ARTWORK - CONTEMPORARY
CHARLES RUGER
ENVIRONMENT
Stair Hall, New York
Circa 2006
Edition of 5
Digital C-print
50 x 40 inches
#CR001003
Ruger's Environment series evokes a rarified world that is at once enviable and dark, glorious and tragic, august and doomed. As a counterpart to the portraits, Ruger shoots images of grand interior and exterior spaces as fleeting views of the international environments through which his subjects move. Drawing rooms and stair halls of European hotels and private villas figure into these series, as do urban landscapes of American skyscrapers and apartment house edifices. Unlike the body of portraits, however, these "environmental" studies are shot in a much less composed manner. They involve movement, blur, and tricks of the eye. With Environment, Ruger intends for a narrative to unfold. While his icons are monumental, stylized and glorified, their natural habitats are decidedly more askew; spaces and vistas where something has gone awry - perhaps as seen through a veil of hallucinogens, alcohol or malaise. Though the characters are offered to the viewer as pristine monuments of an era, the haunting patina of their corresponding surroundings indicates that not all is right in this exalted sphere.
