Rineke Dijkstra

• All the explanatory exhibition texts are available in German and English.
• There is no information in Simple German.
• There is no information in German Sign Language.
• Some outreach events are held in or with German Sign Language.
• There are two unlit rooms with video works. The video works feature sound and subtitles in English. You can also download a transcription in German onto your own smart phone with a QR code.
• Assistive listening is not supported by induction systems or neck loops.
• There is step-free access to the exhibition.
• Most of the exhibits and explanatory texts can be seen and read from a seated position.
• There are seatings. Wheelchairs and folding stools can be borrowed free of charge from the cloakroom.
• The works in the exhibition are evenly illuminated. Most of the exhibition texts are designed with strong contrast.
• All the exhibition texts are available as a large-print brochure that you will find at the entrance to the exhibition.
• The exhibition contains no tactile floor guidance and no touch models.

Click here for information about museum accessibility.

Do you have any other questions about accessibility? Andreas Krüger, officer accessibility and inclusion, will be happy to answer them via e-mail krueger@berlinischegalerie.de or via phone +49 (0)30-789 02-832.

(1992–1998)
Soon after a cycling accident in 1991 Rineke Dijkstra took a picture of herself in a bathing costume at the Marnixbad in Amsterdam. According to the artist, this candid self portrait was the trigger for a sequence of beach portraits that has since become the best-known series in her œuvre. Beginning in the Netherlands, followed by South Carolina (USA) and then several countries in western and eastern Europe, including Poland and Ukraine, she collected shots of young people alone and in groups. The background always consists of sea and sky. Sometimes the youngsters adopt stereotypical poses, wondering where to place their feet and hands. There are no accessories apart from the beachwear. In groups the young people seem more relaxed. They touch or embrace each other, offering mutual support and stability.

Almerisa (since 1994)
Dijkstra began taking portraits of six-year-old Almerisa in 1994, building the eponymous series with a new portrait roughly every two years. The girl had fled Bosnia with her parents soon after war broke out in Yugoslavia. She caught Dijkstra’s attention while the photographer was working on a commission at a refugee hostel in the Netherlands. The series tracks how this anxious young child grows into an elegant woman, now a mother herself, who faces the camera with confidence.

Olivier (The French Foreign Legion) (2000–2003)
The process of change is similarly visible in the series about Olivier. He made his decision to join the French Foreign Legion when he was 14. Before he could fulfil his dream – applicants must be at least 17 years old – he began to prepare by training his body at night. Dijkstra launched her series on the day that Olivier joined the Legion, recording his physical and mental development from teenager to experienced soldier over the course of five years and several field operations. The work not only captures Olivier’s progress but also challenges the way that viewers project their own ideas of identity, power and masculinity onto him.

Since 2002 Rineke Dijkstra has been taking family portraits on commission, partially motivated by her own fascination with the genre. Here she focuses entirely on the children. Clues to the presence of parents can be seen in the domestic environment, the clothes and the behaviour of their offspring. Tall windows, parquet floors, designer furniture and other details indicate the privileged world in which these children are growing up and which, one day, they will presumably adopt as their own.
The group portraits also reveal subtle sibling dynamics. Some look alike, others less so, and yet they convey the sense of a bond. At the same time, each tries to stand out in their own way and to assert an individual personality. Viewers inevitably wonder what has become of them today.

New Mothers (1994)
The “New Mothers” are doubtless among the most intimate portraits of Rineke Dijkstra’s artistic career. Dijkstra took the portraits in these women’s homes. Giving birth at home, like these friends and acquaintances of the photographer, is far more common in the Netherlands than in other Western cultures. Just a few hours after delivery, each “new mother” is shown naked with a newborn on her arm. The women still bear the marks of labour and yet radiate contented happiness.

Bullfighters (1994 and 2000)
In Portuguese bullfighting the “Bullfighters”, known as “forcados”, use sheer muscular power to force the bull to the ground. Dijkstra portrays the young men immediately after their ritualised struggle – weary, their faces smeared with blood, their finely embroidered jackets dirty and torn.

(1998–2006)
The starting-point for the exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie is a series of portraits taken in the Tiergarten in 1998/1999 when Rineke Dijkstra was a DAAD Artist-in Residence in Berlin. While she was exploring the park, Dijkstra approached these children and teenagers amid deep-green summer vegetation, away from the bustle of leisure activities. These are actually urban settings, artificially designed to simulate natural woodland and meadows. And there is something uncanny about the lush green of this park with its play of light and shade. The controlled domestication of vegetation and natural features is not obvious in every photograph. Dijkstra continued this series in other urban parks, such as the Vondelpark in Amsterdam and the Parque de la Ciutadella in Barcelona.

In addition to her photography, Dijkstra has repeatedly turned to working with video, integrating photography into the production. Alongside the moving images Dijkstra creates stills, which she treats and exhibits as works in their own right.

Rineke Dijkstra’s experiments with the moving image date back to 1996/97. For “The Buzz Club, Liverpool, UK/Mystery World, Zaandam, NL 1996-97”, she approached young people in night clubs who struck her as interesting subjects. Away from parental control, the youngsters are testing themselves, wearing unorthodox clothes, gauging their sex appeal and experimenting with their bodies. They are not children any longer but are caught up in a phase of transformation and with it a time of emotional turmoil and conflict. The modern myth around youth is highly charged, with associations of self-discovery, rebellion, but also conformism.
A year before she made that video, Dijkstra had taken portraits of young people at the Buzz Club (1995). The Berlinische Galerie is showing some previously unpublished photographs from this series recently rediscovered by the artist in her archives.