Co Rentmeester. Witnessing Life

An icon of photography: meet Co Rentmeester, the man behind images that became history. His work has shaped the way we remember the twentieth century. From the Watts uprising in Los Angeles to the battlefields of Vietnam, from portraits of Sukarno in Indonesia to the stillness of snow monkeys in Japan, his photographs balance precision and presence. Twice honored by World Press Photo, including the very first color image ever to receive the top award, Rentmeester refused to conform to the visual codes of his time. He treated color as a moral choice, the camera as a means of reflection, and each frame as a proposition. His photograph of Michael Jordan, later known as Jumpman, was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential photographs of all time and grew into a global icon. Alongside his many LIFE magazine covers, these works mark milestones in visual culture. This book is not a retrospective but a lens: a journey through the archive of a photographer who turned witnessing into a lifelong practice, spanning war and protest, sport and spectacle, daily life and constructed myth. Historic. Ethical. Inventive. Enduring.

Published to coincide with the exhibition Co Rentmeester - Witnessing Life at Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam (October 2025 - February 2026), this book gathers over two hundred photographs from Rentmeester's archive, ranging from early reportage to later constructed images.

Witnessing Life includes essays by curator Aya Musa, copyright specialist Aernoud Bourdrez, and political scholar Dr. Markha Valenta. Together they situate Rentmeester's practice within debates on visual ethics, authorship, and collective memory.