'One of a Kind': A 10-year anniversary show with unique pieces

When, in 2012, Narda van 't Veer and Jasper Bode founded The Ravestijn Gallery, they were amongst the few galleries in the Netherlands who felt photography was more than simply a way to hold a mirror up to the world. Instead, photography for them was a means to do more; to interrogate, to imagine, to construct, to play. Whilst others sought to exhibit only what they deemed beautiful, Jasper and Narda sought to exhibit what they found compelling. Such art did not always meet what many expected from photography. It was not always flat, it was inquisitive, it often eschewed likeness and sometimes made no attempt to hide the marks and manipulation of the artist. Whilst this type of photography had lived under the umbrella of conceptual photography since the 1960s, many galleries in the Netherlands were reticent to exhibit it. As such, it was The Ravestijn Gallery’s openness to what photography could be that established it as a place apart from what existed at the time.

Today, Jasper and Narda’s outlook remains the same, whilst the artists they represent have steadily grown in number and variety. Some, including Eva Stenram and Vincent Fournier have been with the gallery for almost ten years. Others, like Michael Bailey-Gates and Theis Wendt have joined more recently, each adding their markedly different way of working to an already diverse and thought-provoking group of international artists. It’s this multiplicity that has come to be the hallmark of the work exhibited by The Ravestijn Gallery, and if we are to look at the nearly fifty exhibitions the gallery has held, we will find a rich array of what photography has to offer us. Tereza Zelenkova’s pensive black and white photographs, for example, brim with the arcane symbolism of folklore and spirituality; images that collectively reflect Zelenkova’s enduring fascination with literature, memory and place. Anja Niemi’s work, however, is deftly allegorical, each photograph a self-reflexive inquiry into her own identity in which Niemi plays the role of both author and character. For other artists, photography is only one part of their vocabulary. Thomas Kuijpers is a striking example of this, whose practice unites video, sculpture, found objects, photographs and more into installations that ask how the many forms of media, from newspapers to the internet, mould our lived reality. Indeed, the work Jasper and Narda give a platform to has never fitted neatly into one category. Instead, it occupies many, stretching from the figurative and the sculptural to the constructed and the abstract. 

One of a Kind is a keen reflection of this defining trait and the gallery’s eagerness to embrace photography in all its forms. Importantly, however, it is also an opportunity to understand Jasper and Narda’s unending fondness for the medium, as told through some of the artists they have worked with for the last ten years.