Villa Franca, Portugal, May 8, 1994 A
1994
Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra has an uncanny ability to capture the nuances of human behavior on film. In the 1990s, the artist gained international attention for her Beach Portraits, a series of photographs of adolescents who stand self-consciously in their bathing suits near the water’s edge. Shot as single subjects, Dijkstra explored their vulnerability, a hallmark of her work to date. In this series of expressive photographs taken in 1994, Dijkstra takes as her subject several Portuguese matadors. Bloodied, worn, and exhausted, their postures, facial expressions, and disheveled costumes reveal their performance in the ring. Dijkstra chose not to show us the public spectacle—instead she focuses on the individual, the human face of an exhilarating experience fighting a bull. One of the most respected photographers of her generation, Dijkstra revives the genre of portraiture by capturing her male subjects seen here in an untraditional way, vulnerable and exposed.
Chromogenic print
Image: 35 3/8 x 28 3/8 in. (90 x 72 cm)
Frame: 49 x 41 3/8 in. (124.5 x 105.1 cm)
Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Collectors Forum and Jon and Mary Shirley
2011.16.c
Provenance: The artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; [sold by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2011]; purchased by Seattle Art Museum, 2011
