As Susan Henshaw Jones of the MCNY comments, “Dutch Seen features an artistic engagement with New York City at a milestone in our history. It is almost as if Dutch explorers have come back to follow up on their experiment of 400 years ago, to report on how it all turned out.”
The celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage for the Dutch East India Company provided the occasion for commissioning this inventive portfolio of photographs by artists who are breaking new ground in the field. The work in Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered, virtually all of 
which is being created expressly for the exhibition, provides a riveting portrait of New York City, including its people, its natural and human environment, and the continuing dialogue between its past and present.
Through their considered gaze, the participating Dutch photographers give a portrait of what New York City is today. The rich diversity, energy, tolerance, and commerce the Dutch brought with them to the first settlements, along with the stunning landscape that originally attracted the Dutch to the region 400 years ago still define New York City today and is clearly visible in the photographs on display. The concept of the exhibition is created around the theme ‘portrait of the city’. The exhibition consists of portraiture, landscapes, still lives, conceptual photographs, and documentary photography. It is modern work, firmly rooted within the Dutch tradition.
For example, Hendrik Kerstens' iconic portraits of his daughter Paola -virtually his sole subject throughout his career- make reference to her Dutch origins through the surprising incorporation of elements of contemporary New York -a plastic shopping bag, a napkin from a New York restaurant- in a kind of double exposure uniting antiquity and modernity.
Other artists have used the anniversary of Hudson’s sail into New York Harbor and the founding of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to recreate the original sense of discovery and newness experienced by the first Europeans to step foot on Atlantic shores. Among these is Misha de Ridder, whose monumental landscapes evoking the “new world” that Hudson and Dutch settlers encountered upon their arrival, captures the stunning and pristinely beautiful wilderness that possibly seduced and captivated, yet terrified the earliest explorers. In this same line of inquiry, Jaap Scheeren has said, “I will bring the wilderness back to Manhattan.”
Still others are focusing on an essential “New York” quality. For example, Wijnanda Deroo’s photographs of New York City’s popular and renowned eateries and restaurants are unpeopled, evoking the comical or the eerie, the fantastic or surreal in their décor and design. Most distinctive in these images is the quietude or emptiness that her pictures can suggest, a quality that is rare among the city’s more commercial venues.
Still other artists are engaged in a study of New Yorkers the
mselves, focusing on the people who comprise the city; one such study, by Erwin Olaf, imaginatively portrays African-Americans in the early 20th century through a series of narrative tableaux. Other portfolios focusing on the inhabitants of the metropolis include, surprisingly, Charlotte Dumas’ portraits of regal-looking, though fearsome, shelter dogs.
As a whole, the photographs on view provide a portrait of New York City that draws on the historic, cultural, geographic, and even political factors that contributed to the evolution of New York City and to what it is today.
The 13 artists and their lines of inquiry are (listed alphabetically):
Morad Bouchakour: street photography taken in neighborhoods throughout the city, including those in Harlem, the Bronx, and along Park Avenue
- Misha de Ridder: monumental landscapes, including the forests, the wetlands, the rolling hills, and abundant wildlife; Jamaica Bay, Great Kills Park, and other exotic and beautiful places along the Hudson river banks will be featured
- Wijnanda Deroo: interiors of restaurants, including coffee shops, snack bars, and eateries in East Harlem, Chinatown, and other city neighborhoods, reflecting New York’s diversity
- Rineke Dijkstra: large portraits from her series depicting bathers at Coney Island
- Charlotte Dumas: portraits of shelter dogs, made in all five boroughs, lit and styled in the tradition of Dutch old master paintings
- Hendrik Kerstens: large formal portraits of his daughter, Paola, who has been his muse and virtually only sitter throughout his career; the portraits evoke “Dutchness” with wit and deceptively clever time-warping through the use of costume and painterly lighting
Arno Nollen: portraits of people on the street, arranged in a grid
- Erwin Olaf: conceptual, staged portraits of African-American families of the early 20th century, photographed entirely in his studio
- Jaap Scheeren: playful photographs of situations and encounters that the 17th-century explorers may have found, staged within modern-day New York City
- Danielle Van Ark: New Yorkers attending art gallery and museum exhibitions
- Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin: portraits of well-known New Yorkers and celebrities, many of which have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, including their images of Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Marc Jacobs, Natalie Portman, Heath Ledger, Mickey Rourke, and many more
- Hellen van Meene: portraits of New York City school children
The other two exhibitions taking place as part of the NY400 celebrations at the MCNY are:
| Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson (through September 27), employs rare 16th and 17th century objects, images, and documents from major American and Dutch collections to bring the transatlantic world to life and reveal how Henry Hudson’s epic third voyage of exploration planted the seeds of a modern society that took root and flourished in the New World. |
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| Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City (through October 12) reveals the island of Mannahatta at the time of Henry Hudson's arrival -a fresh, green new world at the moment of discovery- and through cutting edge multi-media and historical artifacts and maps, re-imagines the quiet, wooded island at the mouth of a great river that was destined to become one of the greatest cities on Earth. |
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