Beyond tulips

Holland's landscape is largely artificial. There are no sweeping views of natural wonder, no Yosemite or even Niagara Falls. Probably a quarter of that small country is man-made, yet a romanticized image of the Netherlands—of tulip fields and windmills— endures.

"In Sight: Contemporary Dutch Photography from the Collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam" should alter that perception. The exhibition, which is at the Art Institute of Chicago, shows the work of 13 photographers. The display is bolstered by work from LaSalle Bank's photo-graphy collection.

The Stedelijk, which began building its photography collection in 1958, is undergoing a major renovation, which is partly why this exhibition was able to come to Chicago. As it turns out, the largest collection of Dutch photography outside of that museum exists in Chicago—in LaSalle's collection. David Travis, the Art Institute's photography curator, met with LaSalle's curator, Carol Ehlers, and discovered, as he put it, a "treasure trove." All three institutions collaborated on this exhibition.

Of the artists assembled, Rineke Dijkstra probably has had the most exposure internationally, with her well-reviewed series Beach Portraits—head-on shots of adolescents posed by the water's edge. Dijkstra also has the strongest Chicago connection. In 2003, LaSalle Bank supported the publication of her monograph on that series de-signed by Chicago's Studio Blue.

Here, Dijkstra's portraits include those of mothers who have just given birth to their first child. This is not an Anne Geddes–like pasteurized view of motherhood; in these large images, women are shown barely cleaned up from the mess of bringing new life into the world.

Travis first saw the work of Dijkstra several years ago. The images were so compelling that he decided to find out what else Holland had to offer.

While the featured photographers are Dutch, their work often extends beyond their borders and the subject matter is universal. Wijnanda Deroo's "portraits without persons" include lush color images of interior spaces in Mexico. Deroo prefers to work only with natural light. Wout Berger, a former advertising photographer, turned his attention to the landscape and created a series of images taken at polluted sites in Holland. In Ruigoord Nr. 2, the flowers that have pushed through the toxic soil have a wild beauty, as if arranged by a garden designer. Koos Breukel's work is the most seemingly traditional and formal here, with black-and-white portraits taken with a view camera.

Elspeth Diederix is one of the younger photographers in this exhibition. Diederix, who was born in Kenya in 1971, works with color in extraordinary ways. Azalea (2003), the large-scale photograph chosen as the invitation piece, has an almost mesmerizing and disorienting quality. One might be tempted to pluck one of the vividly colorful blossoms, only to discover it is a plastic bag.

Diederix collects such disposable objects as bags and yellow party cups, holding on to them for months until she can find the right place and right time to shoot them. Another one of her images, Blue Ridge, shows a young man lying on his side in a field with an unnaturally red ear. It was taken in Virginia. Diederix was spending some time one summer near Washington, D.C., and was surprised by how hot it could get and how skin could flush red in reaction to heat.

Diederix says her approach to making photographs is much like creating a puzzle: She has to have the right combination of elements for the image to fall into place. If she didn't work this way, she says during an interview, it would be "harder for you to see what it is I want to show you."

In Sight: Contemporary Dutch Photography from the collection of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum is at The Art Institute of Chicago through May 8.