It's nearly almost impossible to make a selection from the offer of dozens of galleries that will be showing work in Amsterdam during the Opening of the Gallery Season (2 and 3 September 2022). During these festive openings, you'll explore the diversity of the Amsterdam art scene and all possible art forms. For this article, we selected a number of exhibitions in which photography is central.
In addition to these galleries, make sure to visit other galleries that show photography, including The Ravestijn Gallery, who are currently celebrating their 10 year anniversary, Bildhalle, Galerie Caroline O’Breen, andriesse eyck galerie, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen and Van Zijll Langhout / Contemporary Art.
At a time when young people on Tiktok are confronted with relentless symmetry filters, South African photographer Pieter Hugo makes a case for imperfect faces. Stevenson will show his series "Solus Vol. I", a series of frontal portraits of models cast on the street, reflecting the changing norms and values in the aesthetics of the fashion industry. The artist was consciously looking for unconventional, unique, uncomfortable, asymmetrical and atypical faces. Hugo: “I think everyone can relate to not fitting in, not belonging. I relate to their seeming strangeness.” You can find Hugo's work in the collections of Centre Pompidou, the MoMA, the Rijksmuseum, the V&A Museum, the SFMoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, Huis Marseille and the Deutsche Börse Group.
In Galerie Fontana you will discover a series of older and newer works by the famous Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene, whose work has been included in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, Huis Marseille, the V&A Museum, MoCA and the SFMoMA. Van Meene's untitled works offer room for interpretation and often show intimate and mysterious depictions of young girls on the threshold of adulthood. Tip: on Friday 2 September you can listen to a speech by the artist at 18.00.
In Annet Gelink Gallery, you will have the chance to view some unparalleled period images by Ed van der Elsken, from 42nd Street in New York (1960) and Brazil (1976) to Osaka (1960), Paris (1952), Delhi (1975) and Durban (1959). A special selection was made for this exhibition, that shows how reality and imagination are intertwined in Van der Elsken's layered and multi-interpretable oeuvre. Sometimes he captures small realistic moments, at other times he tries to capture something artificial in the form of, for example, advertisements or a wax museum in Coney Island. With some images he shows himself a man of his time (1925 – 1990), in other images he seems way ahead of his time.
TORCH Gallery will show work by two Canadian brothers: Carlos and Jason Sanchez. The Montreal-based artist duo excels at visualising nightmarish tableaux with cinematic qualities. These often large scale pieces reflect our deepest fears and darkest thoughts and often carry an aspect of irrationality. The photographs tend to carry subtle details that require a second look. The viewer is invited to fill in the details in these open ended, single frame narratives. The production process for these pieces tends to be quite elaborate and will often take place over several months. Carlos and Jason Sanchez have shown their work worldwide and their work has been collected by institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Gallery of Canada and the Musee de la Photographie de Charleroi.
An online catalogue
All artworks that are being exhibited during the Opening of the Gallery Season can also be found in the online catalogue on GalleryViewer. In addition to the possibility to filter the offer by price and technique (for example painting or photography), GalleryViewer offers background information about the artists, with films, recommendations and highlights from their oeuvre.
Opening hours of the galleries during the Opening of the Gallery Season: