Listings / Fine Art / Photographs / Landscape
King's Garden, Copenhagen by Charles Ruger
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Description
Born in Hokkaido, Ruger studied at Connecticut College and Columbia University. He is a fine art, fashion and anthropological photographer, whose recent work focuses on formal society portraiture, contextual portraits and architectural and nature studies. Particular elements from art history inform his work: the compositions and psychology of 19th century genre painting as well as the color and sex appeal of 1970s fashion photography. Such references are not limited to his formal portraits but also shape his cityscapes and interior scenes. Ruger spent several years in Marfa, Texas, and now lives and works in New York City.
Ruger's Environment series evokes a rarified world that is at once enviable and dark, glorious and tragic, august and doomed. As a counterpart to the portraits, Ruger shoots images of grand interior and exterior spaces as fleeting views of the international environments through which his subjects move. Drawing rooms and stair halls of European hotels and private villas figure into these series, as do urban landscapes of American skyscrapers and apartment house edifices. Unlike the body of portraits, however, these "environmental" studies are shot in a much less composed manner. They involve movement, blur and tricks of the eye. With Environment, Ruger intends for a narrative to unfold. While his icons are monumental, stylized and glorified, their natural habitats are decidedly more askew; spaces and vistas where something has gone awry, perhaps as seen through a veil of hallucinogens, alcohol or malaise. Though the characters are offered to the viewer as pristine monuments of an era, the haunting patina of their corresponding surroundings indicates that not all is right in this exalted sphere.
Edition: 1/25. -
More Information
Origin: United States Period: 2000-2021 Materials: C-Print. Condition: Excellent condition. Creation Date: 2008 Styles / Movements: Modernism, Color, Asian Art Incollect Reference #: 339282 -
Dimensions
W. 21.25 in; H. 26.25 in; D. 1.5 in; W. 53.98 cm; H. 66.68 cm; D. 3.81 cm;
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