Michael Ruetz Livres

Michael Ruetz celebrates his native land in this collection of photographs, emphasizing Germany's beauty and diversity. He uses an unusual Linhof Technorama camera which is capable of encompassing 100 degree views without distortion.

Kann man Vergänglichkeit und Zeit in Bildern sichtbar machen? Michael Ruetz kann es: Seit den sechziger Jahren beobachtet er Hunderte von Landschaften und Cityscapes in Deutschland und Europa. In Berlin verfolgt er die Wirkungen der Zeit mit dem Wechsel des politischen Systems und dem Umbruch der Gesellschaft. Gebäude verschwinden und entstehen, ganze Plätze werden umgepflügt, die Stadtsilhouette ist der gleichen Wende unterworfen wie das Land. Der Marx-Engels-Platz wird zum Schloßplatz, der Potsdamer Platz wandelt sich vom wüsten Niemandsland zum Hochausareal. Aus Land- und Stadtschaft wird „Zeitschaft“. Ruetz’ Bilderfolgen sind kurze Filme über lange Zeiträume. Dieses Buch dokumentiert auf einzigartige Weise Geschichte im Zeitraffer. Er zeugt davon, wie Architektur Lebensräume aus- und umgestaltet und damit Deutungshoheit über unsere Wahrnehmung erhält.

With The Family of Dog , Michael Ruetz has created a unique photographic series over the last 50 years that presents a subtle and enlightening depiction of people and their social behavior. Dogs, after all, are what we want to see in them and what we make of them. In the rarest case, a dog is simply an animal. Michael Ruetz photographed dogs on the street, at homes, on the beach or in front of the TV, which usually makes them fall asleep. He depicts them alone, with cats and cows and again and again as man's companion. Ruetz avoids any mise-en-scène and imposing himself on the animals. Occasional provocative payoffs result from patient observation. As man in his daily routine, dogs slide into odd situations all the time. In this sincere and nevertheless ironic book, Michael Ruetz shows the various forms of canine existence, a comédie canine, in life as in death.

Michael Ruetz is one of 1968's major photographic chroniclers. Documenting the political earthquakes in West Germany (and the eastern half of Berlin), and in Czechoslovakia, Ruetz produced some of the era's classic images, which were immediately bought up by magazines such as Time, Life, Der Spiegel and Stern. Spring of Discontent 1964-1974 records not only 1968 but its aftershock in Germany, Greece and in the Third World. Today Ruetz is famed for other projects such as Eye on Time (which documents the transformation of the earth's surface over long periods of time), but it was with the photographs gathered in this volume that he first made his mark.