Discover youth culture as seen through the lenses of Gerard Wessel and André Bogaerts. This unique glimpse into teenage lifestyles juxtaposes the wild expressiveness of the nightlife scene captured in Wessel’s photos with Bogaerts’ intimate portraits of teens on the cusp of adulthood – all shot in the period from 1981 to 2012.

Read less POPULAR SUBJECT MATTER There was a time when young people dressed much like adults. But that all changed in the 1950s, when youths started adopting their own distinctive styles to break with adult conventions. They were a striking presence on city streets, and quickly became a popular subject for photographers. One of the first photographers in the Netherlands to focus on young people was Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990). Many others followed his example, capturing images of the youth of their time.

GERARD WESSEL Gerard Wessel (b. 1960) describes himself as a ‘street photographer’, but interprets the term broadly. He photographed ‘The red light district and the city nomads,’ he explains, ‘the vagrants, the city squares, Vondelpark, Waterlooplein, youth culture at large, and the outrageous nightlife scene.’ Most of Wessel’s photographs in Express Yourself were shot in Amsterdam, within just a thousand metres of his home. Wessel worked for many years for the weekly magazine Nieuwe Revu. As a leading showcase for photography at the time, it published many of his images of young people. Wessel’s aim as a photographer has always been to explore his fascination for the human beings living around him.

ANDRÉ BOGAERTS André Bogaerts (1955-2022) took a very different photographic path from Gerard Wessel. He shot portraits of young people at IVKO, the Amsterdam school where he taught photography. Bogaerts was himself still an art student at Amsterdam’s Rietveld Academie when he started working at IVKO. He made a series of portraits of students there in the early 1980s. Vrij Nederland magazine published 17 of these images in November 1982. In the accompanying interviews by Odette de Bont, the students in the portraits talk about their clothing styles and preferences: ‘Actually,’ says one, ‘the only time I don’t think clothes are important is when I’m sleeping.’

THANKS The Rijksmuseum photography collection has come about through the generous support of partners, private individuals and international benefactors.

DONORS Rob and Flora Bogaerts, Amsterdam Fund 1975/Rijksmuseum Fund