Paris Photo 2022
November 10 – 13, 2022
Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen produces intimate portraits of the people she photographs, immersing herself in their lives in order to reveal the poetry within the everyday. From 1990 onward, van Manen has taken extended trips to China, Europe, and the Former Soviet Union, capturing commonplace scenes of people in their homes or enjoying various recreational activities: families eating meals, a couple asleep in bed, late night dancing, and trips to the beach. Van Manen brings us into the private lives of her subjects to reveal a poignant meditation on human existence.
For the series Let’s sit down before we go, van Manen focused on the lives and homes of people in Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union, celebrating the richness and humanity within a country dominated by fear and suspicion. Focusing particularly on Russia’s youth, who we see skiing in the snow in bathing suits and donning wedding dresses, van Manen sensitively reveals a side of Russia unknown to most of the world.
For her most recent series, Beyond Maps and Atlases, van Manen made several visits to Ireland in the wake of her husband’s death. Images of mist-shrouded fields and shadowy rural nightscapes speak to the feeling of profound absence created by the death of a loved one. Imbued with both a strong sense of place and a feeling of mysticism, van Manen was guided by Irish writers such as Seamus Heaney and John McGahern. Continuing her investigations into notions of belonging, van Manen’s photographs reach beyond the surface to uncover the hidden depths and enigmatic quality of life in Ireland.
Born in 1942 in The Hague, The Netherlands, Bertien van Manen lives and works in Amsterdam. Her most recent monograph, Beyond Maps and Atlases, was published by MACK in 2016. She has released seven previous monographs including A hundred summers, a hundred winters (1994); East Wind West Wind (2004); Give Me Your Image (2005); and Let’s sit down before we go (2011), among others. Van Manen’s work has been exhibited internationally at museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Photographer’s Gallery, London; and the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo. Her work is held in the permanent collections of several major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Beyond Maps and Atlases by internationally renowned Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen. This is the artist's first body of work produced in Ireland and traces her journey across the island over the past year and a half. During her visits she stayed in the homes of strangers, mostly other photographers living across Ireland, who became friends with van Manen and made work alongside the artist. While travelling she became immersed in Irish literature and was guided by the words and landscapes of Seamus Heaney, John Banville and John McGahern as much as the people she traveled with.
Bertien van Manen's series Let's sit down before we go, currently on display at the gallery, will be shown in it's entirety at FOAM Photography Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from March 19 - June 24. Taken in and around Russia between 1990-2008, van Manen's photographs capture her subjects at leisure with friends and family, reflecting an intimate celebration of the country's richness and humanity.
Bertien van Manen's exhibition - Let's sit down before we go - will open at the gallery on January 5, 2012, in conjunction with the release of a book of the same title, published by Mack Books. The series was shot in present-day Russia between 1991-2009.
Bertien van Manen's new book - Let's sit down before we go - is scheduled for release in November 2011 through Mack Books, in conjunction with an exhibition of the artist's work at the gallery.
Photographs by gallery artists Mitch Epstein, Alex Prager, and Bertien van Manen are currently on display in Embarrassment of Riches: Picturing Global Wealth, a new exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, open through January 2, 2011.
