Following a fantastic traveling retrospective of her work, Rineke Dijkstra has recently unveiled her latest project - a new series of portraits of young people photographed, in city parks of the world, in which the artist's lens majestically captures life and the nuances of timeless rites of passage, and of identity, in medias res, an updated, modern album of magical woodland creatures. 'Park portraits', on show at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris, include images of schoolchildren and adolescents engaged in the rituals of their daily life, whether it be playing, socialising, resting, thinking, in city parks in Europe, China and the United States. 
It's interesting that of all the portraits, varied as they are in focus and expression, not a single one is in what is known as a 'portrait' format. Using the lush framework of traditional landscape in a seemingly offhand manner echoes part of the sense of Dijkstra's latest images of youth - the natural and inevitable merging of two subjects, both personal and universal, which are in a state of constant change, and for which there is a longstanding artistic fascination to converse with and overturn. Writing about the park portraits in a Dutch daily newspaper during the time of the Stedelijk show, Kees Keijer wrote: 'Dijkstra let go of her former austerity and photographed four young people in Amsterdam during a "Dejeuner sur l'herbe anno 2005". Again the work is frontal, but now the pose is relaxed. The surroundings in Dijkstra's work used to be extremely sober; now, candy wrappings and empty soft drink bottles are lying about. A gaping rucksack zipper offers a nearly symbolic perspective on a different reality: one of homework, commitments and expectations for the future. But they don't want to think about that just now'.
The new body of work is slightly more playful than Dijkstra's previous, rather more austere series documenting the rites of passage of adolescence and childhood, from the 'Beach Portraits' of 1992, to the video installation 'Buzzclub/Mysterworld' (1996-1997), the 'Tiergarten Series' (1998-2000), 'Israeli soldiers' (1999-2000), and the single-subject portraits in serial transition: 'Almerisa' (1994-2005), 'Shany' (2001-2003) and 'Olivier' (2000-2003). In 'Park portraits', the portrait seems to shape the subject's possession of their own identity, now performing for us in a new, uncontrollable theatre of characters, safe in the comfort of their favorite spot.Rineke Dijkstra. Park Portraits
December 07th,2007 to January 19th,
Marian Goodman Gallerie
http://www.mariangoodman.com/mg/paris.html
79, rue du Temple
75003 Paris
Metro Rambuteau
Free entrance 18h-20h
T. 01 48 04 70 52
Mail: parisgallery@mariangoodman.com
