{"id":25011,"date":"2026-06-22T10:57:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T10:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/25011\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T10:57:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T10:57:52","slug":"the-nederlands-fotomuseum-reopens-in-rotterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/25011\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nederlands Fotomuseum Reopens in Rotterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Exterior<\/a>An exterior view of the Nederlands Fotomuseum. \u00a9 Iwan Baan<\/p>\n

The Nederlands Fotomuseum\u2014the country\u2019s national museum of photography\u2014reopens this week<\/a> in a renovated warehouse in Rotterdam\u2019s harbor, located on the south bank of the River Maas. The repurposed six-story cast-iron column structure was built at the turn of the 20th Century and originally used to store coffee shipped from Brazil but stood empty for many years before being registered as a national monument. The museum, founded in 2003, acquired the building in 2023 through a private donor, though it also received funding from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Municipality of Rotterdam.<\/p>\n

Without minimizing the contemporary reality of photographic dematerialization, the museum\u2019s intention is to show the history of photography in its objecthood. What is a photography museum\u2019s responsibility in the uncertain age of A.I.? Here, it is still deeply tied to an analog history that is worth celebrating: it\u2019s a \u201cheritage that requires care and knowledge,\u201d Martijn van den Broek<\/a>, head of collections, who has been with the museum for 25 years, told Observer.<\/p>\n

The newly rehabilitated structure houses one of the largest museum collections of photography in the world, as well as accoutrements such as vintage cameras, guidebooks, negatives, slides and prints. Across the second and third floors, climate-controlled facilities house the museum\u2019s collection and its digitization and conservation hubs. These spaces are public-facing, with windows that offer visitors a look at the fragile processes happening there. It\u2019s a much more modest mise-en-sc\u00e8ne relative to the neighboring Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which opened its stored collection to visitors in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>An interior view of the cast-iron column structure. \u00a9 Iwan Baan<\/p>\n

The Nederlands Fotomuseum\u2019s fourth and fifth floors can accommodate two temporary photography exhibitions. The opening show, \u201cAwakening in Blue: An Ode to Cyanotype<\/a>\u201d (on view through June 7), features work by 15 contemporary artists who have used this lensless historical technique. First up are reproductions from Anna Atkins<\/a>, a pillar of the cyanotype method in her cataloguing of algae (gelidium corneum, polysiphonia spinulosa\u2026) in the 19th Century. Today, artists like Farah Rahman<\/a> and Sarojini Lewis<\/a> use this technique to demystify colonial history. Arash Fakhim<\/a>\u2019s Sofreh series of cyanotypes on textiles is hemmed to fabrics that reimagine the traditional Iranian ritual cloth, while Marijn Kuijper<\/a>\u2019s embroidered quotes of Dutch legislation limiting queer families are layered upon cyanotypes of negatives.<\/p>\n

The other temporary exhibition, \u201cRotterdam in Focus: The City in Photographs 1843 \u2013 now<\/a>\u201d (on view through May 24), is unfortunately a dull compilation of people-free topographies of the city, revealing none of its dynamism and reading more like an urban brochure. (And yet, an inkjet print from a photo collage by Paul Citroen<\/a>\u2014Metropolis, 1923, displayed several floors below\u2014shows how exciting, frenzied and dense the depiction of a city can be.)<\/p>\n

\"Detail<\/a>Marijn Kuijper, State of Flux (detail), 2022. Courtesy the Nederlands Fotomuseum<\/p>\n

The museum\u2019s first-floor permanent exhibition is grandly dubbed \u201cThe Gallery of Honour,\u201d and it presents a sampling of photography in the Netherlands spanning from the 19th Century to the present day. The collection compresses Dutch photography into 99 photographs, featuring names who have risen from national to international acclaim, such as Anton Corbijn<\/a>, Viviane Sassen<\/a>, Rineke Dijkstra<\/a> and Erwin Olaf<\/a>, alongside lesser-known practitioners.<\/p>\n

