Q&A: Ralf Brueck

Then I kissed her, 2011, 183x220cm, c-print, plexiglass, woodframe.
From the series Distortion © Ralf Brueck

Post by Martin Brink

Despite Ralf Brueck's background in German photography and the feeling of that background in his work, I've always thought that there's something distinctly unique about his work. That uniqueness is often why I come to appreciate different artists, like I've come to appreciate Ralf's work. Over the last few years we have exchanged some emails, and I therefore thought it would be interesting to ask him some questions that I don't think I've asked him before.

Ralf Brueck (b. 1966 Düsseldorf) is a younger exponent of the Düsseldorf School of Photography, which has achieved worldwide renown through Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff, whose master student he became in 2002. From 1996 to 2003, he studied at the Art Academy Düsseldorf. Ralf Brueck was one of the last students of the Bernd and Hilla Becher class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf before he decided to become a student of Professor Thomas Ruff.

His earlier works were more influenced by the connection between the Düsseldorf School of Photography and the New American Photography. Since 2009 he has moved towards digital image manipulation.

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Wouldnt it be nice, 2011, 220 x 179 cm, c-print, plexiglass, woodframe
From the series Distortion © Ralf Brueck

Martin Brink: Hello Ralf Brueck, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. What are you working on while answering these questions?

Ralf Brueck: I'm in the middle of preparing a shoot of a shopping mall that goes out of business this year. It's in Düsseldorf, the place where I live.

MB: You studied at the prestigious Düsseldorf school under Bernd Becher and Thomas Ruff. How do you feel this has impacted your work, and have you ever felt direct or indirect expectations and pressure to make certain kinds of work?

RB: Some days ago I met a curator from the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. At the start of our meeting he told me how much he likes my older works like "Timecapsule" or "DAF." He seemed troubled by my "Distortion" and "Dekonstruktion" series because they don't consist of traditionally made pictures.

Younger curators seem to be able to more easily access my work (they really dig it) than the deep seated teams of museum directors who are still a bit afraid of liking it. They probably want to stick to the idea that a photograph should always look like a photograph. That is really old-school.

Hard work is always rewarded, 2014, 200 x 137cm, c-print, plexiglass, woodframe.
From the series Distortion © Ralf Brueck

MB: Speaking of Düsseldorf, how's the photography/art scene there today? I can imagine it being quite competitive, but is it still as vibrant as it once was?

RB: We have some important museums and there is a lot going on in the alternative scene. A lot of students graduate every year from the art academy. This keeps the competition high. 

MB: When I look at your most recent work, for example "Distortion," I don’t look at "truths" or documentation. I don't feel they have a real function or use other than being visual art. They're just there to look at, the way that good art can function. Is this the idea, or do you also want to open up doors and question how photography can be used, especially in the arts?

RB: A little bit from all you have said is true. The decision to move away from realism dealt with the interest in exposing myself differently to photography and was based in being an artist. I don't want to repeat what artistic photography was about in the past. Using digital tools feels just as normal as for a painter using a brush.

MB: A boring final standard question, but one that I'm curious about. I'm not necessarily only interested in those that have been your main inspirations and taught you the most, but which are your favorite photographers and artists working today?

RB: Thomas Ruff continues to evolve and is still experimental in his work. For several years my inspiration has come from painters and drawers like Raymond Pettibon, Jonathan Meese and Lucian Freud.

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Martin Brink is a photographer and artist based in Helsingborg, Sweden.

A day after tomorrow, 2011, 158 x 220, c-print, plexiglass, woodframe.
From the series Distortion © Ralf Brueck

Review: "A New York Minute" iBook, by Stephen Shore

Post by Martin Brink

As much as I like Stephen Shore's photographs, I also like the fact that he constantly challenges himself. From his black and white documentation of Andy Warhol's "The Factory" as a young kid, to the color snapshots in American Surfaces, to the perfectly composed 8x10 work in Uncommon Places, to the 83 artist books made between 2003-2008, each one shot in a day and printed using a print on demand service. Stephen’s career sums up his curiosity about "the new" and his unwillingness to repeat himself.

Therefore, when it was announced that the A New York Minute iBook would be released, it wasn't a surprise. Logically he would make a "digital photo book," and he made one with content and a concept suited for the digital medium. He didn't just base it on an existing physical book or choose to show his signature photographs in digital form. There are lots of younger photographers out there obsessed with physical books and prints, but with a huge disinterest in anything digital. That Shore, born 1947, is exploring this area before many of his younger peers is a mystery.

A New York Minute contains 16 short films, all under a minute long, shot in the streets of New York. The scenes range from still life, sidewalks with people passing by, traffic, people coming up and down the subway stations. It's easy to draw a comparison to Alec Soth's video piece Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree, also consisting of a collection of short films, but instead edited and sequenced into one video. I like that I can flick through the films in Shore's iBook, to have a clear separation between them, instead of seeing one long video of clips. That said, I do think that Soth’s material is of higher quality, at least technically. I don't know when Shore’s videos were filmed, but I wish they were higher res. Maybe it was a conscious decision, or a way to keep the file size down, or it might just be down to the camera he used. Nonetheless, I enjoy the films, and although it's a collection of short films you're flicking through, it feels fluid and natural. Maybe because of the simple design and the lack of sound and text (except from the foreword by Luc Sante).

For me, the highlight is on page 14, where we see a quite stunning street scene with a fast food salesman setting up his stand in the foreground, a lady smoking her cigarette in the background, while people and cars are passing by. Many of the scenes in the iBook reminds me of how we observe things, maybe more so than photographs do.

