Critical Mass
The world that Jasper de Beijer (Amsterdam, 1973) presents to us through his photographic works are fascinating, familiar and disconcerting all at the same time. His work is about the process of looking, seeing and interpreting. At first you think it’s a photograph of reality, but then you see it’s a photo- graph of a paper model. You are swept into a narrative that is more than a photograph. You need to respond in some way, but how? This is precisely the question the artist is asking us: Do you really know what you are seeing?
The publication Critical Mass. Jasper de Beijer and the exhibition of the same name were made possible by the support of the Agnes van den Brandeler Museum Prize, jointly awarded to Museum Rijswijk and the artist.
"The work of Jasper de Beijer (Amsterdam, 1973) is about the process of looking, seeing and interpreting, and focuses thematically on a specific historical period and event. It is not just the process that you go through as a viewer when you are looking at his work, but you also recognise the method of working that the artist used when making it. He uses visual data such as postcards, newspapers or commercial photography to analyse historical moments, such as Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, Western visions of Africa, or the Industrial Revolution. We are looking at a photographic registration of a labour-intensive working process that eventually results in an autonomous artwork."
- Diana Wind, Curator of contemporary art, Museum Rijswijk
