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Inta Ruka |
The Baukunst Galerie opens on Wednesday, the 18th of April 2007, a large solo-exhibition with works of the Latvian photographer Inta Ruka. Matthias Harder, curator of the Helmut-Newton-Foundation in Berlin, will give a short introduction in her artistic œuvre. In the first exhibition of her works in 2003 the gallery presented the series “My Country People“ which represented Lettland at the 48th Biennale of Venice. In the second show in 2005 portraits from the series “People I happened to meet“ (started in 2000) and first works from “Amalias Street 5“ (started in 2004) were exhibited. The consistent advancement and elaboration of this last series – realised in the Latvian capital – is the main focus of the forthcoming exhibition. For the first time the portraits are combined with images of deserted interiors providing an insight into that complex of buildings bringing out the milieu of the portrayed people.
Inta Ruka is one of the most well-known, contemporary artists of the Baltic states. She was born in Riga in 1958 and received a scholarship of the Hasselblad Foundation in 1998, the “Spídola Award“ of the Latvian Culture Foundation in 1999 and a scholarship of the Villa Waldberta in Feldafing in 2002. One year later the Artist‘s Union of Latvia awarded her the „Price of the Year 2003“. Inta Rukas œuvre has already been presented in several important international exhibitions: From 1991 to 1993 her portraits were shown at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California, at the Musée de l\'Elysee in Lausanne and on an exhibition tour through different Canadian cities. In the context of the project „The Memory of Images – Baltic Photo Art Today” from 1993 to 1994 exhibitions in different European cities were following. In 1999 the already mentioned, exposed participation at the 48th Biennale of Venice finally publicised her name far beyond the frontiers of Latvia. Last autumn the Photography Centre in Istanbul organised a large solo-show of her photos. Until January of this year her photographs were shown together with works by Wolfgang Tillmanns, Boris Mikhailov and other famous artists in the exhibition “In the Face of History: European Photographers in the 20th Century” at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. In Germany Inta Ruka’s works are represented in the collection of the Museum of Photography in the Munich City Museum and the photographic collection of the Museum Folkwang in Essen.
Since more than two decades Inta Ruka is photographing the people of her country – from 1984 to 2000 primarily in the rural area of Balvi (“My Country People“) and later on increasingly in the Latvian capital Riga. In the series “People I happened to meet“ she strikes up conversations with unknown people in order to ask them for a portrait. By contrast in “Amalias Street 5” she is focussing on the inhabitants of a certain ensemble of apartments in Riga. Off the beaten track of the picturesque Old Town with the entirely restored tourist features she provides an undisguised view on the current state of flux in Latvia since its integration into the EU. In the former countries of the eastern block she shares her documentary-anthropological approach with Anatanas Sutkus and Boris Mikhailov and internationally with her American colleagues Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.
On Inta Ruka’s portraits the environment is always visible as a result of the exposure from a medium distance. This way the spectator is getting an impression of the whole building-ensemble. Its architecture is attractive but very ruinous and the limited financials of the owners cause a very slow refurbishment. People of all generations are living here together in very crowed conditions – whole families as the Kurovas are sharing a single room. This is the reason why the yard is serving as an urban retreat for working, playing and communicating. Over the years Inta Ruka established a very close relationship to the inhabitants – she is even planning to rent a flat in Amalias Street 5 in order to be even closer to their daily life. Her journalised notes – written in the exhibition below the photos on the wall – emphasize her emotional approach to the models of her photos. The texts tell in concentrated fragments about the life story, fears and hopes of the portrayed people.
Photographing without artificial light and a Rolleiflex from 1936 takes time because of the long time exposure. Inta Ruka uses this time to listen to her models, concertedly finding appropriate poses and waiting for a moment of silent frankness, when they are forgetting the camera. This way the Latvian artist creates portraits with a centred composure, abundance of details and brilliant depth of sharpness which remind of the later works by Diane Arbus. Average persons and outsiders look with the same self-esteem into the lens of the camera. This direct view in the eye of the spectator gives those portraits an immediateness and intensity, which unveils not only the outer but also the inner world of the portrayed persons. Inta Ruka has the extraordinary ability to extract something archetypal and characteristically human from the concrete moods and situations. This way her patient and empathetic creating process generates an amazing moment of concentrated life.
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