The Kiek Monument (2001)

Kiek is dead. Long live kiekje!

The Kiek memorial is a public sculpture commissioned by the Leiden municipality in honor of the photographer Israel David Kiek, who gave his name to the Dutch word for snapshot.

Israel David Kiek moved to Leiden in the middle of the 19th century, where he established himself as a portrait photographer, not in the least hampered by the fact that he had no training whatsoever in the field of photography. Students were to become his best clients. Very early in the morning they would knock on his door and demand with inebriated voices that Kiek take their picture right now! Kiek hardly ever refused. The informal, unpretentious and often blurred (group) portraits soon became legendary in student circles and beyond. Every student simply had to have a "'kiekje' from Kiek. The more kiekjes one had, the higher ones social standing. And so it happened that the word 'kiekje' became synonymous with any unpretentious, more or less amateurish recording of a special moment in time. A man who had known Kiek as a student formulated it rather well when he said: "For years Kiek has been the only one to 'kiek'. Now everyone 'kieks'." Hundred years later, the word 'kiekje' is still a commonly used word. Even the South African language knows the words kiek and kiekie. A screen capture is a 'skermkiekie'!

Our Kiek memorial is a vandalism- and weather-proof stainless steel archetypal snapshot camera on a tripod. Built inside the camera is a rugged daylight slide-viewer, showing 10 reproductions of Kiek's original works. The slide-viewer is operated by turning a knob on the camera, giving it the feel of handling a real old-fashioned camera. The Kiek memorial is located near the Kiek-pad, across from the street where Kiek had his portrait studio. The opening ceremony for the memorial got to be something special. Descendants of Kiek had gathered for the occasion and their presence turned the event into an unexpected family meeting. The Kieks, being Jewish, had been decimated in the German death camps during WWII and had lost contact with each other in the post-war diaspora. The Kiek monument reunited family members from all over the world who had never met before. All this was dutifully recorded on the inevitable group photo of the entire family posing around the memorial: another kiekje was born!

On the left: former location of the Kiek monument. In 2007 it was fully serviced and given a better location along the Kiekpad.

On the right: One of ten reproductions inside the camera. Notice the dog in the front!