Ruth Erdt

Cyanotypes 16 - 22

Ruth Erdt Cyanotypes 0

PUBLICATION AND WORK

CYANOTYPES 16-22

Self Portraits Ruth Erdt 16-22 years

Self Portraits Eva Vuillemin 16-22 years.

Eva is Ruth’s daughter. Cyanotype is one of the earliest photographic printing process. The specific blue colouring of the print is called 'Berliner Blau'. The images werde made throug exposure to sunlight on the street in Berlin.

Graphic design: Benedikt Reichenbach Printed in Berlin 2011

SUBSTITUT BERLIN 2011 MESSAGE SALON DOWNTOWN ZUERICH 2011

all © erdt / vuillemin

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THE WORK CYANOTYPES 16-22

by Esther Eppstein

Ruth Erdt has exhibited several times at message salon since 1996. Her photographic work on her immediate context, her family and friends, which has been ongoing for more than 25 years, was honoured with a solo exhibition at the Stiftung für Fotografie in Winterthur at the beginning of the year. At the start of her extensive body of work between the ages of 16 and 22 she made, among other images, self-portraits. These images, never intended for public consumption, emerged from the young woman and emerging artist’s inner dialogue in search of her own identity.

The publication »Cyanotypes 16-22» now places these images in contrast with self-portraits by Ruth’s daughter Eva. Eva Vuillemin is today 23 years old and studying art in Berlin. «Cyanotypes» is the first joint work from the artists. The hierarchical mother-daughter relationship and the time passing between generations dissolves, while aesthetic commonalities intensify and lead to an encounter which never was – in this form. What if Ruth and Eva were the same age? What would their relationship look like?

«Cyanotypes» is equally an engagement with the medium of photography. Cyanotype, which is also called blueprints, is a print process with familiar cyan-blue colour tones. Sunlight is the light source. Ruth Erdt and Eva Vuillemin deliberately chose this older photographic process in order, with their photographic process, to create a measured counterpoint to the flood of digital images.