There are portraits of famous pop culture figureheads, like a gelatin silver print of Tupac Shakur<\/a> looking askance by Dana Lixenberg<\/a> from 1993, or Cor Jaring<\/a>\u2019s close-up shot of John Lennon<\/a> and Yoko in bed, demonstrating for peace at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam in 1969. Peter Hunter<\/a> (n\u00e9 Otto Salomon<\/a>) snapped John F. Kennedy<\/a> at his sister\u2019s birthday party in London without flash, the blur of movement reflecting the spontaneity of the photo.<\/p>\n

There are various images from World War II, most of them implicit in their charge. Perhaps the most heart-stopping is a compilation of passport photos taken with a Polyfoto camera featuring a sweetly grinning Anne Frank<\/a>, the document a chilling one because the viewer, of course, knows her fate: she would die five years later in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Less overt, unless you scan the QR code, is Henk van der Horst<\/a>\u2019s Zuiderpark Swimming Pool, shot from a bird\u2019s-eye view in The Hague circa 1938. The cheerful geometry of the New Photography image is belied by the fact that the photographer joined the Dutch resistance and was murdered in a concentration camp. Nearby, Hans Poley<\/a>\u2019s image only feels bleak when you read the caption: People on the Roof Terrace of Their Hiding Place, Haarlem, 1943. It shows a group of dapper men and women crouched over gravel and peeling potatoes\u2014an innocuous scene that does not foretell that their hiding place was discovered and the Gestapo captured them in 1944. The same year, in Amsterdam, Charles Breijer<\/a> kept a concealed Rolleiflex in his bicycle bag and provocatively took photos of German authorities despite the high risk of retribution.<\/p>\n

\"Black-and-white<\/a>Paul Citroen, Estella Reed, 1931. Leiden University Library; Eva v<\/p>\n

The images of women in this selection feel empowered. Early in the timeline is a beautiful nude self-portrait by Katharina Behrend<\/a> from 1908, orchestrating her own representation as a muse only to herself. Paul Citroen\u2019s 1931 portrait of Estella Reed<\/a>, a dancer, shows her in a charmingly informal way, tilting her head so her cheek is cradled in her hand and strands of her hair fall loose, neither self-stylized nor self-conscious. Press photographer Jaap J. Herschel<\/a>\u2019s documentation of a demonstration for birth control and abortion rights in Utrecht in 1970 features a lineup of young women from the Dutch feminist group Dolle Mina, lifting their shirts up to reveal the words BAAS IN EIGEN BUIK (BOSS OF OUR BELLY). In the 21st Century, Meryem Slimani<\/a>\u2019s Instagram page<\/a> is digitized, rotating through posts showing her mother stylishly outfitted in a m\u00e9lange of streetwear and traditional Moroccan clothing. The work got attention when it was included in a Stedelijk Museum Schiedam exhibition in 2019-2020 about modest fashion. \u201cOur story is now part of Dutch cultural history,\u201d Slimani captioned one post.<\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/a>Jaap Herschel, Dolle Minas \u2013 Baas in eigen Buik, Utrecht, 1970. Courtesy the Nederlands Fotomuseum<\/p>\n

Although the Gallery of Honour existed in the museum\u2019s previous space across the river, a newly added timeline explaining the history of photography\u2014internationally and in the Netherlands\u2014strengthens viewers\u2019 understanding of its power. Dutch tax authorities recognized \u201cphotographer\u201d as a profession in 1857. By 1900, police stations were photographing criminals, whom they catalogued in albums. In 1933, an art school in Amsterdam debuted a photography department, followed by the opening of a dedicated professional photo school in 1940. In 1958, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam started collecting photography, and in 1971, the first photo gallery opened in the same city. In 2000, the verb \u201cto Photoshop\u201d was added to the Dutch dictionary.<\/p>\n

This local history is in conversation with sweeping changes to society\u2019s habits of documentation and self-depiction. Who would have guessed that a museum would cite an A.I.-generated image of octogenarian Pope Francis wearing a puffer jacket widely diffused in 2023? The real question is, with such rapid-fire evolutions in synthetic images, what awaits us next?<\/p>\n

\"Interior<\/a>The Nederlands Fotomuseum aims to bring visitors into its collection with a transparency that\u2019s both symbolic and literal. \u00a9 Iwan Baan
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\t\t\t\t\"Rotterdam\u2019s<\/p>\n

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