Foam

By Fline van der Does

On the 23th of February we went to Amsterdam with all the students of 4 Havo, and we visited two
cultural buildings. It was our 'ckv dag', the activities were very nice, (the shopping also ;)), and
we've had a lot of fun together.

Together with my group I visited FOAM first, which means the photography museum of
Amsterdam. We first had to wait so we checked out the books that they were selling, so we already
had a small impression of the exhibitions we were going to see. We had a guide, and first we went
to the Hiroshi Sugimoto part. He used stuffed animals on the foreground, and a painting on the
background to make it look very realistic, because everyone thought the picture was taken in
Africa, but it wasn't. The guide told us that he made his pictures through a window, but you couldn't
see that because of the techniques he used, and because all the pictures where in black&white. In
my opinion this was the most interesting exhibition they had, because I thought the pictures were
very beautiful and realistic. After that we went to a exhibition with pictures of the sea, but they all
had a slight difference. In for example one of the pictures it looked like it was taken in the dark, but
the guide told us that it was just daylight but with another filter on it. She also told us that the
photographer used a very long shutter, because later on, we saw pictures of a cinema, and the
guide told us that the pictures had been taken with a shutter of one hour!! So you see all the light of
one hour in one single photograph, and I thought that was really impressive. After that, we went to
another exposition, which had to do with electrics and current. The guide had a explanation and
she asked us the things we saw in it, I saw veins first, but later also a tree, lightening, a river, and a
lot more. She told us that the photograph was not made with a camera, but with a kind of stamp. I
first didn't completely understand that, but later I thought it was a really nice and original technique.
After that we went upstairs to the Ren Hang exhibition. We saw pictures of naked asians, but the
pictures where all very different, and I think Ren Hang is very original, because not everyone dares
to take these pictures and comes to the idea to take them. The pictures were all taken in the forest,
so I thought the idea behind it was to make the pictures as natural as possible, without anything
that was created by human.

I really learned a lot in FOAM, about techniques which can be used, but also how to create a very
realistic background, or how to make a picture without a camera, which I didn't think was possible
until I saw this. I also didn't know you could use a shutter of one hour, so all the light of one hour is
being absorbed in one single picture, and I still don't completely understand that but I think it's very
fascinating.
Professional review: (Dutch)
Ben een groot liefhebber van zowel musea als fotografie. "Foam, kan niet stuk", dacht ik
logischerwijs vooraf. Echter helaas was dit het allerminste dat ik in decennia museumbezoek in
vele landen gezien heb.
In een fotografie museum verwacht je prachtige foto's op luxe formaat die je een 'wow gevoel'
geven, je beroeren en/of onder de indruk doen zijn.
Niets was minder waar. Een paar kamers van plint tot plafond volgeplakt met 10 x 15 cm huis tuin
en keuken kiekjes waaronder diverse van de 'kunstenaar' zelf. Verder een expositie van oude
stoffige zwart-wit foto's die wederom het niveau van huis tuin en keuken familie kiekjes niet
ontsteeg. En dan waren er diverse ruimtes waar een video gekeken kon worden in een soort
alternatieve hippie achtige uiterst goedkoop ogende tent. Dit zag er echt extreem armoedig en
treurig uit. Als kers op de taart lagen er enkele zwembandjes op een plaat op de vloer waarbij de
ventielen zichtbaar uitstaken.
Vond het letterlijk en figuurlijk 3 keer niks! Natuurlijk blijft het altijd een kwestie van persoonlijke
smaak maar ook al vindt je inhoudelijk niet alles mooi dan kun je in mijn ervaring toch vaak nog
aan een expositie zien dat deze met zeer veel zorg en gevoel voor kwaliteit samengesteld/
tentoongesteld is. Ook dit ontbreekt bij Foam.
Eerlijk is eerlijk: heb op deze site ook prachtige foto's van de Helmut Newton expositie gezien,
helaas deze gemist maar dat was dan zo op het oog wel weer van een stilistisch en inhoudelijk
mondiaal hoog en verheffend niveau.
Volgende keer beter dus. Maar wat er nu is is een absolute aanfluiting voor Foam, voor Amsterdam
en last but not least voor alle bezoekers. Mijn 5 foto's geven zo ongeveer het geheel weer en
spreken boekdelen.