RINEKE DIJKSTRA. THE KRAZY HOUSE

For its 15th exhibition within the framework of the Hors-les-murs programme of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Espace Louis Vuitton München is proud to present The Krazy House by Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra. This programme displays works from the Collection at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka, realizing the Fondation’s mission to reach a broader audience through international projects.

Photographer Rineke Dijkstra attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 1981 to 1986 and held her first solo exhibition, Paradiso Portraits, in 1984 at de Moor. She began her career as a freelancer, producing portraits of artists, writers and business executives for magazines. In 1992, she launched her signature series of photographs of teenagers on a beach on the North Sea, a series she pursued until 1996. Following her work in Poland and Ukraine, she practiced her art as far afield as the shores of the United States and Africa. The subjects are shot from a slightly low angle with a minimum of staging and choose whatever pose they wish. Dijkstra established a modus operandi with her first series, one she would maintain thereafter: the subjects are shot from the front in a minimalist setting; natural light is preferred, sometimes augmented by flash, and the shooting is done on colour negative using a view camera.

In 1994, in Portugal, Dijkstra photographed bullfighters as they left the arena, capturing their still-alive tension and exhaustion. That same year, as a counterpoint to this series in which death is omnipresent, she photographed women who had just given birth, an effort to capture the mixed emotions a young mother experiences in that rare moment.

In her reinvention of the portraiture genre, Dijkstra employs photography and video as a way to spark encounters, to seek out what is most important. These unidentified people preserve a certain mystery, paradoxically maintained by the planning and processing of the image: very little contextual detail is shown in her photographs and videos, focusing our attention on the relationship between the one gazing and the one being gazed upon. It is less a question of capturing reality than of surprising a surfacing consciousness, almost without the model’s knowledge. What renders Dijkstra‘s work so remarkable is its sensitive approach and keen observation of emotions.

With the video installation The Krazy House, (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee), Liverpool, UK (2009), Dijkstra continues her exploration of adolescence. She asked five young people to dance to their favourite music in a special studio set up on the floor of a Liverpool nightclub. Engulfed in the dim, hushed, blueish environment, the dancers move before a plain white background. They are totally absorbed, each lost in their own image and the one they wish to give the observer. The artist specifically re-imagined the display of this dazzling piece for Espace Louis Vuitton München, shedding a brand new light on this famous artwork.

About the artist
Rineke Dijkstra was born in Sittard, The Netherlands, in 1959. She lives and works in Amsterdam. She is celebrated both for her photographic and video works – many of which deal with questions of identity, the passage of time and intimacy – and is one of the most prolific artists of her generation.

Solo exhibitions of her work have been shown at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, France (2023); the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2019); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachussets, USA (2018); the DePont Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands (2018); the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany (2018); the Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2017); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017) and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (2016). A comprehensive retrospective of Rineke Dijkstra‘s work was also presented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California and the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2012.

She has been honoured with the Johannes Vermeer Award (2020); Hasselblad Foundation International Award (2017); the Macallan Royal Photographic Society Award, London (2012); the Citibank Photography Prize (1999), the Werner Mantz Prize (1994) and the Kodak Award Netherlands (1987), among others.

About the Fondation Louis Vuitton
The Fondation Louis Vuitton serves the public interest and is exclusively dedicated to contemporary art and artists, as well as 20th-century works to which their inspirations can be traced. The Collection and the exhibitions it organises seek to engage a broad public. The magnificent building created by the Canadian American architect Frank Gehry, and already recognized as an emblematic example of the 21st-century architecture, constitutes the Fondation’s seminal artistic statement. Since its opening in October 2014, the Fondation has welcomed more than ten million visitors from France and around the world.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton commits to engage in international initiatives, both at the Fondation and in partnership with public and private institutions, including other foundations and museums such as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection in 2016 and The Morozov Collection in 2021), the MoMA in New York (Being Modern: MoMA in Paris), and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London (The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism) among others. The artistic direction also developed a specific “Hors-les-murs” programme taking place within the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka, which are exclusively devoted to exhibitions of works from the Collection. These exhibitions are open to the public free of charge and promoted through specific cultural communication.