There are infinite ways you could open an exhibition on the gapingly expansive theme of American photography, a category that has influenced Western visual culture in more ways that we can fathom. Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom, the photography curators at the Rijksmuseum – and the minds behind the Amsterdam institution’s latest exhibition, titled simply ‘American Photography’ – made a bold and very touching choice.
Ming Smith (1951), America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City, 1976, Gelatin silver print, 318 x 470 mm
Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s, Wood, handwoven cigarette packets, gelatin silver prints, 140 x 110 x 195 mm
Upon entering the show’s first room, a small, white-walled, high-ceilinged space, visitors are confronted by a single object housed in a glass display case. It is a square box, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, made from strips of cigarette cartons woven together. On each side of the cube is a different portrait representing one of four young American roommates who crafted the box as a memento of their time spent living together (as handwritten notes inside attest). If you entered the exhibition expecting nothing but Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and Carrie Mae Weems, this humble keepsake appears to declare, think again.
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (1954), ‘This is not a commercial, this is my homeland’, 1998, Platinum lambda print, 476 x 609 mm
Irene Poon, Virginia, 1965, Gelatin silver print, 18.7 x 19 cm
The exhibition does feature work by these great image-makers, and many more besides, but it also includes a whole treasure trove of amateur photography, fine art photography, advertising imagery, books, magazines and intriguing curios, spanning three centuries, all of which serve to paint a picture as complex, contradictory and compelling as America itself. ‘When we began planning this exhibition, we decided to do it differently,’ explains Rooseboom. ‘We headed out to different institutions and photography collections and allowed ourselves to be surprised by what we encountered.’
James Van Der Zee (1886–1983), Portrait of an Unknown Man, Harlem, New York City, 1938, Gelatin silver print, 244 x 203 mm
Bryan Schutmaat (1983), Tonopah, Nevada, 2012, Inkjet print, 1017 x 1277 mm (printed 2021)
The show is similarly surprising: at times celebratory, at others deeply tragic. It shows the many ways in which photography can function – as a means of remembering or honouring, as a way of promoting a dream or documenting a (sometimes nightmarish) reality. In the second room, photographs from Robert Frank’s groundbreaking series The Americans (1955-57), captured on a road trip across 30 states, shows his unflinching view of US society across different demographics – a vision that was, back then, critically scorned. While opposite hang glossy, brightly coloured magazine covers from the same period, presenting an entirely different vision – one of wealthy housewives and basking holidayers.
Schadde Brothers Studio, Display, sample or trade catalogue photograph for sweet manufacturer Brandle & Smith Co., c. 1915
Bruce Wrighton (1950–1988), Portrait of a woman, Binghampton, NY (‘Woolworth Shopper’), Chromogenic print, 254 x 202 mm
Later rooms filled with portraits of all different kinds call to mind Susan Sontag’s proclamation that ‘in America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it’. A set of ‘American Indian souvenir’ playing cards from 1900, featuring photographs of Native Americans and created to sell to tourists, hammers home the ways in which photography can be used to tell a very different story to the one unfolding. Meanwhile, a nearby image of one of the Little Rock Nine – a group of Black students who enrolled at an Arkansas high school in 1957 in the wake of desegregation, and were subjected to relentless discrimination – transversely shines a light on the terrible truths at play in midcentury America. Elsewhere, Diane Arbus’s portrait of a young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street in New York City (1966) platforms and celebrates queerness, its protagonist holding a cigarette between long, painted fingernails and staring directly at the viewer.
Anonymous, Family Standing beside their Car, c. 1957–1960 , Chromogenic print (Kodak Instamatic), 76 x 76 mm
View on a wooden house or barn with a man and a woman in front, c. 1870-1875, Tintype, 164 x 215 mm
When the curators first began envisaging the show seven years ago, they could never have imagined that it would open just weeks after Trump’s second inauguration, Boom tells me. As it is, the exhibition – which is also filled with dreamy evocations of American road trips and gorgeous landscapes, happy friends and families, and works by some of the 20th-century’s most visionary artists – couldn’t feel more timely. America is a country that has irrevocably shaped the world we inhabit, for better and for worse, and there is no greater testament to this fact than its photographic output.
‘American Photography’ opened at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on 7 February and is on view until 9 June 2025, rijksmuseum.nl
An accompanying book of the same title is available from the museum shop, €45, rijksmuseumshop.nl and on Amazon
-
Eight statement bathroom sink designs that transform routine into ritualBathroom design ideas: we round up the best new bathroom sinks, from colourful additions to sculptural masterpieces
-
Inside IWC’s first Scottish boutique, where watchmaking meets contemporary designAs IWC open the doors to its Princes Street boutique in Edinburgh, we speak to Boston-based artist David Nott on what inspired his specially-commissioned artwork for the new store
-
A complete collection of Phaidon’s ‘Contemporary Artists Series’ is on display in LondonA 30-year project reaching 100 volumes is being celebrated with an exhibition at the 45 Park Lane hotel, including limited-edition works by Kaws and Dana Schutz
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
-
Orlando Museum of Art wants to showcase more Latin American and Hispanic artists. Do you fit the bill?The Florida gallery calls for for Hispanic and Latin American artists to submit their work for an ongoing exhibition
-
The spread of Butter: the Black-owned art fair where artists see all the profitsThe Indianapolis-based art fair is known for bringing Black art to the forefront. As it ventures out of state to make its Los Angeles debut, we speak with founders Mali and Alan Bacon to find out more
-
Steve Martin wants you to visit The Frick CollectionThe actor has appeared in a video promoting New York’s newly renovated art museum
-
Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raisingAt Art Omi sculpture and architecture park, NY, Besler turns barn raising into an inclusive project that challenges conventional notions of architecture
-
The dynamic young gallerists reinvigorating America's art scene'Hugging has replaced air kissing' in this new wave of galleries with craft and community at their core
-
Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of societyA new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality
-
Mystic, feminine and erotic: the power of Penny Slinger’s bodies as landscapeArtist Penny Slinger continues her exploration of the sacred, surreal feminine in a Santa Monica exhibition, ‘Meeting at the Horizon’
