De oude en de nieuwe stad 1929

Curator: This striking cityscape before us is Dick Ket’s "The Old and the New City," a linocut from 1929. The piece now resides here at the Rijksmuseum. It immediately grabs your attention, doesn’t it? Editor: It does! There’s a real tension here—an almost violent contrast. The stark black and white gives it such a raw, powerful feeling, like you're right in the middle of urban upheaval. It looks chaotic but considered. Curator: Precisely! Ket is using this linocut print to juxtapose two different worlds: the old, traditional architecture with these imposing, emerging modern structures. The very materiality speaks to labor, doesn’t it? Cutting into the linoleum block—a decidedly un-precious material—to depict such a scene... Editor: Absolutely. It elevates what might have been dismissed as mere craft into a potent social statement. Look at the way he carves the lines – so decisive! The old buildings are huddled together almost defensively in the foreground, while the new construction looms oppressively behind, a geometric wall of steel and progress. The contrast highlights how materials dictate the aesthetic. It also shows us who builds this cityscape: there's sweat behind those blocks of black. Curator: It feels as though we're witnessing a city in the throes of reinvention, teetering between nostalgia and an uncertain future. There's something melancholic about the older buildings almost vanishing under the shadows cast by the modern architecture. Do you find that nostalgia comes through, despite his modern, almost brutal, style? Editor: I do, though it’s a tough, unsentimental kind of nostalgia. And considering that linocuts were much easier and quicker than engravings for larger editions, Ket is also making the social message of the new over the old more readily available through prints! He knows his process. Curator: Yes, this interplay between tradition and modernity, permanence and ephemerality—all captured in these simple but strong lines—speaks volumes. There’s something undeniably haunting about how Ket immortalized this moment of urban transformation. Editor: Absolutely, the choice of material democratizes and emphasizes this precise moment of intense transition through this industrial rendering. Thinking about the labor and means of its distribution makes one view urban planning with a different lens.