To See a Hare Die
‘Valkenburg – Willem de Rooij,’ Centraal Museum Utrecht, on view through 25 January 2026, www.centraalmuseum.nl.
This exhibition is accompanied by the first comprehensive Dirk Valkenburg’s first ever catalogue raisonné, a collaboration with RKD Research, the Netherlands Institute for Art History, and edited by Willem de Rooij and Karwan Fatah-Black, an historian and expert in Dutch colonial history. It includes essays by international scholars and thinkers from various disciplines, including art history, anthropology, postcolonial and queer studies.
The Deserter: The mask of humanity fall[s] from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death… the sweetest, most courageous people in the world… (he’s silent for a second) You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you ‘know.’
You: What?
The Deserter: That the bourgeoisie are not human.
(Disco Elysium, Zaum Studio)
Violence and fracture. These words summarise the experience of the early 2020’s. How thin the veil between the everyday and the apocalyptic. ‘Rape, murder!’ It’s just a scroll away. For some time now, the mask was sweating. And how they tried to keep it on, jacking up the old cynical humanist guard for one last show as they guide us down the warpath. Europe is rearming, cracks are forming in the world order, history is on the move. On the cover of One écologie décoloniale: Penser l’écologie depuis le monde caribéen by French author Malcom Ferdinand, we see the slave ship Zong facing a terrible red and orange storm, a world storm. Birds are panicking, a masthead lies broken and people with chains are being drowned in the raging sea, thrown overboard. Remember those who crossed from Syria? The little two year old boy Alan Kurdi (2012-2015) lying dead on Turkish shores sailing for Greece. Remember Mawda Shari (2016-2018), shot by Belgian police during a car chase trying to reach the UK. Remember that these two young ones we failed are not even a fraction of those we are failing everyday, such as those next door and those around the globe who are dying, fighting and loving while being hunted, tracked and overall dehumanised in your cities and in mine all the time.
It almost feels unnecessary to go back in time, to see for ourselves where all these horrors find their crib, their youth and adolescence when the present is so full of death and suffering. Stories on stories of mutilated bodies, psychological terror and relentless exploitation of the racialised, the gendered and all those branded ‘other’ mark the pages of the colonial, post-colonial and imperial book. Yet if we believe justice to be a worthy goal and debt repaid a measure of lawfulness, it is imperative we face the account of our past fully and honestly. As Ferdinand I said, ‘There will be no holes in the bridge of justice’.
The exhibition in Utrecht Centraal on the work of Dutch painter Dirk Valkenburg (1675 – 1721), curated by Dutch artist Willem de Rooij (b. 1969) and mentor for so many young artists, is a gesture in the right direction. Constructing a sober and informed perspective on the work of a political conforming painter during the early years of Dutch colonial rule in Surinam.
Valkenburg is best known for his depictions of birds, flowers, hunting scenes and landscapes. He was likely the son of a schoolmaster and received his first artistic training from Michiel van Musscher. He later became a pupil of Jan Weenix, under whom he further developed his skills in decorative painting.
Valkenburg worked for a time in Gelderland and Overijssel, creating chimney pieces and other decorative works. In 1696, he traveled to Germany and later spent a short period in Vienna, where he worked for Prince Johann Adam Andreas of Liechtenstein. Around 1706, he was sent to Suriname by the Amsterdam merchant Jonas Witsen. There, he painted birds, plants and scenes of plantation life, while carrying out administrative duties. His work is notable for its early and detailed depiction of tropical nature and colonial realities.
Yet how do we present these works? In de Rooij’s vision, neither grand halls nor extensive analyses are necessary to validate Valkenburg’s portraits, still lives and landscapes. No Louvre-like grandeur or white cube abstraction elevates these work beyond their own capacity to do so. Presented in a factual there-ness, the paintings’ intended use for intimidation and prestige has been deconstructed to the point of pure materiality. Of course, no amount of deconstruction can erase the real and symbolic narratives depicted in Valkenburg’s work. What remains is the fetishisation of black bodies through the white gaze, the clear separation of the human and the animal with all its racist and patriarchal undertones and the Dutch tricolore unreflected in Surinam waters. There is no erasure here of these elements, as it would result in the destruction of the paintings themselves or some textual postmodern cover-up.
The paintings are categorised and presented like rare earth metals or stones from a meteor. Light grey walls are illuminated by a few single beams of light. The space, a renovated attic of sorts located on the museum’s second floor is silent, as visitors are greeted by the proud gaze of early 18th century prominent Dutch citizens. Among them are husband and wife Jan Wolters (1683 -1757) and Sara Munter (1691- 1757). A green parakeet is perched on the delicate white powdered finger of lady Munter linking her female ‘innocence’ to the murderous and empire building profession of her husband Jan Wolters, Director of the Dutch West India Company (GWC) in 1732 and subsequently the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1735. Already several lines of categorisation have been implemented, yet we know where we stand when confronted with this rich heterosexual couple who appear ready to ransack the world ‘for hidden treasures’ (Paradise Lost). Their clothes not only make one feel poor, but they make one feel like one has done everything wrong in life. ‘No, you are not mistaken, you forgot to shave this morning … and I noticed,’ says the clean-shaven bourgeoisie with bright floral patterns on his sleeve and the most relaxed blue eyes. Here, power looks calm and dignified.
A strange contrast forms when the spoils of these quiet powers are expressed by Valkenburg with the most violent passion. In his hunting still lifes, we lose any sense of 17th century rationalism and its coy smile of West-European humanism. Instead we see a wild nature taking over, pumping poison through the adrenaline glands. We see guns and lushly decorated sabres, wild-eyed cats trotting over dead hens, a white wolf bearing its fangs, scaring away its competitors. A hare, hanging from a string by one of its hind legs, bleeds from its nose and mouth. The repetition here is striking not only because the repetition of the same figures demonstrates Valkenburg’s mastery of his craft, but also because the vibrant red pool of blood is always present. The hare is not only dead, its death is recent, is ongoing, maybe it is still alive, a wide-eyed stare of too much pain and hopelessness. A twinge of sadness floods the brain, as I feel my mirror neurons firing up the empathy engines. The hare and the spectator share something, the knowledge of what it’s like to feel like a trapped and dying subject, the knowledge of being extractible, of being moved around, to be showcased among dead birds and rotting fruit.
The amount of work, research and points of perspective that de Rooij and his team have incorporated into this exhibition demonstrate how to approach themes and histories that have left enormous scars and open wounds on humanity. What we come to discover is that the work of art and the historical documents inside Valkenburg’s paintings cannot be accessed without a critical reckoning. We must first remove layers of bad intent, internalised gazes and toxic narratives. Only then can we see the hare, bleeding and dying an undignified death. Only then can we grieve.
Is this then the new method to approach the colonial past? A sober gallery? This is historically scientific to a degree that a certain court-like holiness is constructed, but can a silence and reverence for the work of art as proof of guilt ever be repaid? In times of war and genocide ,I think it is absolutely necessary to construct these sober spaces for historical injustices. A refuge from the vitriol of culture war politics, a reminder of a factual continued colonial violence and the need for a broad alliance of different folk to defend (other than) human dignity wherever it is violated.
