{"id":760621,"date":"2026-06-25T17:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/760621\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T17:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:11:08","slug":"wolves-winter-vandenbrinks-new-photo-book-documents-packs-of-youths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/760621\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolves: Winter Vandenbrink\u2019s new photo book documents packs of youths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winter Vandenbrink<\/a> has spent the last two years building a body of work composed from distance: the gap between a long lens and a stranger who doesn’t know they\u2019re being watched. WOLVES<\/a>, his third book with IDEA following VANDALS<\/a> and TOBY, is where that distance begins to collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where VANDALS examined the visible codes of male youth \u2013 clothing, style, gesture \u2013 WOLVES is interested in something less tangible. The photographs no longer ask what these boys wear so much as how they move. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the togetherness of groups,” the Dutch-born, Paris-based photographer explains. “Even when I was describing the behaviour of the individual, they always belonged to a certain kind of group.\u201d<\/p>\n

That preoccupation with collectivity echoes one of the book\u2019s central ideas. Wolves are rarely understood as solitary creatures. They are observed through relationships, through formations, through collective behaviour. The same could be said of adolescence. Vandenbrink\u2019s subjects drift through the streets of Europe\u2019s capitals in loose alliances, constantly negotiating their place within a larger group, finding identity not through individuality, but through proximity to others. That same refusal of singularity runs through One or Several Wolves?, a text by psychoanalytic philosophers Deleuze and Guattari which is reprinted at the back of the book: \u201cYou can\u2019t be one wolf, you\u2019re always eight or nine, six or seven.\u201d<\/p>\n

WOLVES was not conceived as a project from the outset. The earliest photograph in the book dates from around 2008; the most recent was taken in Venice just two months ago. \u201cVANDALS is more portrait-heavy, more about the individual,\u201d Vandenbrink says. \u201cThis one is really about the individual contra group \u2014 or vice versa.\u201d Rather than setting out to make a book about wolves, he excavated one from nearly 15 years of photographs. Working with his partner, Erjan, an art historian who first introduced him to Deleuze and Guattari\u2019s text, he began revisiting the archive before passing a selection to designer Linda van Deursen. \u201cShe first made a certain kind of selection for herself,\u2019 he says, “based on the characteristics of the wolf \u2013 trekking, or packs, or resting, or howling, or playfulness.\u201d From there, recurring behaviours and visual rhythms began to emerge. Yet, rather than allowing the book to read as a taxonomy, van Deursen ultimately disrupted that structure. \u201cIt became more like an art photography book,\u201d Vandenbrink says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Distance, for Vandenbrink, was never just a technical choice. Early on, he relied heavily on long lenses, maintaining a degree of separation from his subjects. Over time, however, that distance began to feel inadequate. \u201cI started doing this work when I wasn\u2019t really comfortable doing it,” he says. \u201cI wanted to hide myself a little bit. That\u2019s also why I started shooting with a long lens. But after one or two years, it felt a bit dishonest.\u201d Instead, he found himself moving closer. \u201cI felt like I had to be in the middle of my subjects so they can see what I\u2019m doing,” he explains. “They can ask what I\u2019m doing. They are easy to approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the boys move through the book as a pack, the photographer occupies a more uncertain position: neither fully inside nor entirely outside it. Deleuze and Guattari describe belonging as a difficult state to maintain, one that requires constant adjustment to remain attached to the group without disappearing into it. Vandenbrink\u2019s practice appears to have evolved towards exactly that threshold. No longer content to observe from afar, he places himself close enough to be seen, questioned and approached, without surrendering to either detachment or the illusion of belonging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WOLVES<\/a> by Winter Vandenbrink is published by IDEA in a first edition of 750 copies.<\/p>\n