LUSTGARTEN – survey exhibition and catalogue

Blees Luxemburg’s first survey exhibition, ‘Lustgarten’, included new photographic works featuring global cities London, Paris, Dakar, Santiago and New York. This photographic research project investigated ways of developing an alternative reading of urban space, through focusing on mnemonic fragments and luminous compositions that deconstruct established representations of cities. On the occasion of the exhibition opening, Dr Clémentine Deliss, Director of the Museum der Weltkulturen, Frankfurt, described Blees Luxemburg’s capacity to ‘build bridges between her research and experience as an artist and the understanding of the viewer. She translates, as translation is part of her methodology: the switch between day and night, light and dark, between classicism, romanticism and modernity’. A catalogue, including texts (in German and English translation) by art historian Anne Hoffmann and sociologist Richard Sennett, was published in conjunction with the exhibition. Blees Luxemburg developed the ideas that underpinned ‘Lustgarten’ at conferences including: ‘Yingxiang Today (Shadow Image)’, fifth annual conference of CCVA, at China Academy of Art, Beijing, China (2011); ‘Photography and the City’, The Royal Photographic Society, London (2011); ‘Exhibiting Photography’, international conference, University of Westminster, London (2011); ‘Encounters: Photography and the Practice of Walking’, Goldsmiths College London (2010). ‘Lustgarten’ was reviewed widely, including by Sabine Scheltwort, ‘Lustgarten in der Dämmerung, Rut Blees Luxemburg im Simeonstift Trier’, Kunst Art (2012); ‘Von der Pflicht, sich um die eigene Achse zu drehen’, SG, Zeitkunst (2012). Blees Luxemburg’s ‘Lustgarten’ photographs have been published in numerous books and journals, including: Mutations, Perspectives on Photography (Steidl, 2011); Voyages Pittoresque: Normandie 1820–2009 (Silvana Editoriale, 2009); and ‘De noche/By night’ in Exit, Spain, Issue 43 (2011)