Night Watching is a monumental, three-channel video installation, created by Rineke Dijkstra. It features 14 diverse audiences contemplating Rembrandt van Rijn’s most iconic work, The Night Watch (1642). Each community engages in its own conversation, which range from close visual descriptions to speculations about the circumstances surrounding the creation of this masterpiece. Dijkstra's video is sequenced to explore the multiple ways in which viewers relate to a great painting and its subject.  

Night Watching was commissioned by the Rijksmuseum where it debuted in 2019. On six consecutive evenings, Dijkstra filmed groups standing or sitting directly in front of The Night Watch. Her project took place after the museum was closed to the public, encouraging the most private, intimate encounters with the large painting. The Timken's presentation of Night Watching represents the first time that this complex project has been seen on the West Coast. Dijkstra's work inaugurates a new curatorial series at the Timken entitled Reconsidering Rembrandt.