Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen presents: Hans van der Meer 'Minor Mysteries / Hollandse Velden'
Curious about life behind the Iron Curtain, Hans van der Meer spends a year in Hungary from 1984 onwards, with Budapest as his base. He is touched by everyday life in the communist Eastern Bloc. In June 1986, the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visits Hungary. In the same month, Van der Meer takes his last photos there.
Like many other photographic contemporaries, Van der Meer was inspired by the humanistic approach of legendary names such as André Kertész, Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Next to whom, thanks to his sharp observations, quick reflexes and eye for the smallest events, he convincingly holds his own.
A first exhibition of this Hungarian work, titled 'Street Photographs', took place in Budapest in 1986, as part of a cultural festival about the Netherlands in Hungary. It was subsequently published as a book in 1987 - QUIRK OF FATE - and the series won an award in World Press Photo's Daily Life category that year.
With Minor Mysteries Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen presents a broader selection from this series, which clearly shows how decisive this Hungarian period was for Van der Meer's later work. That is why the gallery combines these images with some from Van der Meer's famous series Hollandse Velden.
Hollandse Velden was published as a book in 1998 and the series was first exhibited at the Institute Néerlandais in Paris during the World Cup in France that year. In search of the original form of the game, he visited matches from the lowest echelons of amateur football. The photos show hilarious moments of play and the theatrical behavior of the football amateurs against a background of everyday Dutch landscapes.
The book 'Minor Mysteries', published by Fw-books, designed by Hans Gokken and printed by Wilco Artbooks, is for sale in the gallery.