Visit to Museum of Photography in The Hague, 27/09/08

We went to the museum mainly to go see the Erwin Olaf exhibition, a cumulative collection of 4 of his photographic series, Rain, Hope, Grief and Fall. There were 2 video pieces as well, one accompanying Rain and one as an individual piece satirically commentating on fashion and plastic surgery.

The first series on show, Rain, was initially meant to depict American culture, read 1950's ideals, in all its glory. Instead, in the process of taking the photographs, he experienced a disconnection between the idea and the subject. Thus he decided to use rain as a visual metaphor for this break between the ideal and the people it was supposed to envelop.





The second series, Hope, basically takes off where Rain ended. It offers similar scenes, yet instead of the photographs demonstrating a static image, they lend themselves to storytelling and 'reaching beyond' the photo. Their meant to be seen as a window into a story, and it is left up to the viewer to carry the plot forth. Also, unlike the previous series, this one includes individual portraits, allowing to develop characters further.





My favorite series of the lot is Grief, capturing moments before the explosion of emotion. It also examines how one's identity, how you dress, body language, etc, is relational. The pictures are all named after famous American figures, such as Troy and Grace.









The final series, Fall, just like Rain, stumbled upon it's intent by accident. Olaf caught one of his models during a photoshoot blinking, creating an imperfect image in one which was so tweaked otherwise that it became an interesting relationship. By catching the moment of blinking, the models were left expressionless, negating any hint of emotion or awareness of surroundings. Interesting concept, although I thought it was slightly over-stylized.






Here's his website: http://www.erwinolaf.com/

We also saw an exhibition by Thorsten Brinkmann, a German artist working with found objects, using them to comment on the relationship between man and object, and the disposability of present day products. True Romans was a collection of found objects coupled together, for example a glass with a rose-shaped candle turned upside down into the glass. There was also a photo series called Variable Sturktur 1-8, which cataloged a few possible ways of assembling a set of objects including a cooker. There was also an isolated room which you had to enter through a wardrobe; it contained a number of (self?) portraits in which the human subject was 'wearing' things such as lampshades. There was also a video piece entitled "gut Ding will es so' which saw the artist interacting with things in a way which didn't cohere with their intended function (for example, he crawled through the arms of an office chair, subsequently shuffling around on all fours with a chair around his waist. Also, he smacked four pieces of polystyrene foam against his head whilst wearing a motorcycle helmet).