Portrait of Semi (1931, West Java), Jan Banning, 2008
Jan Banning1954

Portrait of Semi (1931, West Java)

2008 · Photograph

Can I see it?

Unknown

Where is “Portrait of Semi (1931, West Java)” now? Collection: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Unknown.

Rijksmuseum

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.

Source
The museum

About the work

A photograph need not be a rapid record of a moment in time. Here the camera slowly explores the women’s worn faces; Banning searches for their emotionally charged history. In the Second World War they were forced into prostitution as ‘comfort women’ in the military

camps of the Japanese occupier. Banning makes portraits in which the long, arduous processing of war experiences is manifest and the slipping by of ‘historical’ time contained.

Rijksmuseum

Details

Accession number
NG-2011-20-4

What it shows

In the catalog

Sources

  • Rijksmuseum
  • Image: Rijksmuseum — © the artist or rights holder
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On view at Rijksmuseum

Museum page

On the same theme · Dutch East Indies

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