Mark Ruwedel | Shelter

Exhibtion Dates: October 13 – November 10, 2007

Opening reception with the artist: Saturday, October 13, from 2 – 5 PM

Our fourth exhibition by Mark Ruwedel features his work depicting desolate desert dwellings and contemplates the definition of shelter itself. Essentially tragic in tone: the evidence that the images present describes the fragility of human endeavor in this landscape and suggests the stories of anonymous individuals and their desire to make a home “in the wilderness”, however transitory. (“Just because you wander in the desert, it does not mean there is a promised land” – Paul Auster). The photographs depict small, often eccentric, abandoned houses and other, more temporary shelters, ranging from camps inside of old military bunkers to the hastily made havens of illegal immigrants. Many of the houses appear to have been disemboweled and a sense of unseen violence predominates. Collectively, these pictures address the collision of promise and reality in the American desert.  As with his other work in the American desert, Ruwedel presents a seemingly abandoned landscape where he unearths minute footprints.