Artist and photographer Ruth Erdt has lived and worked in a 15th century farmhouse in the old village centre of Schwamendingen for 25 years. Many of her works have been created in this refuge and retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The old cottage is a backdrop, protagonist and content, as well as a workshop and photo studio – and not least a family home; the artist raised her two children here.
In the current exhibition “In der Hütte”, Ruth Erdt is showing a display of her work at the location, opening her archive, clearing out stowed boxes and old folders. The result is a view of an oeuvre that brings art and life together. Over the years, Ruth Erdt’s distance from the city has given rise to her own visual language, whose urgency and intimacy are touching, and which today takes on a new relevance due to the temporal distance.
Family members, friends, the garden and the seasons, the house as a protected space and refuge of intimacy are recurring motifs in Ruth Erdt’s photography. For many years, she has captured her family life in a mixture of documentation and staging and brought it to a conclusion with the publication of the already out-of-print book “The Gang” and the resulting installation “The Liars” at the Fotostiftung Winterthur. Her new works, which have been shown at message salon, Perla-Mode and elsewhere, also revolve around adolescence, identity, intimacy, protection and defencelessness. And photography itself is always the theme: the question of reality and manipulation and the influence of technology.
The exhibited analogue vintage prints, developed and enlarged by Ruth Erdt in the laboratory, are available for purchase.
The message salon Zine
Ruth Erdt “Analogue”, including poster, limited and numbered edition, ©2014 Ruth Erdt and message salon