Rotterdam, The Hague and other book delights.

We went to the Netherlands over Christmas and New Year for a family and friends jaunt (after nearly missing going altogether due to a wildcat Eurostar strike which tunred into a mini bonus as we got to visit our favourite Georgian restaurant). In between the eating, we crammed in some museuming round Rotterdam and The Hague plus some book buying. Here's the results.

First, to Rotterdam for a visit to the Nederlands Foto Museum. There was no real aim for this one as we'd been before but just went to see what was on. The main shows this time were a Dutch Photography Hall of Fame covering photo history through the Netherlands and an exhibition of documentary photographer Ad van Denderen. The Hall of Fame was an excellent whizz through historical steps with photographers I knew (Anton Corbijn, Erwin Olaf, Rineke Dijkstra) to plenty I didn't. Ad van Denderen I had never come across before either. His exhibition was laid out with plenty of context including published magazines, sound recordings and notebooks. The nearest equivalent I could put him near is Don McCullin but working in a more social conflict context covering the Netherlands, Palestine, Belgium and South Africa.

The real discovery was a video and sound installation by Monica Nouwens which showed street life in Los Angeles. It consisted of two screens of semi transparent white material on which two videos played in sync with each other but showing different scenes. The combination of watching this in an almost pitch black room with loud sound was really overwhelming - I highly recommend seeing this in person. You can see examples of it here.

Gup magazine permalink

I picked up two copies of Gup (or GUP! maybe) in the shop - a compact contemporary international photo magazine which seems to be based loosely around a theme but more an excuse to cram lots of different photographers into one mag. These can easily send you down a wormhole looking into all those that they cover.

Craig Mod - Things Become Other Things permalink

I didn't really buy much else as I was trying to budget myself having bought Craig Mod's second walking book called Things Become Other Things. It's the follow up to Kissa By Kissa (which I thought I'd written about previously but turns out I never finished the full post - I'll come back to it another day). Kissa By Kissa used the framework of a long walk between old fashioned cafes called kissaten to discuss Japan's aging population and the pace of life. TBOT is similar but has an autobiographical element that contrasts social support in the US vs Japan. Both books are full of excellent photos and the book quality is really high - doubly so considering it's self published. They're probably the most expensive books I've bought at around $100 each but the way Mod has set up his production means that all of the cash is directly benefitting him producing more rather than being lost in a publishing chain.

Still some first editions available here or you could also support him through his membership programme that lets him do these sorts of projects in the first place.

Rob Hornstra - Ordinary People permalink

To the Fotomuseum Den Haag next for Rob Horstra's excellent exhibition Ordinary People, which is itself part of a cluster of his multi-year projects into the people of Europe. I picked up the exhibition's retrospective book which includes interviews with both him, his long term collaborator the writer Arnold van Bruggen and also essays by Lynn Berger and Jörg Colberg. His photography is inspired by that of August Sander, but grouping people not by type of person but in categories of how they function in a society.

After this, round the corner to the Kunstmuseum Den Haag to see a packed set of exhibitions with British Fashion (Vivienne Westwood / Alexander McQueen) and Hilma af Klimt & Piet Mondrian.

I did pick up more books and mags while in Rotterdam but will cover those in the next batch.