Project Space: Rut Blees Luxemburg Phantom

Project Space presents the work of artists who have been specially commissioned by Tate Liverpool to make work for the ground floor gallery. This is the fourth Project Space and presents new work by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg.

Rut Blees Luxemburg first attracted attention with A Modern Project, a series of photographs of gritty night-time views of a depopulated London, illuminated only by the eerie glow of streetlamps.

Each image in the series depicts an area of the city as a site of menace and as an arena for potential encounter. The lack of human presence makes it difficult to construct narrative content and opens up endless possibilities for the viewer to project questions onto the work. Blees Luxemburg followed A Modern Project with Liebeslied, a series of fourteen photographs taken between 1997 and 2000. These images, subtly influenced by the work of the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), are more lyrical and abstract; yet still take the forgotten corners of night-time London as their main subject.

One theme that links all of Blees Luxemburg's work is her desire to make visible that which often goes unnoticed. By seeking out hidden spaces, and overlooked, abandoned or even threatening areas of otherwise familiar cities, Luxemburg presents the viewer with a key to understanding the particular nature of the urban environment. A bleak open-air car park for instance, its concrete surface marked with potholes and puddles, bears the trace of past neglect but, at the same time, these marks predict the future threat/promise of redevelopment by reflecting the surrounding office buildings. This place, nothing more than a rough area to park cars, becomes a place with history, a presence and a future.

Much of Blees Luxemburg's work is concerned with the relationship between photography and time. Most of her images are taken at night, using the only light sources available, such as neon signs or street lamps. The long exposures needed to capture these images suggest the passage of time. Other themes are also apparent in her work such as the subtle yet persistent impact of nature on the urban environment, seen in images of rainwater forming rivers on concrete or trees starkly outlined against buildings.

For the Project Space at Tate Liverpool Rut Blees Luxemburg has produced a series of photographs, taken in Dakar, Senegal, titled Phantom. Ten of a series of eleven are presented here. The links between Liverpool and Dakar are historically one of colonialism and the slave trade, but Dakar is now considered a fashion and culture capital and so connects with contemporary Liverpool in more positive ways.