A Field for Ghosts: American Photography at Rijksmuseum
February 10, 2025 | Source: Monroe Gallery of Photography
February 10, 2025
"A step through the gallery doors reveals the first of many rooms that archive, dissect, and tinker with the values and experiences of American culture. The themes are immediately apparent. Domestic strife, racial politics, the suppression of queer identities, sexuality, ecology, and individuality; each of these ideas finds its example, its case. Whether considering the dual personalities in Robert Mapplethorpe’s self-portraits, the interweaving of indigenous art practices with modern photography in Sarah Sense’s work Hinushi 18, or the few surviving artefacts of the country’s abandoned towns in Bryan Schutmaat’s landscapes, the overall impression resounds. America is a nation at war with itself. Conflict, reflected in the photography, regarded as an essential component of the modern experience of life in the USA.
The results of these battles are morbid and cruel. One photograph, from Nina Berman’s collection Marine Wedding, depicts the marriage of a disfigured soldier sent to fight in one of the American governments many international warzones. Described simply by the accompanying placard, the viewer is informed that the marriage broke up, and that soldier had died from alcohol and morphine overdose since. Likewise, the piercing work of Nan Goldin chronicles her experiences with domestic violence and the AIDS crisis as it ravaged New York. In Cookie and Vittorio’s wedding, New York City 1986, Cookie Mueller, featured in another depiction of a wedding, walks the aisle with her soon-to-be husband, though anyone who knows the story will understand how tragic this became after the fact, as they both died shortly afterward."
American Photography, 7th February to 9th June 2025, Rijksmuseum