Cornelis Jaring was born on December 18, 1936 on one of the 'islands' of Amsterdam. Most well known is his photographie work on Provo* the Amsterdam hippie-movernent of the 1960s. But from an aesthetical and social perspective his pictures of the Amsterdam harbour are certainly more impressive. Jaring was and is a man of the street. When young he did all kinds of jobs in the harbour of Amsterdam, and assisted his father in his second~hand shop. It was in military service that Jaring first met photography. and although he is a deserving painter too, he never left photography again. He felt at home in the streets of Amsterdam, and photographed people at work, the red light district, the markets, the harbour. In 1962, the year of his first exposition, he ran into Robert Jasper Grootveld, who was to become one of the heroes of Dutch Provo. Jaring followed, covered and became famous with his photographs of the roaring sixties. His Provo-photographs are a sign of the time: dark, quick, moments of great anxiety and activity. His greatest involvement was with the movement's more playful happenings: the Insect Sect, "the Kitch-Conservatory. His political feelings were never that strong, which made it rather unproblematie for him to sell his pictures of the politically loaded actions to whoever wanted to publish them. lt is for that reason that his work and the history of Dutch Provo gained international recognition, and have become almost inseparable. In the late sixties Jaring started to travel: to the Far East, Northern Africa, the Soviet Union and large parts of Europe. His photographs differ considerably from the work on Provo. Provo was his world, he literally was always close to his subject, whereas his travel-photographs are more distanced, more reflective, the people seem further, away. With the death of Provo, Jarings work has moved definitely in the direction of documentary photography, concentrated on his Amsterdam: life in different quarters of the city, the life and work of chinese populations of Amsterdam, Carnival in the Capital. Influential magazines like Life Time, Stern, and others all over the world have covered Jaring's work. Since 1971 jaring teaches at the Enschede Academy of Art. In 1987 Christie?s Amsterdam held a sale, comprising 250 photographs of 'the Amsterdam master photographer?. Jaring is still active as a photographer. Of late he has taken to picture more of the Amsterdam harbour, and of daily life in the quarter around his home. Notwithstanding the wide variety of subjects he "covered", the travels he made, as a thread throughout his work stands his impressive and still increasing oeuvre on the Amsterdam harbour. It is in a way paradigmatic for his entire oeuvre as it is the ultimate social comment, the universal record of people and their life. It is timeless photography, of hard Work. It is encompassing in it?s aesthetic, its social and political message, and the hard, dark and clear quality of composition and content render this part of his oeuvre unforgettable. Bernie Pasveer.
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