Lately there has been a sudden boom in (group) exhibitions of female photographers. By now it is well known that photography fascinates me, with documentary photography occupying the most prominent place. However, I do find street-, landscape- and architectural photography, art- and fashion photography and portrait photography fascinating, but not all of them! In my mind I checked which women photographers I knew and whether I had visited their exhibitions. Then I looked at my collection of photo books and had to conclude (unfortunately) that I had very few books by female photographers. These are them:
In 1985 I started my collection of photo books with a photo book by Marrie Bot.
This was This was ‘Miserere’ (1985), the great pilgrimages of penance at different sacred places in Europe.
Then I bought her photobook ‘The Burden of Existence’ (1988). It shows intimate stories and photos of mentally handicapped people. 
In 2004 Marrie Bot had the exhibition ‘Timeless love’ at the Fotomuseum in The Hague. This exhibition gave an idea of how elderly people (between 50 and 85) love each other.
After graduation, she traveled around the world for 20 months to interact with a wide variety of cultures and shared as much as possible in the daily lives of local people. She saw how, despite Western arrogance, political oppression and lack of economic progress, people maintain their dignity in the struggle for their culture and land. ‘A Global Touch’ is the result of this.
Jodi Bieber was born in South Africa. She has said her work is not photojournalism: ‘I do not aspire to objectivity. I’m simply a photographer. I show what I see and what strikes me, always from my point of view.’
You may remember that photo of that young, mutilated Afghan woman, Bibi Aisha. That photo was taken by Jodi Bieber and won the World Press Photo 2011.
In this video she talks about her approach in making the iconic photograph of Bibi Aisha.
I don’t actually remember how I discovered Viviane Sassen. I assume it was through an article in the newspaper. Viviane Sassen gained international fame through her campaigns for major, international fashion brands. She participated in the Venice Biennale (2013), had exhibitions at MoMA in New York, Foam and Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris, among others.
I love her work because it is colorful, beautiful, aesthetic compositions but at the same time it is also very intriguing. The book I bought in 2008 was ‘Flamboya’.
I visited the 2020 ‘Venus & Mercury’ exhibition at Huis Marseille. The exhibition originated in Versailles, where Viviane Sassen was inspired by the various histories surrounding the French court in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I found it fascinating (and intriguing) how she incorporated stories of power, intrigue, eroticism, diseases (venereal diseases), decay and death into her photographs. You can see them on her website.
‘Phosphor: Art & Fashion’. Foam will host a retrospective exhibition of Viviane Sassen’s work from September 20, 2024 to January 12, 2025. Earlier this year, this retrospective was on view at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris. The Volkskrant wrote about it: ‘In Viviane Sassen’s retrospective, the unsuspecting visitor slowly descends into a dark universe.’
If you would like to read more about Viviane Sassen you will find an article by Artnet here.
For ‘Phantom City’ Kim Bouvy combined her own photographic works of the city with images she collected from books, newspapers, promotional brochures, city guides, webpages, postcards, and archival photographs. The images in the book are included with her own texts and excerpts from novels, historical publications, news reports, policy memos, and advertising campaigns. The book has become a fictional city description in black, white and gray of Rotterdam. It is a city that may not exist, but that everyone recognizes nonetheless.
Kim Bouvy photographs our environment, not only the urban environment but also the different forms of designed and (re)structured natural landscape/the landscape that changes, water storage etc.
In 2022, the documentary ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ was directed by Nan Goldin. This followed her when she and supporters organized protest demonstrations in and near museums. She did this because art institutions had accepted donations from the Sackler family, a family that had made that money from the Purdue Pharma pharmaceutical company, manufacturer of the painkiller Oxycontin. Nan Goldin also struggled with addiction for years due to the use of this painkiller. The Volkskrant wrote a nice review of the documentary in which they called it a ‘thriller and artist’s portrait in one.’
I was also very impressed by it. In the documentary, there is a section devoted to the family where Nan Goldin grew up. It was an oppressive environment and she left the parental home when she was 14. Her sister Barbara committed suicide at the age of 19, which had a huge impact on Nan Goldin’s life.
In December 2023, I visited the exhibition ‘This will not end well’ at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and about which Metropolis M wrote a review that ended with ‘Do bear in mind that you will need some time afterwards to give everything a place and process it, before you turn your gaze back to the world around you’ and I can fully agree. After seeing this exhibition, I was very touched by so much misery on the seamy side of life.
I bought the book ‘Enkeltje Schiphol’ (One one way ticket to Schiphol Airport) as a result of the exhibition at the Onderwijsmuseum in Rotterdam. Karine followed young people from Curaçao who make the crossing to the Netherlands on their own, without parents, to get an education here. See more about it in the interview with NOS.
The photography of Anoek Steketee has a documentary starting point, but does not take a purely documentary approach. The camera is used not only to raise social issues, but also as a tool for the imagination. She is interested in the backgrounds, lifestyles, hopes and beliefs of individual, ordinary people, who are often presented as merely a link in a system.
Between 2006 and 2010 amusement parks were visited in Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Colombia, Indonesia, China, Turkmenistan and the USA.
Although the cultural, social and political content of each place differs, the parks’ uniform appearance forms the universally recognizable backdrop. With their twinkling lights, fairy-tale setting and perfectly manicured gardens, the parks all derive their value from the universal and timeless human need to escape from daily reality in a communal, constructed space. An amusement park is not simply a place to have fun. Its origin, location, theme and the kind of visitors it attracts say a great deal about the socio-political relations of the country in which it is situated. Behind the innocent, light hearted façade lurks another, more serious reality.
In 2014 I visited the exhibition ‘Love Radio’ at Foam. Anoek Steketee travelled to Rwanda with the question as starting point: ‘how can perpetrators and victims live with each other again after a history of gruesome killings?’
In 2017/2018 Anoek Steketee made for the Rijksmuseum ‘Documents Netherlands’: Stateless people without a nationality. They have no passport or identity document. Without these documents, essential things like renting a house, getting married, studying, getting health insurance and working legally in the Netherlands are not possible.
In 2015, Foam hosted a retrospective of Vivian Maier. She was a street photographer whospent her entire life taking photographs, alongside her work as an au-pair. Her photographic work was not discovered until after her death when a box of negatives was offered for sale at a local auction. Due to the fact she spent her youth in France, Vivian had an outsider perspective on daily life in the United States.
Now
I know more women photographers both Dutch and foreign than I have described above but I have chosen to tell something about them based on my books. Fortunately there has been a shift in the art world for some time but still many women in (the visual arts and) photography are unseen.
The Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, the Nationaal Archief and the Fotomuseum Den Haag took it up. At the Fotomuseum in Rotterdam they have an ‘Eregalerij’ (Honor Gallery) where they have chosen to make women photographers more visible.
The National Archives in The Hague held the exhibition “Pioneers, photography by women” in 2024. The NRC wrote a review.
And the Fotomuseum in The Hague had the exhibition ‘Women at the front’ in late 2023.
I visited all 3 exhibitions and was shocked at the amount of women photographers I didn’t know and decided to take a more thorough approach from now on. Therefore, I bought 3 editions from Thames & Hudson viz:
Women Photographers, Revolutionaries 1937 – 1970
I am under no illusion that I will get to the point of having a complete picture of all women photographers but I am up to the challenge.
As you have probably read, I am very interested in what moves people and what kind of situations/environments they find themselves in. Photographers portray that, each in his/her own way. I find that fascinating. They immerse themselves in the subject, go with it and even travel for it. I read/see the story through their eyes and experience that as a great wealth because it broadens my view of the world!
Johanna
