Hans Eijkelboom: The Artist Who Photographs Behaviour

Hans Eijkelboom’s photography is often described as observational, but that slightly understates its intent. Emerging from the Netherlands in the 1970s, Hans Eijkelboom built a practice that treats everyday behaviour as raw material. His work is not about decisive moments or expressive individuals. Instead, it examines how social rules, visual conventions, and unspoken expectations guide how people act, often without conscious awareness.

Early conceptual work and the question of identity

In his early career, Eijkelboom focused on himself as a subject. Projects such as The Ideal Man and The Ideal Woman involved photographing his own attempts to conform to social ideals drawn from magazines and advertising. These works reflected a broader conceptual art movement that questioned whether identity was something innate or something performed. Even at this stage, Eijkelboom was less interested in personal psychology than in the systems that shape behaviour.

With My Family 1977

One of Eijkelboom’s most provocative projects came in 1977 with the series commonly known as With My Family. The method was direct and deliberately ordinary. On weekday mornings, he observed residential streets and waited for husbands to leave for work. After a short interval, he rang the doorbell and introduced himself to the wife as an artist. He then asked if he could pose with her and her children for a family portrait, taking the place of the absent father.

What gives the work its lasting impact is that a number of women agreed.

The resulting photographs resemble standard family portraits. They are calm, carefully arranged, and visually familiar. Only the context reveals their strangeness. Eijkelboom stands in the position traditionally occupied by the father, despite having no relationship to the family at all. The images demonstrate how strongly recognised visual formats, such as the family photograph, can override instinctive unease.

Trust, politeness, and social pressure

Eijkelboom was not attempting to shock his subjects or expose them as gullible. Instead, the work highlights how politeness, trust, and the perceived authority of art can shape decision making. Refusing a reasonable request from a polite stranger may feel more socially uncomfortable than agreeing to something that feels slightly wrong. The camera, in this context, becomes a legitimising force.

The series also raises questions about consent and power, without offering easy answers. Nothing overtly coercive occurs. There is no visible distress. The tension exists beneath the surface, created by the collision between social expectations and private space.

Masculinity as a visual placeholder

With My Family also examines the symbolic role of the father within the family image. By stepping into that position, Eijkelboom reduces the paternal figure to a visual role rather than a specific individual. The photographs quietly suggest that the father in a family portrait may function less as a person and more as a structural element within a familiar visual language.

From private interiors to public streets

In later decades, Eijkelboom shifted his focus to public space. His well known series People of the Twenty-First Century documents passers by in cities around the world who happen to be dressed in similar ways. Presented in grids, these images reveal patterns of global fashion and collective taste. While the settings changed, the underlying question remained the same. How much choice is there in how people present themselves, and how much is quietly predetermined?

A consistent method, a lasting unease

Seen together, Eijkelboom’s work forms a coherent investigation into conformity and normality. Whether photographing strangers in their homes or crowds on the street, he shows how easily individuals step into expected roles. His photographs do not accuse or moralise. They simply document moments where social structure becomes visible. The discomfort they produce comes not from drama, but from recognition.

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