Various Artists: Summershow main, 2 - 23 July 2005

In our Summershow we show photographs of Ed van der Elsken and a film of Joost Conijn, two artists well known for their strong love for the unconventional. They both look at the world around them with great curiosity and a stunning refusal to serve prejudice.

With great pleasure we present a selection of colour photographs by Ed van der Elsken from the late 60's and early 70's. To many these images may be old acquaintances from Elskens' triumphant books Hello and Eye Love You - a book he himself called a "book of the human mankind, a woman's and men's book, a book of libido, sex, love- and friendship. A book of happiness, sorrow, suffering, death, fighting, courage and vitality".

Together with the colour photographs printed by the Estate of Ed van der Elsken we show black and white photographs of the great Dutch photographer. The photographs were taken in Amsterdam during the 50's and 60's and speak the same curiosity and love for his contemporaries. They show the city in a time before it became the picturesque, well-conserved tourist destination.

Foam, museum of photography in Amsterdam, presents the exhibition My Amsterdam until September 28. Martin Parr, photographer, writer, curator and admirer of Van der Elsken's work, was invited to curate an exhibition of Ed van der Elsken's photos. It was on his initiative that we created a portfolio in a limited edition, consisting of 12 colour photographs.

In the backspace of the gallery we are proud to present the film Siddieqa, Firdaus, Abdallah, Soelayman, Moestafa, Hawwa and Dzoel-kifl, 2004.

Siddieqa, Firdaus, Abdallah, Soelayman, Moestafa, Hawwa and Dzoel-kifl are seven children from an autochthonous Dutch family that converted to Islam. They live in a squatted harbour terrain near Amsterdam. The camera follows the semi-feral children on their exploration trips through the wasteland of soon to be construction sites. Seemingly free from any grown-ups' regulation they swim in water puddles, swing with axes and motor-cross through the wilderness.

The day starts with Soelayman baking an omelette with chunks of fish. Hawwa is building a dam in the morass. A little further up Dzoel-kifl is sitting until his hips in the mud. Abdallah is repairing his bicycle. Moestafa takes a gulp from a large bottle of coke and washes it down with a spoonful of snow. He has already made a round on the terrain. High heaps of sand have been unloaded. In a minute they will check them out.

Joost Conijn and Ed van der Elsken both amaze and seduce the spectator with the captures of their cameras and they show us how life can be.
Siddieqa, Firdaus, Abdallah, Soelayman, Moestafa, Hawwa and Dzoel-kifl, 2004 was shown at De Hallen in Haarlem (NL) and at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona (ES).