of Robert Frank’s iconic The Americans, yet it carves out its own unique territory. Where Frank’s vision was often critical and confrontational, Van Manen approaches her subjects with warmth and gentleness. Her photographs reveal a more compassionate eye, one that observes rather than judges.
The book exudes a wonderful freshness that remains striking nearly five decades later. Van Manen’s street photography demonstrates she had studied not only Robert Frank but also William Eggleston’s groundbreaking color work. Like Eggleston, she possesses a certain shyness in her approach to photography.
The Art of Subtle Observation
What makes I Will Be Wolf particularly compelling is Van Manen’s technique of maintaining distance. Many photographs capture people from behind, often taken from afar with views deliberately obstructed by poles, window frames, and architectural elements. This aesthetic choice creates layers of meaning – the viewer becomes a quiet observer, much like the photographer herself.
This restrained approach doesn’t diminish the power of the images. Instead, it adds an layer of intimacy and authenticity. Van Manen’s subjects inhabit their own worlds, unaware or unconcerned with the camera’s presence. The result is photography that feels genuine and unforced.
Why I Will Be Wolf Matters
For collectors and students of photobooks, I Will Be Wolf represents an essential piece of Dutch photography history. It showcases Van Manen’s early vision before she went on to create celebrated works like East Wind West Wind and A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters.
The book demonstrates that European street photography in the 1970s could be both influenced by American masters and distinctly its own. Van Manen found her voice early, and this debut remains as relevant and engaging today as when it first appeared.
Conclusion
I Will Be Wolf is a photobook that rewards careful attention, revealing more with each viewing. For anyone interested in documentary photography, Dutch photography, or the evolution of the photobook as an art form, Bertien van Manen’s debut is essential viewing.
In the format of a semi-dialog, David Hockney and Martin Gayford in A History of Pictures discuss the history and various aspects of picture-making.
Beautifully illustrated.
The most interesting thing is that Hockney seems not to have a very high regard for photography.
“… I question photography. A lot of people don’t, they accept the world looks like a photograph.
“But colour photography couldn’t get tones like those [Vermeer] as is has to rely on the dyes or printing ink. Those aren’t like paint, and never will be.”
“… I don’t know whether photography is an art. Some photographers considered themselves artists, and some didn’t
… Good photography does require intelligence and imagination but a lot of it is very mechanical.”
Vermeer, Caravaggio, Degas, Delacroix, a few of the painters mentioned in the book that used photographic techniques for their paintings.
“Photography came out of painting and as far as I can see that’s where it is returning.”
Panoramas of death. Strange coffins with almost dead bodies. Grandchildren stand mourning alienated next to the coffin. A dog too. In the film, a cat in the polder that doesn’t seem to want to be photographed and disappears from view. The panorama that does not want to be a panorama because it is upright. A dress blows in front of the coffin, which has been placed on a touching pair of yellow bricks so that it stays upright.
Surely the best is the image of nothing, or of what was.
In the other half of Huis Marseille show Koos Breukels photographs of his son. Can’t stop thinking: what a brat.
The station is enormously crowded. Looking over heads as we descend the escalator. Maybe normal for a Saturday afternoon, maybe extra busy because of the beautiful weather.
We take the streetcar to avoid the crowds in Damrak. At the Keizersgracht, we leave the streetcar, and I walk the wrong way, as it is pre-programmed towards FOAM, but for Huis Marseille, we must of course go the other way.
At Huis Marseille we are overtaken by three people who are busily discussing their way into the museum before us. One of them turns out to be the speaker for a lecture at Huis Marseille that afternoon: Stefan Gronert. He wrote The Düsseldorf School of Photography.
But we haven’t come for the lecture (which is held in an overly warm room on the second floor of the House). In the halls hang the works of the Bechers’ students – in the room near the reception, several works by the Bechers themselves. The down-to-earth documentary style appeals to me very much, but I find the larger formats of students such as Gursky and Struth even more telling, with their overwhelming detail.
The Bechers’ new business acumen, with its almost scientific slant, has been an inspiration for the younger generation of photographers hanging here. The industrial landscapes of Gursky and the church interiors of Struth: vacation photo of church attendance on steroids, Ruff with experimental night shots, library landscapes of Candida Höfer, Hütte’s empty cityscapes and landscapes portraying a lonely civilization. I find the works of the younger (I think) generation Sasse, Nieweg and Clement less powerful.
We walk back through the city. At the Athenaeum, we go inside, but the excess is overwhelming, back along the Jordaan and another terrace.
