Arnoud Holleman

Amsterdam — Thursday 28 March, 2024
nl / en
#photography

Captured

A film about seeing and being seen

In Captured, makers Arnoud Holleman and Batya Wolff show the complicated handling of photography in Batya's family. Her father Max Wolff (b. 1926) bought a camera after the war. Photography became his coping mechanism for dealing with war trauma, but while photographing, the war also remained ever-present in the home. That put a damper on the life of his daughter, who grew up in front of his lens. Can she free herself from a war that ended long before she was born?

Platitudes

De Gids Literary Magazine

Every artisthood is teeming with platitudes. Repetitive anecdotes, topoi, that give every artist biography the same setup: he or she, always alone; real talent eludes schooling; thousands shouted out, only a handful chosen. Large or small talent, they all put their lives at stake for something that wants to transcend life. Art goes before offspring, reaches beyond death.

The Trouble With Value

Onomatopee, Eindhoven

Curator Kris Dittel writes: What practices bring us closer to understanding the potential of art to represent different notions of value in the contemporary? How can we counter the certain apathy of the contemporary to engage with positions that resist this mood and present us with challenging perspectives on value? The project attempts to locate artistic and institutional practices that offer viewpoints beyond the strategy of blending-in and conforming to the rules.

I Shot Madonna

media recycling

When she comes past I click away hysterically. Not even with the intention of getting her picture but I'm in the press enclosure and have to pretend that I'm a photographer. I'm so occupied with the camera and she goes by so fast that I hardly catch a glimpse of her. The print I have made is blurred. Also that night was the first time Madonna showed up with a black hairdo instead of her usual blonde, so nobody recognizes her on the photo.

Bert Luttjeboer

drawing, photo, text

I was intrigued by the fact that I had to work for hours or days or weeks on end and would still fail to come anywhere close to what the camera had seen in a split second. One night, after a long day of working with minute precision and concentration, I went out to a bar and ran into Bert.

Polaroid

edition

Polaroid of the former Polaroid factory in Enschede. I photographed the logo in 2001 as research for 'Wij', an exhibition at Kunstvereniging Diepenheim investigating the cultural identity of the Twente region. The factory closed in 2008 and the text sign has been removed in 2009. Polaroid is an edition of 20, a few are still for sale.

Nieuwkomer

online photo documentary

For months after I first stood on that little bridge, I continued to circle around the windmills. Not only with my camera, but also with a microphone. When you look closer, the polder turns out to be an arena of conflicting interests. The cluttering of the landscape stands in opposition to climatological necessity; economic and ecological interests are locking horns for dominance; innovation oriented towards the future has to compete with the appreciation for history. The counter argument is always around the corner.

Herman Heijermans

drawings, photo

At the time my boyfriend was writing a biography of the Dutch playwright Herman Heijermans, who lived from 1864 to 1924. Heijermans was all over the house, in books and in pictures. I choose this one, because of how he stares into the camera. I drew two 'prints' next to the original one and framed them individually.

Susan Sontag

drawing, photo, text

I've always thought of photography as something very magical and it is my belief that this is based on a genuine experience: in my early childhood there must have been no sharp distinction between a real thing and its image - in the same way that kids see themselves as inseparable from their mother until the age of three, I thought that object and image were simply two different manifestations of the same energy.

Lauren & Claudia

collage, double sided

Interview covergirl Lauren Hutton was photographed by Francesco Scavullo in 1973. She's wearing Galanos - from his exciting fall 1973 collection. Accessorized by Galanos, makeup by Way Bandy, hair by Rick Gilette. The photo was re-photographed by Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm in 2003, with model Uta Eichhorn posing as Re-Magazine covergirl Claudia. She's wearing a black dress by Hermès. Styling by Katja Rahlwes, makeup by Renata Mandic.

Aaltje Kraak

re-staging of city fire, Hardenberg

In Marslaan, a row of five 1960s houses was waiting to be demolished. The new building standard in the city had been raised to four stories, so these houses no longer sufficed in that spot. The large windows that had once made the houses so modern were now boarded up. On the blank wood of the underlayment along the full length of the block was written in spray paint: Get rid of that crap!

Onkenhout

galvanized bronze, text

Staring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she'd have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.

Not knowing as a norm

Artist contribution for OPEN Magazine

When Zijlstra speaks, you hear the positive, neoliberal pep talk of Rutte, but also the anti-elitist, anti-globalist, populist talk of Wilders. Not only is radical change required, the existing structure must – as an end in itself – be torn down. In other words, creation and destruction go hand in hand and from Zijlstra’s mouth that sounds astonishingly unisono.

Captured - How to be prepared for the past

A documentary by Batya Wolff and Arnoud Holleman

In the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust. The unique and vast photo archive of the Wolff family embodies almost one hundred years of Jewish family life - before, during and after the war. Seemingly generic family pictures unite and divide the family. For Max, first generation victim of the Nazi's, photography is a coping mechanism to deal with traumatic loss. For Batya and her two sisters, the second generation, the trauma was passed on through his lens.

Marcel

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, earth has disappeared. As we will not be able to crash, we will continue flying until we run out of fuel. Well so do something about it you?ve been wining about it for years. Well. Halfway. Everything?s fine. Stay calm. Come on guys what?s the big idea? You know, these days when somebody on the street says ?sorry? it?s a junky. You see you don?t get it. You?re just a character in someone elses plot.