Europäischer Monat der Fotografie Berlin - Artists (in alphabetic order)

EYE ON LIFE

The uncomfortable time

Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST

Michael Ruetz: Zuschauer einer Demonstration in der Sprengelstr. in Wedding
1967 © Michael Ruetz
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Michael Ruetzs precisely visualised photographs of the 1968 movement have long enjoyed the status of icons. Two years ago, more than 160,000 visitors saw his exhibition DIE UNBEQUEME ZEIT [THE UNCOMFORTABLE TIME] at the Akademie der Künste [Academy of the Arts] on Pariser Platz.
Under the title EYE ON LIFE Johanna Breedes PHOTOKUNST gallery is now showing works by Michael Ruetz over a period of 45 years, including vintage prints of his famous motifs from the Sixties.
Ruetzs pictures emerge from the heart of youthful revolt, and are classics of street photography. Out of unpredictable and spontaneous happenings, the photographer succeeds in finding clear structures which remain engraved on the memory. This is a choreography of events, which puts the emotions of the individual squarely in the frame along with the power of the moment. The pictures are a curtain-raiser for work of the highest artistic quality. In his often meditative compositions and photographic cycles Michael Ruetz focuses on aspects of the perception of space and time, closeness and distance, recollection and change.