“Notes from Poznań” is a project by a Dutch artist-photographer Ruben van Luijk, which is a result of his impressionistic relation with the place of temporary residence – the city of Poznań. It is “the time” and its course, in relation to the place, that seems to be the reference point for the presented photographs. Pictures, however, are not a simple record of places and situations. They are strongly marked by the their form chosen by the author. Placed on old paper, they acquire spontaneously, through specific ground metrics, the features of an intimate document – evidence of the observer’s emotion in contact with the locations shown. This lack of objectivity is what builds their internal, as if added, narrative. Thanks to this, the viewer participates in an individual and unique visual experience in which contemporary images become a testimony of the past; they are ephemeral and “run away” from a simple, categorizing look. In result, they refer to emotional rather than rational understanding of what is depicted on them.

Ulica Podgórna, Poznań

Ulica Głogowska, Poznań

Ulica Niepodległósci, Poznań

Rondo Kaponiera, Poznań

Park Adama Mickiewicza, Poznań

Park Kaprowicza, Poznań

Ulica Głogowska, Poznań

Ulica Głogowska, Poznań


Ruben van Luijk is a Dutch visual artist currently residing in Poland. He has a weakness for everything obsolete – especially for methods of image-making using old, analogue combinations of optics and chemistry. After starting to photograph at the beginning of the millennium with a cheap, second-hand bought Pentax KM, his camera of preference is now the Agfa Clack, a medium format point-and-shoot from the fifties. In addition, he likes to experiment with instant photography and 8mm film, exposes his own black & white prints in the darkroom, and occasionally works with even more archaic techniques like gum & casein printing. He is not ashamed to be nostalgic but at the same time seeks to recreate reality in his own, completely personal way without reconstructing photographic styles from the past. All of his works are unica.

Ruben van Luijk had and/or has other lives as writer (in Dutch), publisher/editor, teacher, and historian. (So if you google him and see a monograph on the history of Satanism pop up in your search results: yes, he did write this.)

https://rubenvanluijk.wordpress.com/

Publications
Rotterdammers (Leporelloreeks #1. Rotterdam, Nadorst 2019)
Petit manuel pour se balancer à un arbre (Rotterdam, Nadorst 2013)
Betreden op eigen risico. Rotterdamse slooplocaties in beeld (Maassluis, De Brouwerij 2008/2009)
Photographing Paris. Paris Photographée. Parijs gefotografeerd. Paris Fotografiert (Utrecht, Kaasschaaf Uitgeverij 2007)

Group & duo exhibitions
Motorfoto’s/Rotterdammers, Galerie Serruys, Rotterdam, September–October 2019
Tableaux du trottoir/Cheerful Porn, Mi Camera, Zeist, January 2017
Kunst onder de honderd, pop-up exhibition, Rotterdam, September–October 2016
Carte Blanche, Galerie Werklicht, Rotterdam, April 2015
Domgeving/Meer dan de Dom, pop-up exhibitions, Utrecht, October–November 2004

Courses followed
gum dichromate printing, Atelier Polychrome, Middelburg, October 2012

Projects in progress
Notatki poznańskie – Clack snapshots of Poznań, Poland, printed on Warschaupact-era document paper.
Girls Running Nude (working title) – Still photos from Super8 recordings of girls running naked through nature
Nature Morte – Casein & colour prints from positive slides of nature dioramas in selected European museums


Avatar photo
Poznań Art Week

PAW is an art festival inaugurated in 2017 in the capital of Wielkopolska in order to create a joint cultural program of public and private institutions operating in the field of visual arts.