Rineke Dijkstra's Beach Series and the Dream of Classless Society: High Art in the Age of Economic Downturn

Rineke Dijkstra's large-scale photography project Beach Series (1992–2002), which depicts youth standing at the ocean's edge across the Global North, was presented as a vehicle of the "greater good" to museum-going publics in San Francisco and New York City in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Following Giovanni Arrighi's theory of art and cycles of capital overaccumulation, this article analyzes a ruling class message in Dijkstra's art. In a moment of renewed class-consciousness and anxiety about economic downturn, Dijkstra's portraits flattered the rich, their hidden market, and encouraged the public to keep faith in economic recovery via individual resilience.