Rineke Dijkstra at the Guggenheim is the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik
The Daily Pic: Rineke Dijkstra manufactures authenticity.
Rineke Dijkstra's "Dubrovnik, Croatia, July 13, 1996" (left) and "Hilton Head Island, S.C., USA, June 24, 1992" (Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris, © Rineke Dijkstra)
These famous “bather” photos by the Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra, now on view in her retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, are often talked about as straight documents of their subjects. What’s rarely commented on is their brilliant artifice. Dijkstra’s lens views these figures from the level of their navel or thighs, thanks to a view-camera trick normally used by fashion photographers (and Old Master portrait painters): It makes small figures seem tall, and lets them literally look down on their viewers. That’s where the oft-mentioned “hauteur” and “poise” of these figures comes from. The illumination on them is also manipulated: Dijkstra carefully balances fill-flash and natural light, to give the kind of relationship between landscape and body we’re used to seeing in Gainsborough and van Dyke. Dijkstra doesn’t just find grandeur in the humblest figures and adulthood lurking in teens. She doses her figures with power.
For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Monthly
$1
First month then $5.99/month
Annual
$35
First year then $59.99/year
Premium
$79
First year then $119.99/year
*Substack access provided by the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement to Substack’s Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Sign In
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You're all set!
Thanks for subscribing.