Max Kreijn

The Book of Daniel Max Kreijn

This is the coming-of-age story of 21-year-old gay graphic-design student Daniel. who the artist meets at the opening of a 30-year-review of his photographic works, all of which deal with that once-in-a-lifetime moment of suddenly growing up. Normally he uses models to visualize this breathtaking event and has total control of the image, or plays God without anyone realizing what he really is doing. But when he meets Daniel and is forced to let him pose for a photo-series, he suddenly realizes that the game has totally changed. He ends up just pressing the camera-button, but it is Daniel who is 'taking the photographs'. Soon the older man and Daniel realize that something serious is happening: their mutual feelings are for real and a strange love-story suddenly grows. It comes as a revelation to the photographer, whilst to Daniel it is simply logical. A new exhibition, accompanied by a book, designed by Daniel, opens at the International Dutch Art Fair in Amsterdam and together they travel through France to Bologna, where the Galleria d'Arte Moderna will show the Dutch exhibition with the Museum's own collection of the artist's photo-works added, now called 'Lo Sguardo Dentro Gli Occhi Tuoi', They make that same moment - two people suddenly growing together, growing up in a flash really- happen to people they meet on the way. 'Whatever Daniel wants, Daniel gets,' the boy's father, the Director of the Museum where they initially met, did tell the artist right from the beginning.