Devils Canyon, Hells Half Acre, Dirty Devil River: photographer Mark Ruwedel visited all of these places and more, while creating the series Pictures of Hell. This book is the culmination of the journey he began in 1995, and brings together virtually every photographic image in the artist s brilliant interpretation of the American West. This interpretation focuses on sites and places with the word hell or devil or some variation thereof in their names. Place names evoking Satan and his dominion were imposed on the arid Western landscape by Euro-American explorers and settlers, who considered it desolate wilderness, cursed, populated with heathens and demons. By naming them, Euro-Americans symbolically took possession of these sites, denying the existence of indigenous cultures. These place names may also suggest the frustrations or whimsical humor of the nominators.

Mark Ruwedel: Pictures of Hell

Arts & Photography

Mark Ruwedel

Photography & Video

Ram Publications

Message from the Exterior explores the ruins and remains of failed attempts to live in the desert's harsh environments, depicting abandoned houses - small, often eccentric huts, both humorous and a little forlorn. Ruwedel examines the desert regions east of Los Angeles as a palimpsest of cultural and natural histories, presenting an inventory of a particular, and poignant, form of vernacular architecture; each structure might be read as a clue to the lives of anonymous individuals, and the impulse to create a home in the wilderness, however transitory. The first section, 'Desert Houses', comprises 68 desert structures, while the second section, 'Dusk', presents houses photographed after the sun had disappeared over the horizon, now rendered in subdued, dusky tones that suggest both present and absence, and the weight of isolation.

Message from the Exterior

MACK BOOKS

Product Description 
Pour ce projet, Mark Ruwedel a voyagé à travers Los Angeles entre 2011 et 2014, suivant les traces de son ami et auteur Nigel Raab. Son itinéraire soigneusement planifié s'étendant sur 72,5 miles a commencé chez lui à Westchester et s'est terminé à la station de métro de San Bernardino; un itinéraire choisi pour traverser autant de frontières géographiques, économiques, politiques et culturelles que possible. Les vues et les sites que nous voyons ici reflètent plusieurs héritages: du propre voyage de Raab à celui du photographe de Los Angeles Ed Ruscha, dont les livres photo ont inspiré tout au long du projet. 
 About the Author 
Mark Ruwedel (né en 1954) vit et travaille en Californie. Il expose et publie à l’international depuis plus de trente ans, et ses œuvres sont représentées dans des musées du monde entier. Ses livres précédents incluent Westward the Course of Empire (Yale University Art Gallery, 2008) ; 1212 Palms (Yale University Art Gallery, 2010) ; Pictures of Hell (RAM, 2014) ; Message from the Exterior (MACK, 2016) et Ouarzazate (MACK, 2018). En 2014, il a reçu une bourse Guggenheim et le Scotiabank Photography Award. Plus récemment, en 2018, son travail de 1995 à 2012 a été exposé à la Boiler House, Tate Modern.

SEVENTY TWO AND ONE HALF MILES

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Books by Mark Ruwedel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mark Ruwedel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mark Ruwedel: Pictures of Hell

Message from the Exterior

SEVENTY TWO AND ONE HALF MILES