For me, that is the pleasure within my practice – that the camera allows what you call a transformation. Something other than what you can see during your mundane, everyday experience of the city can emerge. The camera allows this to be unveiled or shown.
Ever since its invention back in the 19th century, photography has been documenting life. At the same time, it focuses on inviting audiences to a rather subjective world, while trying to be taken seriously as an art form. Photography has always been considered a male-dominated profession, but luckily things are changing. Scholars, writers, bloggers, photography students, and enthusiasts have been giving due to the female pioneers of the field. Most of them were always standing and/or hiding in the shadows, oblivious to how much they could acclaim and accomplish. Arguably, the techniques, concepts, and thematic female photographers use differ from those of male photographers. At a time when most women were convinced that their place was in the kitchen and certainly not in the dark room, some were struggling to surpass their male counterparts and work towards gaining respect and recognition for their work.
Rut Blees Luxemburg (German photographer, 1967-) studied Political Science in Duisburg, before attending the London College of Printing to complete her BA in Photography in 1993. She graduated with an MA in Photography from the University of Westminster in 1996. Her first monograph, London - A Modern Project, appeared in 1997 and included an essay by British writer and novelist Michael Bracewell; it was followed by Liebeslied/My Suicides, with text by Spanish author Alexander Garcia Düttmann in 2000. In 2004, Rut had her photobook ffolly published by ffotowrks. The collection included texts by Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans, architect Patrick Lynch, and Douglas Park. The most comprehensive monograph of her work, Commonsensual, was published by Black Dog in 2009 and included a critical essay by French author Régis Durand.
In 2012 Luxemburg held a survey show of her work - entitled Lustgarten - at the Museum Simeonstift in Trier. Some of her most recent projects include Silver Forest (2016), an architectural installation on the western façade of Westminster City Hall; and London Dust (2011-2013), a series of photographs and films that trace the rapid architectural transformation of the City of London concerning the development of CGI photographic representation. The artist has also created the iconic cover for The Streets' Original Pirate Material. Luxemburg employs long exposures to allow her to use the light emanating from the street only, for instance from office blocks or street lights in her photos.
Her work as an artist and photographer concerns the representation of the city and the phenomenon of the urban. Her work ranges from large-scale photographic works, public art installations, and operatic mis-en-scene. Luxemburg is also a Reader in Urban Aesthetics at the Royal College of Art and founder and co-director of an experimental art production space, FILET.
The city in my photographs is a structure in which the individual narrative does not dominate but becomes a template to try and locate something that can be described as common, such as a public shared stairwell to the river.
We will continue talking about female names that left their mark on photography and about contemporary female photographers who are still to emerge. There are a lot of female photographers out there deserving of praise and we can only hope to cover as many of them as we can. Please follow this space to find out more.
