In her second book of photography, van Hoek finds texture and abstraction in downtown Los Angeles.
Photographer: Désirée van HoekWhen a Dutch Photographer Turned Her Camera on Los Angeles
Désirée van Hoek lives in Amsterdam, but finds urban vitality — and a bit of anarchy — on the changing streets of downtown LA.
While Dutch photographer Désirée van Hoek lives full time in Amsterdam, she has devoted much of her career to thinking about Los Angeles. Work that the artist made while visiting LA was the subject of her first book, Skid Row, a study of the city’s homelessness crisis executed through portraits and urban landscapes. That book was something of a warning to Amsterdam: If the Netherlands swerves in its commitment to a robust social safety net, Dutch cities could wind up with the kind of visible housing crisis that cities in the US struggle and fail to solve.
Her second book, Notes on Downtown: Los Angeles 2007–2022, is more like a warning from Amsterdam. Released earlier this year, this collection of photographs and interviews captures the color and texture of a city whose downtown is under pressure from gentrification. Her visits to the city find her worrying that LA could lose the vitality that makes it so distinctive.