SALZBURG.- Koos Breukel has been regarded as one of the main protagonists of Dutch portrait photography for more than 20 years. Breukel originally made a name for himself with his sensitive portraits of friends, for instance his early series of the actor Michael Matthews afflicted by an incurable illness (Hyde, 1996), as well as anonymous portraits of people bound by a common fate. In these portraits of (partially) blind people (Cosmetic View, 2005) or of survivors of airplane crashes he addresses the relationship between photographer and model, but also the act of seeing and being seen.

In his project Being Dutch Breukel succeeds in using selected images of people to fathom the actual mood and state of an entire country. In something of a retrospective the artist showcases different people, his family, fellow artists and friends, through to the official portrait of King Willem Alexander, recently enthroned. Also included in the exhibition are portraits, taken by Breukel, of Salzburg residents from the Fotohof’s immediate Lehen neighbourhood.

The curator for this special project was Willem van Zoetendaal. In 2012 his publishing company, Van Zoetendaal Publishers, published the book Koos Breukel – Being Dutch, from which the exhibition derives its name.

Koos Breukel, born in The Hague, Netherlands. Studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague from 1982 to 1986; lives and works in Amsterdam.

Willem van Zoetendaal, born in the Hague, Netherlands, in 1950. Curator, book designer and publisher; lives and works in Amsterdam.

Bernhard Cella – and.learning english has no use
What sort of role can the means at art’s disposal play in an encounter with a different culture? For his residency at China’s Nanjing Art University, Bernhard Cella set up an experiment. He took along motifs from his works and shown them to the young artists, then asked them to find their own interpretations. His artist’s book entitled and.learning english has no use, which was published in the Fotohof edition in 2012, features his own works as well as the photographs they took; a video installation shows them at work. Thus, beyond even the almost insurmountable of language barriers Cella succeeds in triggering insights into the culture of a foreign work environment.

Bernhard Cella, born in Salzburg in 1969; lives and works in Vienna.