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Hans Eijkelboom
Paris - New York - Shanghai
With the kind support of the Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands
With
the exhibition Paris - New York - Shanghai works by the conceptual
artist Hans Eijkelboom (b. 1949) are being presented in Cologne for the
first time. Paris - New York - Shanghai is part of the strictly
methodological project Photo Notes, carried out between 1992 and 2007
and based on photographs taken every day.
Hans Eijkelboom’s
artistic roots lie in the conceptual art of the 1970s. Alongside Dan
Graham, Douglas Huebler and Robert Smithson, he was one of the
participants in the pioneering exhibition Sonsbeek 71 in Arnheim, in
which various aspects of the highly topical and internationally debated
conceptual art were presented. In connection with the discussion in the
media about photography it played an important role, as the documentary
methods of the medium were integrated into the artistic programmes.
The
systematic investigation into his own persona is the focus of Hans
Eijkelboom’s early works. In Identity, 1976, for example he interviewed
ten people whom he had known in his youth, but not seen for ten years,
asking questions about their memories of him and what they thought about
him. He presented their answers as photographs of himself, representing
their expectations, whether they were as an electrician, political
activist, hippie or pilot. This project illuminates the essential
components of Eijkelboom’s work, on the one hand it is the question of
the individual’s identity and the characteristics according to which the
person can be recognised or defined. On the other hand it contains a
strong social element which the artist frequently integrates into his
works in the form of conversations with others. Thus in his project
Homage to August Sander, 1981, Eijkelboom requested passers-by in his
Dutch home town Arnheim to name specific types or groups of people who
were particularly noticeable, representative or simply shaped the face
of the city as part of society. They were then requested to find three
examples in the city.
Based on close observation of the world
around him, Hans Eijkelboom traces in his photographic series questions
of individuality and their parameters in society - a topic he deals
(tries to deal with) with on a global scale in the series shown in the
presentation Paris - New York – Shanghai. Each of the metropolises he
travelled to represents a particular era in modern history. Whereas
Paris is associated with the avant-garde of the 19th century, New York
is a synonym for the aspiring, technical construction innovations of the
20th century and finally Shanghai alludes to the still uncertain
scenarios of the future, which will be enacted in new dimensions. Do
these history-laden or futuristic metropolises with all their
diversities have an influence on their inhabitants, Hans Eijkelboom
seems to ask, and if so, how can it be captured and quantified visually?
And is there a difference between the dwellers of cities which are
located moreover on different continents? The search for answers leads
the artist directly into the cities, he goes along the streets and
mingles with the people. After a certain period of observation
Eijkelboom decides on a type or a particular characteristic, which he
then photographs using a hidden camera, within a specified time of two
hours. This could be young couples, men in dark suits or women with
fashion accessories such as handbags or sunglasses, which he captures in
the pictures and later compiles into comparative rows of photographs
from all three metropolises. The similarities which can be recognized in
Hans Eijkelboom’s photographic investigations are amazing - the
structures of global mass production seem to have taken hold and yet in
the details in particular, the personal expression is apparent. This
concept has been imaginatively transposed into the layout of the
artists’ book of the same name which Aperture published in New York in
2007.
Advance Notice:
On 10 September 2009 Hans Eijkelboom will give a talk about his work in the exhibition at 19.00 hrs.
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Im Mediapark 7, 50670 Cologne
Tel: +49-221-226 5900 Fax: +49-221 226 5901, photographie@sk-kultur.de
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