UNTIL 12 SEPTEMBER
Hermitage Amsterdam

Opinion seems to be fairly polarised when it comes to Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf’s work. He is either a commercial sell-out peddling cliché fairy tales or a visionary and master of his field. Whatever the opinion, his portraits and tableaux are highly stylised and almost instantly recognisable. Common themes involve other-worldly models lounging in sci-fi 19th century drawing rooms or immaculate 1960s design hotel suites, or simple light and shadow studies of the human figure.

In his tableaux, the lighting and colour ranges are immaculate as tone, shadow and saturation are meticulously attended to in both the photo shoot itself and also in post-production. His choice of imagery can at times be disturbing (examples would be Royal Blood and Fashion Victims, both in 2000) but his treatment of the scene as a whole always creates a certain tenuous tension between the depth of the background and the sometimes flat subject matter itself. The eye is drawn away from the immediate, obvious element as every detail in the photo is perfect, either in its density or sparseness, and the viewer is drawn into these macabre, yet beautiful and fascinating, scenes.

In Dusk & Dawn, Olaf presents 12 works that are inspired by Frances Benjamin Johnson’s 1899-1900 photographs of African-American students at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. These young people attemped to break through the entrenched racial divide in a newly emancipated US.

Dusk is a series of portraits of a black, middle-class family, set seemingly around the turn of the 20th century. The portraits are total shades of black; the furnishings; costumes; statues; walls and floors; the inhabitants beautiful, regal almost, yet there seems to be a fear present. A resentment of or unease with their surroundings.

In stark opposition, Dawn then presents us with six images that are white in hue, temperature, furnishings and costume. The family still show the ever-present unease, yet it is our interpretation of the imagery that writes these stories for each viewer.

Apparently the inspiration for the series followed an encounter in a five-star Moscow hotel, where a woman and her son were seated in a spacious all-white breakfast room, dressed in white, at a white table, and surrounded by the high white walls. A purely visual experience.

Olaf is a master of the visual. He knows his craft very well and follows his concepts through to the end. His fantasy worlds are like the best sci-fi: so alien yet so familiar, and it’s this unseen familiarity with our world that is a large part of the appeal of his work. He continues to be in high demand as a commercial photographer and now film-maker, and this exposure brings him the funds to enable his grand ideas to become reality.