Karel Zwaneveld - LOOK

This autumn the Noorderlicht Photogallery is showing high points from the work of the Groningen photographer Karel Zwaneveld. For many years Zwaneveld has been photographing for leading dance and theatre companies in The Netherlands. The exhibition includes photographs from the period 1999 to the present, done for the Noord Nederlands Toneel, NND/Galili Dance, Theater te Waterand Tryater, among others.

Zwaneveld’s photographs are created on the stage, in the midst of the dancers and actors. He gets close enough to smell the greasepaint, says little, but it provides food for his eyes. He has an infallible intuition for the expressive power of a grimace, a glance, a gesture, for the beauty of a movement, a pose, a formation. As a result of his experience as a sports photographer Zwaneveld has a well-developed sense for timing and speed. Time after time he picks just that one meaningful moment out of the flow of expressions and movements and captures it perfectly.

In this manner Zwaneveld brings across the essence of the performance. More important, however, is that his way of working produces images with their own autonomous significance. Often from close up, but always in an harmonious composition the photographs reveal the beauty, vulnerability, emotions and physical strength of the actors and the characters they portray. As a viewer you are sucked up onto the stage and experience the Ur-forces there for yourself.