menachem

For people visiting until may 21: Stedelijk Museum (museum of modern art) is getting its mojo back, after almost a decade of closure and has a major exhibition of photographer Ed van der Elsken.

His main subject matter was Amsterdam, and he shot the majority of his work on Amsterdam in the late fifties and early sixties.

I'm a photographer, and to me, and a lot of Dutch photographers, Ed = God.

It's wonderful that so much of his cinematography is included too. There's a small documentary video in the link below. Please watch it and if you have the chance, see the exhibition. You'll learn a lot, not only about Ed van der Elsken, but also about Amsterdam: you'll never look at the city the same way. Amsterdam was very much Ed's city. It's now changed beyond recognition, but his Amsterdam is beneath what you see today.

http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitio...camera-in-love

FuryFluffy

Thank you for the info. Seems that my museum list in Amsterdam just get longer and longer. I'm not a photographer, but I'll see this one.

koufax

Thanks for the tip. I'll be in Amsterdam in early May and staying near the Museumplein.

menachem

Important to remember, that van der Elsken lived on Nieuwmarkt, in the early sixties. That was about 20 years after the area was depopulated because of the deportations in WW2: the Nieuwmarkt area always was the jewish area. He was one of the first photographers to really confront this fact: a jewish neighbourhood without jews, where rent was cheap, for obvious reasons. When he photographed, there were some jewish traders left on Waterlooplein market. The exhibition contains a short film fragment with an interview van der Elsken did with one of these traders, who had survived the Great Murder. Touching, but also bone-chilling.

For me the success of the show is how it is curated to show Ed's process. He is primarily a street photographer, interested in people foremost, and it's exciting to see his process, also in-camera (contact sheets)

And he was the master of the photo book, and that process too is shown. Beautiful catalogue of his work too.

I went to see it last sunday, next week I'm going again.

This is his Amsterdam documentary from the 1980s: A photographer films Amsterdam. His love letter to Amsterdam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHUoqM3iyag

koufax

Here are a couple of current articles from the New York Times on van der Elsken, his work, the exhibition, and his influence. I think they'll both appear in the Sunday (Feb 26) issue:

file:///The%20Intimate%20Lens%20of%20Ed%20van%20der%20Elsk en%20-%20The%20New%20York%20Times.webarchive

file:///How%20Ed%20van%20der%20Elsken%20Influenced%20Other %20Artists%20-%20The%20New%20York%20Times.webarchive

koufax

One more time!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/a...e=sectionfront

koufax

And again!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/a...r-artists.html

menachem

Great articles. I salute your perseverance.