The photographer who makes Rembrandt's images breathe

BarcelonaThe Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra (Sittard, Netherlands, 1959) had exceptional access to The Night Watch, Rembrandt's most famous painting and one of his masterpieces. The painting is on display in the honor gallery of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and at the museum's request, Dijkstra was able to film in the same gallery how fourteen groups of people from different generations looked at it and commented on it. His goal wasn't to film the painting, but the viewers. The work lasted six days, and the result is a video installation with the same title as the painting. It was purchased by the La Caixa Foundation and can now be seen in an exhibition at CaixaForum in Barcelona until October 26.

"The Night Watch It's a portrait of the militia, but Rembrandt was one of the first painters who took more liberties than was customary at the time, because it was important that the people in the painting appeared the same, because they paid to appear," Rineke Dijkstra, who has been to Barcelona to give a talk at the same CaixaForum, explains to ARA, "Rembra. A story about the process of firing a weapon: there is a character who appears loading the musket and another who fires, and you can see how the dog is frightened by the noise," she explains.

In addition to the firearms, the girl in the background and the projection also contribute to the dynamism of this "brilliant composition."The Night Watch I found it an interesting starting point, because it's not a one-dimensional image of a group of men, and I thought that from the painting I wanted to represent different groups in Dutch society today, and they all have their own interpretation of the painting and make their own comments," says the artist.

Thus, in the video installation The Night Watch You can see a group of girls arguing about whether the face of the girl in the painting is that of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia. Some Japanese businessmen raise the painting's potential as a tourist attraction. A group of young artists talk about what it must feel like to create a masterpiece like this. And a group of supermarket workers wonder what hygienic conditions were like at that time. "As the film progresses, the interpretation of the painting becomes more specific. I started with the girls, who don't yet have an opinion on things, and later you see how different groups begin to analyze the world, or talk about themselves, or a specific topic, such as the position of women at that time," explains Dijkstra.

The Dutch artist's videos share with her photographs "the sobriety and humanist nature." In fact, she sees herself as an heir to the 17th-century pictorial tradition. Some of the portraits that have made her famous evoke paintings. "I'm not very conscious of it when I do it, but I feel connected to this tradition," she says.

An international benchmark

Since the early 1990s, Rineke Dijkstra has become an international photography icon for her portraits, which she uses to breathe life into her photographs. Many of her subjects are in a period of transition: there are teenage boys and girls, and women who have just given birth. Another key is that she spends enough time with them to go beyond the pose. "I have very little time to build a relationship with them, but it's very important to explain to them very clearly what I do and for a mutual interest to emerge. I have to get them to participate and get involved in my project. And they have to understand it, but they also have to like it. If they don't want to, then one doesn't make any sense. I've never wanted to be." voyeur", she emphasizes.

The origin of her way of working goes back to the time when she finished her studies and began working as a photographer in business magazines. When I saw the images I was frustrated by the rigidity with which the subjects appeared. "They were boring photos, nothing happened, nothing happened. Then I portrayed them with a Polaroid, and suddenly they began to move, they came to life. And I think that's what I'm always looking for: for people to flow, even if it's a paradox, because we're talking about photography, which is still."

On the other hand, in the age of selfies, she claims her interest in "the complexity of people and what remains in ambiguity." Over the years, Dij hide, and how teenagers begin to become aware of themselves. "Even when we get older, there's always a hesitation, but we learn to hide it," she explains. a Dutch refugee center. "The first photograph I took of her in a center where I had gone to photograph other children, as part of an art project to raise awareness of the situation of children in refugee centers. "All those kids had been at the center for months, and they were always in pajamas or sweatpants, and I thought it wasn't very nice to have them in the photo like that, so I asked them if they had any nice clothes, like they were taking a yearbook picture," she recalls. The situation with Almerisa was a terrible two years later: "shoes had become too small for her, and the mother couldn't find socks that matched the dress.