Jacqueline Hassink: The Table of Power 2

The Table of Power 2 returns to Jacqueline Hassink’s photographic investigation of corporate interiors. Her earlier project recorded desks and conference tables at major multinational companies; the publisher notes its inclusion in Martin Parr’s survey of photobooks. This 2012 volume takes up the question again in the aftermath of the financial crisis, asking whether changes in economic power can be seen in the rooms where it is exercised.

Hassink turns to the headquarters of major European businesses identified through Fortune’s rankings, including Shell, BP, Volkswagen, Allianz and ING. Banks, insurance companies and other corporations supply the setting, but the immediate photographic subjects are desks, tables and empty rooms. The publisher likens her precision to scientific observation and reads the emptiness as suggestive of power itself. A material place becomes the point of contact with an economic structure that is harder to picture directly.

Hatje Cantz published the English-language hardcover in January 2012: 224 pages, 539 photographs, 270 by 330 millimetres. Irma Boom designed the book, and Hassink, Annegret Pelz and Michiel Goudswaard contribute texts. The publisher’s exhibition programme includes Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen in Amsterdam in 2011 and Moscow House of Photography in 2013.

For collectors interested in photographic typologies or the visual representation of institutions, the connection with the earlier project is important. Hassink again uses corporate furniture and interiors to approach a question about authority, placing the return within a post-crisis context. The comparison concerns how power takes visible form, without needing the people who occupy the offices to become portrait subjects. Desks and conference tables provide a specific, repeatable motif through which the broader question can be examined.

The 2008 financial crisis shook the world in its economic foundations. But what has changed in the power centers of the economy since then? Do executive floors look different today than before? And what do you actually look like? Already held 15 years ago Jacqueline Hassink (*1966 in Enschede, Netherlands) The table situations in the work rooms of the then 40 largest multinational companies in Europe photographed, and Martin Parr took up her project of the most important photo books of the 20th century. Today the artist takes a look at the headquarters of around 40 banks, insurance and institutes that the US economic magazine Fortune According to the most powerful European market players. With scientifically looking precision, she targets the tables at Shell, BP, Volkswagen, Allianz or Ing in human and soulless rooms- the emptiness was part of the essence of power. Exhibitions: Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam 2011 | Moscow House of Photography 2013 | And other stations

Designed by: Irma Boom
Artist: Jacqueline Hassink
Texts by: Jacqueline Hassink, Prof. Dr. Annegret Pelz, Michiel Goudswaard
English
January 2012, 224 Pages , 539 Photos
hardcover
270mm x 330mm
ISBN:978-3-7757-3214-7

Publisher page editorial text:
| A comparison and photographic panorama of “tables of power”
The financial crisis of 2009 shook the global economy to its very foundations. Yet has anything changed at the centers of power since? Do executive suites look different than they used to? And what do they actually look like?
A decade ago, Jacqueline Hassink (*1966 in Enschede, the Netherlands) captured images of desks and conference room tables at what were at the time the largest multinational corporations in the world. Magnum photographer Martin Parr included her project in his catalogue of the most important photo books of the twentieth century. Today, the artist is taking another look at the headquarters of the approximately fifty companies that the American business magazine Fortune lists as the most powerful actors on the market: banks, insurance companies, and corporations such as Shell, BP, Volkswagen, and ING. With scientific precision, Hassink focuses on the desks and tables in deserted, soulless rooms—as if emptiness was one of the inherent features of power.
 
Exhibition schedule: Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, 2011 | Moscow House of Photography, 2013 | And further venues

Related publisher work-title evidence (title only, not edition specifications): https://hatjecantz.com/collections/archive/products/17097-jacqueline-hassinkthe-table-of-power-2
Jacqueline HassinkThe Table of Power 2

Publisher source ↗