!VAR HAGENDOORN

Spectacular City. Photographing the Future

The exhibition Spectacular City. Photographing the Future at the Netherlands Architecture Institute claims to present the best works by 29 prominent photographers from the Netherlands and abroad. The photos on show are said to "represent the best examples of urban photography from the last ten years". Now I'm not sure whether all of these 29 photographers are as prominent and I cannot judge whether the exhibition shows their best works, but an exhibition which does not include the "Architecture of Density" series by Michael Wolf and work by Edward Burtynsky (check out the China - Urban Renewal section) and Robert Polidori cannot claim to "represent the best examples of urban photography from the last ten years". Of course there can be all kinds of reasons for this. The organizers may not haven been able to get hold of photos by these artists because they are too expensive or are already on show elsewhere. Apart from that we should perhaps not lay too much weight on whatever the exhibition sets out to be and simply look at what's on show. After all, the claims in the press release are there only to attract visitors. On the other hand, the idea behind the exhibition does influence the selection of works and artists, the exhibition layout and so on.

The exhibition includes aerial photos of Madrid by Vincenzo Castella, of Paris by Balthasar Burkhard, of Tokyo by Naoya Hatakeyama and of various cities in Asia by Taiji Matsue. Now the question is what the organizers of the exhibition want to show. Do they want to show aerial photos of different cities, in which case they could have taken some from any stock photography agency or do they want to show the work of four different photographers? The photos are largely interchangeable and can be processed and printed to look even more identical. As a matter of fact this is what Taiji Matsue wants to show, that seen from above many cities look the same. The difference then is in the intention of the photographer or of the curator who has organized the exhibition and written the hand-out.

The exhibition also includes some night photographs of Düsseldorf taken by Thomas Ruff, not to be confused with Thomas Struth, whose work is also included in the show. There's nothing particularly interesting about these photos and it's more likely that the organizers wanted to include some photos by Thomas Ruff, a famous artist/photographer, while at the same time showing a different aspect of the city and photography (ordinary streets and houses at night).

As I walked through the exhibition I was surprised to see some photos which closely resemble some of my own. According to the hand-out "In Concrete, at first glance we see just the material of a building, but as we look more closely at the image, we recognize the relation between surface and mass. In this portrait of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, [Heidi] Specker (Ivar Hagendoorn) denies the function of the building, leaving nothing of the architect's intention. Through a perceptive deconstruction, Specker (Hagendoorn) focuses our attention on its graphic composition and material qualities." I've been taking extreme close-ups of buildings and walls for years and apparently so has Heidi Specker. I like the South Bank Center in London, as well as the Barbican Center, because of all concrete buildings I know these are the most "concrete". When I read the curatorial blurp for Heidi Specker I realized that what I need to do is not take more photos, but write some captions that will appeal to curators or get myself a good copywriter.

I like the work of Olivo Barbieri and seeing his photos printed at poster size is a real delight. His work is rather limited though, in that it relies on a technical innovation: the use of a tilt-shift lense to shoot with selective focus. As a result photos look like model worlds. The thing is once you've seen Rome, Las Vegas and Shanghai in selective focus you've kind of seen the trick. Other photographers have started using the same technique with the same results. This and this is Miklos Gaal using the same technique and this Frank van der Salm. If you can't afford a tilt-shift lens but would like to experiment with selective focus, play round with one of these lensbabies.

I must say that I like the work of Frank van der Salm, although he doesn't appear to let the locations he visits change his photography, and it's a shame the organizers didn't include more of his work. There are other great photos on show as well, by Francesco Jodice and Armin Linke, whose work is somewhat akin to mine and by Thomas Demand, whose photos look deceptively simple and familiar. On closer observation you notice that his scenes are all made of paper and cardboard and if you're very well informed you will notice that some are crime scenes. Also on show are some monumental photos by Andreas Gursky (and here). In art photography size still matters.

You have to search hard to find people in the urban landscapes shown here. There are some in the photos of Armin Linke, but most photographers included in the exhibition appear to wait until those annoying people have moved before releasing the shutter.

The exhibition shows some great photos and if you want to see more, there are books by all photographers in the exhibition. I think I spend as much time browsing through these books as looking at the photos on show. As an exhibition of the city or of urban photography, "Spectacular City" falls short though. What is missing is the view from the street. But I must admit, aerial views are more spectacular.