Ad van Denderen – Club Med No More – The Dark Side of Tourism
#3 min Moritz Neumüller, Ad van Denderen
28. 1. 2024
I first got to know Ad van Denderen’s work in the form of a book, the legendary and highly effective Go No Go, published in several languages in 2003. It is a publication that I frequently use in class and it has a special place on my bookshelf. However, in the context of the subject of tourism, it is his So Blue, So Blue that has a special interest, as it delves into the profound economic, political, socio-religious, and ecological shifts unfurling within the expansive mosaic of the Mediterranean Sea.
This region, which keeps attracting sun-seeking tourists from around the world, is also the historical nexus where Europe, Asia, and Africa have converged and intertwined for centuries. It is a melting pot of cultures but also a political powder keg where the stark contrasts of Christianity and Islam, and affluence and poverty, collide. The five-year enterprise started right at the entry point to the Mediterranean, on the southern tip of Spain: “I was photographing migrants at Punta Paloma when this project presented itself. In the early morning, after forty migrants made it ashore, unsuspecting tourists appeared on the empty beach and laid down on their towels.”
Van Denderen’s images of artificially irrigated golf courses in water-scarce landscapes are just as impressive as the photos he takes directly above the surface of the water, evoking the view of those people who risk their lives to reach the "promised land"; even if the promise often turns out to be false, both for the migrants and the golf tourists. However, it seems that environmental sins and societal tensions are the price that we are willing to pay to keep the tourism machine going, not only along the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea but also in the Levante and Northern Africa. Of course, the images shown here represent just a fraction of the mesmerising tapestry captured by van Denderen during his immersive sojourn across the seventeen countries that comprise the Mediterranean's enthralling coastline. Through his lens, he reveals the pulse of a region undergoing metamorphosis, a place where timeless traditions intertwine with the currents of modernity.
His work on the concept of tourism also exemplifies his general critical view of the world we live in. From September 30, 2023, until next January, the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam will honour the artist with a retrospective called Onderweg/En Route that shows works from fifty years, on themes such as migration, as well as the tensions in the Middle East and South Africa. This exhibition will certainly make evident that, even if his long-term projects show great differences in terms of focus and style, Ad van Denderen’s oeuvre reveals an impressive coherence when it comes to his photographic language and overall approach: “In a changed world, the subjects I have photographed for decades are still very topical.”
Text | Moritz Neumüller
IMAGES CAPTIONS
1 | Ad Van Denderen, Dutch tourists, Murzuq dessert, Libya, 2007
2 | Ad Van Denderen, Germa, Libya, 2007
3 | Ad Van Denderen, Tourists from Cairo, Port Said, Egypt, 2005
4 | Ad Van Denderen, Mediterranean Sea, Mallorca, Spain, 2004
5 | Ad Van Denderen, Arenal, Spain, 2004
1-5 | Courtesy of the author
Moritz Neumüller
Ad van Denderen
#6 min Redakce / Editorial
Fotograf Magazine Open Call 2026
17. 5. 2026Talents wanted!
#3 min Jakub Tulinger
Jakub Tulinger
#1 min Markéta Kinterová
Dita Pepe, Barbora Baronová – O japonských slečnách
#3 min Barbora Vanická Čápová
Editor’s Picks by Barbora Vanická Čápová
Selecting only five articles from such a wealth of outstanding content required considerable effort. That is why I decided to create a thematic selection focused on the motif of the island as a parallel in broader ideas about our society: places between acceptance and exclusion. Islands evoke a sense of unexplored territory, a place that could belong to us. But there is a catch: they operate under their own rules. What from the mainland appears different or out of place may, here, find space to exist outside the usual order.
#2 min Amak Mahmoodian , Peter Watkins
Amak Mahmoodian – Exile and Return
In conditions of social and political displacement, when borders harden and the right of return is deferred, the dream can be understood as a psychological form of resistant consciousness. Amak Mahmoodian’s insistence on the dreamworld as a site of social and political resistance finds its roots, perhaps, in the enduring prominence of poetry in Iranian society. For centuries, Persian poetry has functioned as a central civic language through which political consciousness, cultural memory, and personal (be)longing are articulated.
#3 min Miriam Pružincová
Miriam Pružincová
#3 min Moritz Neumüller, Naoya Hatakeyama
Naoya Hatakeyma – Explosions, Tsunamis and the Metropolis
The traces of human intervention in the landscape, the extraction of raw materials and the development of our built environment are at the focus of a Japanese photographer celebrated for a series that shows spectacular explosions in limestone quarries.
#3 min Moritz Neumüller, Fatoumata Diabaté
Fatoumata Diabaté – Of Masks and Men
Fatoumata Diabaté is a strong female voice from West Africa who reinterprets the cultural and visual heritage of the continent in a new and often surprising manner.