Jan Banning
Biographie
Jan Banning was born in The Netherlands in 1954, from Dutch-East-Indies immigrant parents. He studied social and economic history at the University of Nijmegen and has been working as a photographer since 1981.
His work, rooted in both art and journalism, has been exhibited in museums and galleries and published widely in books, magazines and newspapers. The central concern in his work is the theme of state power (and its abuse); Banning has produced series on the long-term consequences of war and the world of government bureaucracy. Recently, he finished a portrait series of World War II “comfort women” in Indonesia.
Aside from Dutch, Banning is fluent in English, German and Spanish, speaks French reasonably well, and speaks some Portuguese and Indonesian.
Representation/Agencies
Gallery: For print sales, Banning’s work is represented worldwide (except in Europe, where it is represented by himself), by Anastasia Photo, 166 Orchard St., New York, NY 10002, phone: 212-677-9725, fax: 212-677-9726, www.anastasia-photo.com.
Agencies: For print media, his work is represented by the agencies laif (Cologne, Germany), Panos(London, UK), and Hollandse Hoogte (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).
Exhibitions: Tina Keck – mail@tinakeck.de
Personal Agent: Maartje Wildeman – maartjewildeman@chello.nl
Books
2010: Comfort Women/Troostmeisjes (Ipso Facto/Seltmann+Söhne Utrecht/Lüdenscheid).
2010: Bouwwerk. Mensen maken het museum (limited edition, Rijksmuseum. Assignment by the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam).
2008: Bureaucratics, ed. Martin Parr (Nazraeli Press, Portland, OR,ISBN 1-59005-232-7). Documentary portraits of government officials in eight countries across the globe.
2007: Binnen is het donker, buiten is het licht (with author Dick Wittenberg: Atlas, Amsterdam, ISBN 978-90-450-1466-1), about life in poverty in the countryside of Malawi, Africa.
2005: Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways (Trolley Books, London, ISBN 1-904563-46-5). Photos of and interviews by Banning with 24 Dutch and Indonesian men, including the photographer’s father, who were forced to build railroads for the Japanese during World War II.
2003: Sporen van oorlog. Overlevenden van de Birma- en de Pakanbaroe-spoorweg (Ipso Facto, Utrecht, ISBN 90-77386-01-7), the Dutch version of Traces of War.
1997: Pulang. Terug naar Maluku (Focus, Amsterdam, ISBN 90-72216-76-8), documenting the repatriation of an elderly Moluccan couple from The Netherlands to the Indonesian Moluccas.
1993: Vietnam: Doi Moi (Focus, Amsterdam, ISBN 90-72216-38-5). About social, economic and cultural changes in post-war Vietnam, with a text by Banning in English and Dutch.
Banning was the photographer for numerous other books, including The Prize of Paradise (Inmerc, Wormer, 2004, about the new EU-countries, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, author Herman Vuijsje) and Burma Behind the Mask (BCN, Amsterdam 1997, Minka Nijhuis e.a., with an introduction by Aung San Suu Kyi); and he contributed to books such as Agent Orange. Apocalypse Vietnam (Demi Lune, Paris, Fr, 2010, author André Bouny) and A Day in the Life of Thailand (Collins, San Francisco, USA, 1995).
Selected Magazines and Newspapers
Banning’s photographs have been published in several magazines and newspapers such as: The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, Foreign Policy (USA); NRC/Handelsblad, ‘M’ Magazine, De Volkskrant, Vrij Nederland (The Netherlands), Geo, Die Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, Der Spiegel (Germany); The Guardian Weekend, The Independent (UK); L’Espresso (Italy); XL Semanal (Spain); Le Monde, Liberation (France); Politiken (Denmark), Esquire (Russia), Tempo, Kompas (Indonesia); and Geo Korea (South Korea).
Selected Bibliography
Among the many publications written about Banning and his work are those in Whitewall Magazine (Spring 2009), Photonews (December 2008), Art on Paper (September/October 2008), and Photo District News (February 2007).
Collections
Banning’s photographs are in public, corporate and private collections throughout Europe and the United States, including JGS, Inc. (USA); Open Society Archives (Budapest, Hungary); Ministerie van Justitie (Department of Justice), several Dutch courthouses, and Tilburg University (The Netherlands).
Trendsnow parle de Jan Banning
