Rineke Dijkstra. Beach Portraits

PRESS RELEASE

RINEKE DIJKSTRA
BEACH PORTRAITS

13 DECEMBER 2024 TO 18 MAY 2025
Contemporary Art Collection
Press preview: Friday, 13 December 2024, 9.30 am

The ocean—a gaze: The artist Rineke Dijkstra (*1959) portrays young people looking directly into the camera on various beaches around the world—in Poland, Great Britain, Ukraine, Croatia and the United States. The carefully composed photographs are a search for the essence of human existence: sensitive encounters in which the artist also raises questions about authenticity and truthfulness in portrait photography. From 13 December 2024 to 18 May 2025, the Städel Museum will present 27 of Dijkstra’s works in a solo exhibition, including 23 images from her Beach Portraits series, which attracted international attention and established her as one of the most influential female photographers in contemporary art. Works from the Streets series and a self-portrait of the artist are also featured in the exhibition.
In the Beach Portraits series, created mainly in the 1990s, Dijkstra links the young people portrayed across national borders through a consistent composition. Set against the serene, basic background of the sea and reduced in context and clothing, the focus is entirely on the subjects, their characters and their youthful naturalness, which are manifested in the tiniest nuances of facial expression and posture—especially when, despite their best efforts, their emotional worlds are revealed. As a result, these powerful shots become timeless images that embody the human condition, full of uncertainty, curiosity and the search for identity. Through this unique visual language, which draws on art historical references ranging from the works of Sandro Botticelli to August Sander, among others, Dijkstra’s photographs express a contemporary historical view of the post-Cold War era.

Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum, notes: “Rineke Dijkstra's portraits could not be more contemporary, and at the same time they are already great works of art history: they have long been icons of photography. The medium of photography plays a central role in the Städel Museum’s collection: photographs were acquired for the teaching collection as early as the 1850s. Today, the collection comprises more than 5,000 works—from the beginnings of photography to the immediate present, including key works by pioneering female photographers. I am therefore all the more delighted that, with Rineke Dijkstra, we are now able to present such an important photographic artist at the Städel Museum.”

“In her work, Rineke Dijkstra succeeds in sensitively approaching the essence of the human being—a claim shared by photographic theory and art history. Rineke Dijkstra’s protagonists are people who are not only searching for their identity across cultural boundaries, but who are also united by a timeless question: ‘When and how do I understand myself and how do I want to be perceived by my environment?’ It is this empathetic, all-too-human moment that is expressed in Dijkstra’s works and makes them so timeless”, adds Maja Lisewski, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and curator of the exhibition.

Exhibition dates: 13 December 2024 to 18 May 2025
Curator: Maja Lisewski, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art Collection
Location: Städel Museum, Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Städel Invites Rineke Dijkstra: 13 December 2024, in partnership with BMW

The detailed press information can be found here.