28 Mar 2016

Peter Ruehle at BERLINARTPROJECTS

BERLINARTPROJECTS is proud to present a striking series of cityscapes by Peter Ruehle alongside his large-scale work Milky Way (2012-2014). From far away the nocturnal views resemble the line of a heart rate monitor, the spikes of the towers of the metropolis simulating the throb of city life in architectural form whilst by day they recall a trail of ants, bringing to mind the bustling activity associated with urban existence.

Playing with the horizontals of classical landscape painting, Ruehle's meticulous portrayals of entire cities in miniature form along a single line can never by fully grasped – from a distance the buildings and bridges blend into a level horizontal line engulfed by sky above and water below, yet up close one can merely see the details of one section of a very large canvas. Abstract at a distance yet hyperreal in close proximity, these elusive works seem to shift in and out of focus, pulsating with a life of their own.

On closer inspection of the urban architecture, one realizes that the majority of the buildings depicted – bar the respective cities' landmarks – stem from the artist's own imagination, disrupting the smooth course of the eye over the cityscape and gripping the viewer's attention. In these works Ruehle constructs his own city, imagines new structures in sci-fi-like fashion – it is hardly a surprise to learn that another series of cityscapes is named after Godard's surreal 1965 film Alphaville – and implicitly asks the question: what does your version of the city look like? Because everyone makes their own metropolis in a way and perceives urban space differently.

Plunged in the darkness of the night sky, Zeroville and Milky Way are conceptually linked, the starry painting taking the heavens also portrayed in the cityscapes as a subject in and of itself. Here too Ruehle incorporates imaginary constellations, creating an image caught once again between documentation and invention, figuration and abstraction.

Peter Ruehle lives and works in Berlin. He has exhibited widely both in Europe and the United States and has participated in numerous internationally renowned art fairs such as ARCO Madrid, Kunst Zürich, CIGE Beijing, Pinta New York and United New Delhi. Ruehle's works can be found in many collections in America and Europe especially including the Kunstsammlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, Kunstfonds des Freistaates Sachsen and that of the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn.