Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg is an artist working on the representation of the city and the urban phenomenon through large-scale photographic works, public art installations or operatic productions.

Her works have been exhibited in various public institutions including the Tate Modern, the V&A and the Centre Pompidou. Among her best-known works are Piccadilly’s Peccadilloes, commissioned by Art on the Underground in Heathrow Airport, and Silver Forest, a photographic-monumental work made in the heart of Victoria in London.

Rut read Politics at Duisburg in Germany before attending the London College of Printing, graduating in Photography in 1993. In 1996, she specialised in Photography at the University of Westminster. At present, Rut teaches in the Photography Programme at the Royal College of Art where she is a reader in urban aesthetics.

Her first book, London – A Modern Project, was published in 1997 and includes an essay by Michael Bracewell. This was followed in 2000 by Liebeslied/My Suicides, with an essay by Alexander Garcia Düttman. In 2004, Ffotoworks published Ffolly, a photo book, with contributions by Cerith Wyn Evans, Patrick Lynch and Douglas Park. In 2009, Black Dog published Commonsensual – to date the most complete book of her works, including a critical essay by Regis Durand.  Her most recent book of photographs, The Academic Year, published by SPBH in 2015 transformed into a three-dimensional public installation named The Teaser, positioned in the square of Somerset House to celebrate the first edition of Photo London.

Rut Blees Luxemburg has held shows everywhere in the United Kingdom and in Europe, among which her personal exhibition Phantom stands out in particular – a photo exploration of the effects of modern architecture in Dakar in Senegal, shown at the Tate Liverpool in 2003.

Rut has frequently been the guest of TV shows or conferences. In 2012, she took part in The Forum: Night – Friend or Foe on the BBC World Service, while in 2013, she took part in the think-tank on the theme of Photography and the Ethnographic Archive at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt. Rut also created the iconic cover of the album Original Pirate Material by The Streets.