One of my most vivid memories from my time as a young gymnast was sitting terrified on the mat as I waited for our trainer to perform the daily stretching exercises. When it was my turn, I would have to sit upright with my legs in a V-shape, while the coach would pick them up and pull them as far apart as humanly possible. The pain was excruciating and most of my teammates would end up crying by the end. But that was the secret to achieving the logic-defying elasticity every gymnast needed to compete.
That extreme physicality is on full display in Rineke Dijkstra’s latest exhibition, “The Gymschool, St. Petersburg” at New York’s Marian Goodman Gallery. The Dutch photographer’s new project consists of a triptych video installation, which follows a group of young Russian gymnasts (ages 8 to 13) as they prepare for a major competition. “I was already working with ballet and I wanted to do something else with rehearsals,” Dijkstra said during yesterday’s preview. “I always start with something. There’s always a fascination.”
Dijkstra had been selected to participate in Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which took place in St. Petersburg last year. For the festival, she asked Manifesta’s organizers to find her a school where she could film young athletes in training. “It was great because Russia is, of course, famous for their gymnastics,” she said. They finally settled on an Olympic school where students attended classes by day and trained as rhythmic gymnasts in the afternoon. After spending a few days watching them in action, Dijkstra set up a studio inside the gymnasium and invited the young athletes to stop by whenever they had spare time. “I like to be in the environment where it happens, instead of inviting them to mine.” she said. “I like to create possibilities where things can happen.”
The in-school studio had two cameras and an all-white background. The setup highlights the gymnasts’ bodies as they perform a series of exercises, such as arches, side splits, and bridges. “I wanted to show how difficult it is to keep your balance,” Dijkstra explained, “and that process of learning the exercise that you have to do again and again and again.”
The film opens on an 8-year-old with pigtail braids, who is still unsteady in her balance but approaches the repeated poses with gusto. As the installation progresses, the age, flexibility, and skill of each gymnast also continues to grow. The final film shows an advanced 12-year-old girl, whose somber expression remains as she contorts her body until her form ends up resembling that of an insect.
Dijkstra has always been drawn to women going through different states of transformation. One of her most famous photos, Hilton Head Island, S.C., shows a teenage girl posing in an orange bikini and a full face of makeup on the beach. Later, Dijkstra photographed several women only hours after they had given birth. “I think it’s always about transition,” Dijkstra said. “But the point for me here was to capture a shape in different angles. [These girls] make sculptures with their own bodies.”