A New York Minute isn't without its faults, but I do think it's worth getting if you can display it. It's $8.99, and really, that’s less than what we pay for getting most books shipped to us. Recommended.

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Martin Brink is a Swedish photographer and artist. He's also the former founder and editor of The Digital Photobook.

Photographers on Photographers: Mark Ruwedel by Martin Brink

© Mark Ruwedel, Central Pacific #18, 1994, from the series "Western the Course of Empire"

In 2008 Mark Ruwedel's book "Westward the Course of Empire" was published, containing 72 photographs of the "residual landforms created by the scores of railroads built in the American and Canadian West since 1869." (Yale University Press) I've got to admit that I do not own the book (yet), haven't seen an exhibition of the work and have actually only seen photos from the project online. But there's something about the photographs that grabs me. Maybe it's the obvious, yet discrete signs of past life, technology and history. Looking at them is a bit like looking at photos of Mars or the Moon, but finding signs of life and a past instead of nothing. As time passes maybe the photographs will be all that remains of some of these signs.

In 2011 I started and finished my project "Walks." In contrast to "WCE" it was about moments and a practice in composition, and not about history, place and documentation. Instead of 8x10 film I used a compact digital camera and the photos in “Walks” depicted the short moment I saw a scene in front of me I considered worth photographing during my walks. With these differences in mind, I now look at Ruwedel’s work and wonder how much time he spent finding the locations, how far he walked or drove along the long-gone railroad tracks to see the photographs gradually develop, and finally find the right spot to set up his camera.

"WCE” is a really good example of photography in relation to time. I don’t get the sense that I’m looking at a 1/125 second exposure, I’m getting the sense that I’m looking at 125 years of exposure. What I’ve written may just sound like a bunch of drivel without any sort of conclusion or ending. Maybe that’s a good thing, because that means that it’s open for further examination and interpretation, especially by myself. I’m getting the book.

Martin Brink is a photographer and artist based in Helsingborg, Sweden.

© Martin Brink, from the series "Walks"

The Image: Martin Brink, "Untitled"

© Martin Brink, Untitled, from the series "The Daily Round" 2009

Early 2009 I had been driving past this burnt out car and thought I needed to photograph it. It didn't happen though and I didn't go back later for some reason, maybe because I normally doesn't plan photographs, especially not at that time. It was outside the town in an industrial area that I didn't drive through very often.

One day a couple of weeks later I was in the same area with a friend who was picking up a new car. While he was finishing the details with the dealer I took a walk on this cold and foggy winter day. During the walk I discovered the car was still there and I started taking photographs of it. I was probably shooting for 5-10 minutes and suddenly a tow truck showed up. It was pure luck and timing that I got to shoot it and this story made this photograph a bit more special for me. It was also quite funny that it was being towed away while my friend was getting a new car.

When I was editing I chose this version because I liked the lean to the left and how the whites shone. It was these subtle details that made me select it for "The Daily Round." That and the story.

- Martin Brink

f100 Martin Brink, Darcy Padilla, Hannah Smith Allen, Anna Shteynshleyger

© Martin Brink, from the series "Trash in Grass"

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein and Amani Willett.

Today we continue with responses from Wayne Ford and S. Billie Mandle.

Respondent: Wayne Ford is an award winning designer and art director who has created numerous designs for business, consumer and customer magazines, including The Observer color supplement, along with annual reports, books, exhibition catalogues and corporate branding projects, in both print and digital media. A professional and personal interest in photography has allowed him to travel extensively, and contribute to a number of magazines on the subject, as well as being a collector of photography and photographic books and regularly blogging about the photography that he is viewing. He is an awarded member of D&AD and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Selections: Martin Brink and Darcy Padilla

Martin Brink: "To me, the things that are beautiful and interesting in real life might not be the most interesting to photograph so I’m drawn to subjects that might often be overlooked," remarks Swedish photographer Martin Brink, who documents what many of us take for granted in his various series, including "The Daily Round" and "Walks." These subtle images combine, not to present a dramatic look at modern life, but a memorable look at the everyday that we so often take for granted and barely register in our hectic daily schedules, but which in many ways is more powerful and interesting than the beautiful and picturesque.

© Darcy Padilla, from "The Julie Project"

Darcy Padilla: On the February 28th, 1993, American photojournalist Darcy Padilla first met Julie Baird in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. She lived in a neighborhood of soup kitchens and cheap rooms, with Jack the father of her first child, through whom she had contracted AIDS. Several months after Padilla first met Baird, she left Jack in a bid to break away from a life of drug taking. From this initial meeting, Padilla began to document Baird’s "complex story of multiple homes, AIDS, drug abuse, abusive relationships, poverty, births, deaths, loss and reunion,"  following Baird from the backstreets of San Francisco to the backwoods of Alaska, in "The Julie Project," an emotionally powerful and sensitive series spanning 18 years.

Respondent: S. Billie Mandle has a BA in Biology and English from Williams College and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She was a 2010 NYFA Fellow in photography and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the International Center of Photography. She lives in Brooklyn and Boston.

Selections: Hannah Smith Allen and Anna Shteynshleyger

Hannah Smith Allen: She is a photographer I know in Brooklyn whose work explores the intersection of history and representation. She is amazingly thoughtful and creative. Her images are richly layered - describing and transforming the worlds she explores.

© Hannah Smith Allen, Fired Bullets from the series "Battle Grounds" (in progress)

Anna Shteynshleyger: A photographer whose work I greatly admire - especially her two series "City of Destiny" and "Siberia."

© Anna Shteynshleyger, Axe, from the series "City of Destiny"