Jean Ruiter (Amsterdam, 1942 - 2005)
In the 1970s Jean Ruiter was a renowned photographer for the Avenue, among others. He mainly made landscape reports. `With a Rover months into the desert, wonderful`. But a client's rules limited his freedom too much. Since 1988 he has only made 'his own' work, in which the landscape still plays an important role. Work that is difficult to put into one of the categories of photography. Ruiter prefers to call himself a media artist, because he also works with sound and video. `In the Dutch language there isn't even a good word for this form of photography: 'art photography' is a double and sounds terribly cheesy and 'art photography' doesn't cover it. Actually, the American term 'art-photography' is still the best. `Ruiter can get quite excited about everything that has to do with the Netherlands. The cultural climate is too oppressive for him and the mentality too moralistic. `It is of course illustrative that there is no Dutch term for our art. It also says something about the policy in this area. Let alone that it can be judged by the committees, with their limited vision and in which one friend appoints another. In the Netherlands people still live in the era of documentary photography. We are still drooling over long-gone greats such as Ed van der Elsken and Johan van der Keuken. `Jean Ruiter left the Netherlands and Europe years ago. He feels more at home on the West Coast in the US. `Everything is over-organized in Europe. We have forgotten the dimension called 'emotion'. This is fatal for an artist: diversity disappears and boredom sets in. Europe has stood still. Even today, in 1997, Europeans regard photography as second-class art. Very different from the Americans. They are much more open to everything new. While photography is considered a revival of traditional art in Europe, generations in America grew up with this new art form. This resulted in an enormous variety of good quality art and in an enormous knowledge of the medium. `Rather than over drinks, Ruiter provides commentary through his work. Although his entire oeuvre is a stylistic mishmash, there are clear connections on substantive grounds. You could call them, usually cycles of about ten pictures, 'sketches of time'. Ruiter draws a line from the pure, original culture of a people to what has become of it. Developments that are determined by the course of history and in particular by the influence of other cultures. Complex themes, such as his seven-part series `Japan II` about a country caught between Eastern tradition and Western consumer society, are viewed from an unexpected angle: the contact between East and West is prayer in history and in particular that of Hiroshima. Ruiter has symbolized this by a photo of a 'survivor' of an almost melted American Baby Browny camera. The lens squints at you, and the hull is pathetically shriveled by the atomic bomb. `It's as if the camera, even in the throes of death, wanted to record the events of that moment. But it saw too much and could not and was not allowed to tell any more. Ruiter printed the text 'truth' and 'lie' in Japanese characters. `This photo symbolizes the hypocrisy of American politics.`Ruiters comments sharply in his work, especially on hypocrisy and manipulation. It is complicated to express the complexity of his themes in images. But the expressiveness of these images is so direct that it is difficult to explain them in words. Ruiter makes all kinds of references by using metaphors, associations and (black) humour. This makes a big appeal to the intellect and consciousness of the viewer. But in this way he delicately unravels the painful places in our society and its history. His critical mind tackles everything. 'Women, sacrificed and desired', about the hypocritical attitude towards women. 'Corpus Constructed' about the current egoism, hypocrisy of men and women and about manipulation by the media, 'Urban Opera' about survival in a metropolis (New York). `Opera stands for heavy, tragic and massive. I also made a subseries of this. 'Sub' in the broadest sense of the word. This one is about the American world neat in daylight, which suddenly isn't so neat after midnight. `Ruiter has made more than 10 cycles in the past 10 years. From mid-December, the Museum of Photography in San Francisco will be showing his best-known series: Cathedrals in the Desert'. This one is about the dialogue between the Old and New Worlds. Rebellions of famous icons (of culture) of the Europe, he has built in the untouched nature of 'Death Valley'. He has 'modernized' them by using elements typical of American consumer society. Such as the Heinz Ketchup vouchers in the Arch of Titus, T-bone steaks in Milan Cathedral and the rubber tires in Winchester Cathedral. `I found those car tires along the highway. It was of course terribly difficult to build a stand of about 20 feet high with this material. And just when I want to cut the whole tent collapses. In retrospect, beautiful of course, because Winchester Cathedral also collapsed once. These images show the great gulf between the Old and New Worlds. Icons of classical Europe in modern America appear to be nothing more than a hollow facade in which commerce has triumphed. Which again says something about the relativity of our 'sacred' culture. Although Ruiter does not hide his opinion, he feels no need to convert humanity. He also has no monopoly on wisdom. `As soon as I know everything, I'm at a dead end.`by Dorothé KurversAmsterdam, 1998
Dutch