Ed van der Elsken

Ed van der Elsken
Ed van der Elsken (1988)
Born(1925-03-10)10 March 1925
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died28 December 1990(1990-12-28) (aged 65)
Edam, Netherlands
NationalityDutch
Known forPhotography, film
Spouse(s)Ata Kandó, Gerda van der Veen, Anneke Hillhorst

Eduard van der Elsken (10 March 1925 – 28 December 1990) was a Dutch photographer and filmmaker.

His imagery provides quotidian, intimate and autobiographic perspectives on the European zeitgeist[1] spanning the period of the Second World War into the nineteen-seventies in the realms of love, sex, art, music (particularly jazz), and alternative culture. He described his camera as 'infatuated', and said: "I'm not a journalist, an objective reporter, I'm a man with likes and dislikes".[2] His style is subjective and emphases the seer over the seen; a photographic equivalent of first-person speech.[3]

  1. ^ "A good deal has been said about [Documenta X's] 'over-representation' of the 1960s and 1970s, calling it nostalgic and anachronistic radicalism. Some, however, rejoiced in its unflinching rejection of the art and culture that had become dominant as globalization intensified ... dX reached back to 1950 or even earlier, tracing and juxtaposing genealogies and individual interventions in photography, performance, installation, and videos, often cries-crossing genre boundaries. Interesting things happen to the work when a celebrated documentary photographer of the American Depression of the 1930s, Walker Evans, is seen in the same show as a contemporary Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall, who works with large, digitally constructed photographic narratives. The variety of work on display was striking: Helen Levitt, Aldo van Eyck, Maria Lassnig, Lygia Clark, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Ed van der Elsken, Nancy Spero, Öyvind Fahlström, Garry Winogrand, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Robert Adams, Hélio Oiticica, James Coleman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Susanne Lafont, William Kentridge, Martin Walde, and many more." Miyoshi, M. 'Radical Art at Documenta X', in New Left Review I/228, March–April 1998. London: Verso.
  2. ^ Aletti, Vince. Cafe noir (biography). [Article. Biography] Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, pp. 98-103, 105-7.
  3. ^ Charrier, Philip (2010-07-12). "The Making of a Hunter: Moriyama Daidō 1966–1972". History of Photography. 34 (3): 268–290. doi:10.1080/03087290903361431. ISSN 0308-7298. S2CID 192047349.