‘American Photography’ review: timely truths at Rijksmuseum

Amanda López (1982), Homegirls, San Francisco, 2008, Inkjet print, 320 x 435 mm

(Image credit: National Museum for American History, Washington (DC)© Amanda López)

published 13 February 2025

There are infinite ways you could open an exhibition on the gapingly expansive theme of American photography, a category that has influenced Western visual culture in more ways that we can fathom. Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom, the photography curators at the Rijksmuseum – and the minds behind the Amsterdam institution’s latest exhibition, titled simply ‘American Photography’ – made a bold and very touching choice.

Black man in sunglasses leaning against glass façade reflecting stars and stripes and street scene — Ming Smith (1951), *America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City*, 1976, Gelatin silver print, 318 x 470 mm

Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s, Wood, handwoven cigarette packets, gelatin silver prints, 140 x 110 x 195 mm

Upon entering the show’s first room, a small, white-walled, high-ceilinged space, visitors are confronted by a single object housed in a glass display case. It is a square box, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, made from strips of cigarette cartons woven together. On each side of the cube is a different portrait representing one of four young American roommates who crafted the box as a memento of their time spent living together (as handwritten notes inside attest). If you entered the exhibition expecting nothing but Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and Carrie Mae Weems, this humble keepsake appears to declare, think again.

Red rocky outcrop in desert with text: This is not a commercial, this is my homeland — Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (1954), *‘This is not a commercial, this is my homeland’, 1998*, Platinum lambda print, 476 x 609 mm

Black and white photograph of woman behind sweets counter — Irene Poon, *Virginia*, 1965, Gelatin silver print, 18.7 x 19 cm

The exhibition does feature work by these great image-makers, and many more besides, but it also includes a whole treasure trove of amateur photography, fine art photography, advertising imagery, books, magazines and intriguing curios, spanning three centuries, all of which serve to paint a picture as complex, contradictory and compelling as America itself. ‘When we began planning this exhibition, we decided to do it differently,’ explains Rooseboom. ‘We headed out to different institutions and photography collections and allowed ourselves to be surprised by what we encountered.’

Black and white photo of Black man in bow tie and suit, smiling and seated in chair — James Van Der Zee (1886–1983), *Portrait of an Unknown Man, Harlem, New York City*, 1938, Gelatin silver print, 244 x 203 mm

Littered townscape amid mountains — Bryan Schutmaat (1983), *Tonopah, Nevada*, 2012, Inkjet print, 1017 x 1277 mm (printed 2021)

The show is similarly surprising: at times celebratory, at others deeply tragic. It shows the many ways in which photography can function – as a means of remembering or honouring, as a way of promoting a dream or documenting a (sometimes nightmarish) reality. In the second room, photographs from Robert Frank’s groundbreaking series The Americans (1955-57), captured on a road trip across 30 states, shows his unflinching view of US society across different demographics – a vision that was, back then, critically scorned. While opposite hang glossy, brightly coloured magazine covers from the same period, presenting an entirely different vision – one of wealthy housewives and basking holidayers.

Array of colourful gobstopper boiled sweets — Schadde Brothers Studio, Display, sample or trade catalogue photograph for sweet manufacturer Brandle & Smith Co., c. 1915

Woman in headscarf and mac — Bruce Wrighton (1950–1988), *Portrait of a woman, Binghampton, NY (‘Woolworth Shopper’)*, Chromogenic print, 254 x 202 mm

Later rooms filled with portraits of all different kinds call to mind Susan Sontag’s proclamation that ‘in America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it’. A set of ‘American Indian souvenir’ playing cards from 1900, featuring photographs of Native Americans and created to sell to tourists, hammers home the ways in which photography can be used to tell a very different story to the one unfolding. Meanwhile, a nearby image of one of the Little Rock Nine – a group of Black students who enrolled at an Arkansas high school in 1957 in the wake of desegregation, and were subjected to relentless discrimination – transversely shines a light on the terrible truths at play in midcentury America. Elsewhere, Diane Arbus’s portrait of a young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street in New York City (1966) platforms and celebrates queerness, its protagonist holding a cigarette between long, painted fingernails and staring directly at the viewer.

Archive photograph of Black woman and her family, dressed up to go out — Anonymous, *Family Standing beside their Car*, c. 1957–1960 , Chromogenic print (Kodak Instamatic), 76 x 76 mm

Archive black and white image of man and woman outside cabin — View on a wooden house or barn with a man and a woman in front, c. 1870-1875, Tintype, 164 x 215 mm

When the curators first began envisaging the show seven years ago, they could never have imagined that it would open just weeks after Trump’s second inauguration, Boom tells me. As it is, the exhibition – which is also filled with dreamy evocations of American road trips and gorgeous landscapes, happy friends and families, and works by some of the 20th-century’s most visionary artists – couldn’t feel more timely. America is a country that has irrevocably shaped the world we inhabit, for better and for worse, and there is no greater testament to this fact than its photographic output.

‘American Photography’ opened at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on 7 February and is on view until 9 June 2025, rijksmuseum.nl

An accompanying book of the same title is available from the museum shop, €45, rijksmuseumshop.nl and on Amazon

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