Awoiska van der Molen
Awoiska van der Molen (born 1972) is a Dutch photographer, living in Amsterdam.[1] She has produced three books of black and white landscape photographs, made in remote places. Van der Molen has been shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and the Prix Pictet, and her work is held in the collections of the Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Life and work
Van der Molen studied architecture and design at Academie Minerva in Groningen, Netherlands, then photography at Hunter College, City University of New York, New York City.[1] In 2003 she gained an MFA in photography at Academy of Art and Design St. Joost in Breda, Netherlands.[1]
Between 2000 and 2003, she made portraits of charismatic women she met on the streets of Manhattan, later switching to people judged by different criteria.[2] After that she turned to photographing anonymous buildings at the edge of the city.[2] Since 2009 Van der Molen has concentrated on the natural world, travelling alone to remote places in order to make the work.[2][3][4] She makes black and white prints in her own darkroom.[3][4] Her first book, Sequester (2014), "photographed throughout the whole of Europe"[5] including the volcanic Canary Islands,[4] contains monochromatic "landscapes, at times abstractly rendered to the point of dissolving into abstractions [. . . ] often obliterating all sense of the physical scale that was in front of the camera, many of them using very narrow ranges of tonality, from the blackest black to maybe a dark grey".[6] Blanco (2017) contains photographs of desolate landscapes and trees. The Living Mountain (2020) is "a book about land, solitude and the planet we inhabit."[7] Sean O'Hagan and Jörg Colberg have praised the quality of her prints.[4][6]
Publications
Books of work by van der Molen
Publications with contributions by van der Molen
- De laatste fotograaf?. Breda, Netherlands: AKV/St. Joost, 2009.
- Quickscan #01. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Nederlands Fotomuseum, 2010. Edited by Frits Gierstberg.
- Hyeres 26th International Festival Photography catalogue. 2011. Edited by Raphaelle Stopin.
- Alt+1000 High Altitude. By Nathalie Herschdorfer. 2011.
- Fotoverhalen collection catalogue. The Hague, Netherlands: Fotomusem Den Haag, 2014. ISBN 9789462260177.
- The Marseillaise collection catalogue. Fotomuseum Huis Marseille, 2014.
- Hariban Award 2014. Kyoto: Benrido Collotype Atelier, 2014. With text in Japanese and English. Edition of 150 copies.
- Object Onder / Object Below Sanders Collection. Amsterdam: Pieter & Marieke Sanders, 2015. ISBN 9783863358334.
- The Grain of the Present. San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2017. With a text by Kim Beil. ISBN 9781597110006.
- Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. 2017. ISBN 9780957618886.
- Failed Images: Photography and its Counter-Practices. Leiden: E.J. van Alphen, 2019. ISBN 9789492095459.
- Into the Woods: Trees in Photography. London: Thames & Hudson, 2019. ISBN 978-0500480533.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
- Blanco, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, 2016.[8][9]
Group exhibitions
- Into the Woods: Trees in Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2018[10][11]
Collections
- Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam: 4 prints (as of November 2020)[12]
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London: a set of 8 collotype prints (as of November 2020)[13]
Awards
- 2014: Grand Prize, Hariban Award, Benrido Collotype Atelier, Kyoto, Japan[4][14]
- 2017: Larry Sultan Photography Award, Pier 24 Photography and McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, Califnrnia[15]
- 2017: Shortlisted, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, London, for her exhibition Blanco at Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam[16]
- 2019: Shortlisted, Prix Pictet, Geneva[17][18][19]
References
- "Awoiska van der Molen". Prix Pictet. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Awoiska van der Molen: Sensing the Landscape". Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
- Nemett, Barry (31 March 2018). "Photographers Among the Trees, from Steichen to Bae Bien-U". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Bewitched by blackness: photographing the desolate beauty of the Canaries". The Guardian. 26 September 2014. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Interview with Awoiska van der Molen". FK. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
- Colberg, Jörg. "Awoiska van der Molen: Sequester". Conscientious Photography Magazine. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
- Feuerhelm, Brad (4 July 2020). "Awoiska van der Molen's The Living Mountain". American Suburb X. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Subscribe to read". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-11-14. Cite uses generic title (help)
- "Awoiska van der Molen exhibition at Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam". Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Into the woods: trees in photography". The Guardian. 15 November 2017. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
- Durrant, Nancy. "Exhibition review: Into the Woods — Trees in Photography at the V&A". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
- "Awoiska van der Molen". Huis Marseille. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Your Search Results". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- http://benrido-collotype.today/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HARIBAN%E3%83%91%E3%83%B3%E3%83%95%EF%BC%88%E8%8B%B1%EF%BC%89.pdf
- "Awoiska van der Molen". Pier 24 Photography. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
- "Prix Pictet 2019 shortlist – photo essay". The Guardian. 5 July 2019. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "Hope: Prix Pictet 2019, photographic competition shortlist selection". The Telegraph. 5 July 2019. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- O’Hagan, Sean (13 November 2019). "Joana Choumali wins 2019 Prix Pictet photography prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- "In pictures: Prix Pictet launches a virtual exhibition". New Statesman. Retrieved 2020-11-14.