CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/30/2018

Inscrutable and disorienting: Rineke Dijkstra

These two portraits of an Israeli soldier, Evgenya, in civilian dress and in uniform, taken nine months apart in 2002, are reproduced from the Louisiana Museum’s superb new Rineke Dijkstra retrospective. "The power of the series lies in Dijkstra’s subtle but thorough avoidance of cliché,” Hans den Hartog Jager writes. “The girls don’t look especially pained in their regulation army outfits, or especially relieved or liberated at home. Instead, their expressions throughout the series are so inscrutable that the viewer’s gaze seems to bounce right off of them. As a viewer, you realize that your interpretation of the photo says a great deal about your own attitude toward uniforms, freedom, war, and major social dilemmas.”