Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, mounted on board
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/mark-ruwedel-13509" aria-label="More by Mark Ruwedel" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Mark Ruwedel</a>
Columbia and Western 23 RR tunnel
Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by H M Government from Jack Kirkland and allocated to Tate 2020
<p>This black and white gelatin silver print forms part of the series <span>Westward the Course of Empire (RR tunnels) </span>1996–2006 (Tate P79979–P79990, P15053–P15060 and P15062) by the American photographer Mark Ruwedel. The series takes as its subject the impact on the landscape of the railroads built in the US and Canadian West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – entrances to railroad tunnels, deep cuts in the landscape and the flattening of earth to make way for railroad construction. In some cases, it is not apparent that the landscape has been engineered, with the rock cuts and overgrown tunnels depicted as if they are naturally occurring phenomena. Each photograph is mounted on board and labelled with its location, and sometimes a number and date. A book on the series, <span>Westward the Course of Empire</span>, was published in 2008, and including reproductions of over seventy prints, although Ruwedel produced over 500 for the series.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver mounted board
Columbia and Western #23, (RR tunnel)
image: 190 × 242 mm
Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by H M Government from Jack Kirkland and allocated to Tate 2020
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<p>This black and white gelatin silver print forms part of the series <i>Westward the Course of Empire (RR tunnels) </i>1996–2006 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-columbia-and-western-21-p79979" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P79979</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-camas-prairie-19-p79990" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P79990</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-spokane-portland-and-seattle-5a-rr-tunnel-p15053" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15053</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-tonopah-and-tidewater-40-rr-grade-p15060" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15060</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-northern-pacific-13-rr-cut-p15062" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15062</span></a>) by the American photographer Mark Ruwedel. The series takes as its subject the impact on the landscape of the railroads built in the US and Canadian West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – entrances to railroad tunnels, deep cuts in the landscape and the flattening of earth to make way for railroad construction. In some cases, it is not apparent that the landscape has been engineered, with the rock cuts and overgrown tunnels depicted as if they are naturally occurring phenomena. Each photograph is mounted on board and labelled with its location, and sometimes a number and date. A book on the series, <i>Westward the Course of Empire</i>, was published in 2008, and including reproductions of over seventy prints, although Ruwedel produced over 500 for the series.</p>
<p>The photographs from <i>Westward the Course of Empire </i>reference the work of early nineteenth-century photographers of the American West who ‘first examined and then recorded the land … in the service of governmental geological surveys, private railroads, logging companies, and commercial mining interests.’ (Jock Reynolds, ‘Time Will Tell’, in Ruwedel 2008, unpaginated.) Unlike these pioneers, however, whose works captured the American West during an ambitious period of industrial growth and expansion, the railroads photographed by Ruwedel have long been abandoned and, in some instances, their construction was never completed. Showing cuts in the land, or tunnels built into naturally forming rock formations, the photographs evoke a time where the human relationship with the land was one where nature was something to take ownership of.</p>
<p>All of his series show Ruwedel’s ongoing interest in the dynamic relationship between the man-made and natural environment and his interest in ‘the evidence left behind by the human use of place and space’ (quoted in ‘Mark Ruwedel Interviewed by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa’, <i>Paper Journal</i>, 27 February 2017). In the series Pictures of Hell 1997–9 (see Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-hell-roaring-canyon-colorado-plateau-utah-p14646" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14646</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-devils-lookout-black-canyon-of-the-gunninson-river-colorado-p14651" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14651</span></a>), Ruwedel looks at the naming and, by extension, claiming of empty landscapes by European colonial forces. In naming the landscapes, the colonialists negated the histories of the indigenous peoples who had previously inhabited them. Similarly, in the ongoing<i> </i>series <i>Message</i> <i>from the Exterior</i>, begun in 2007 – which contains the sub-series <i>Dusk </i>(see Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-dusk-50-p14638" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14638</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-dusk-40-p14645" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14645</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-dusk-57-antelope-valley-p15069" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15069</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-dusk-62-hinkley-p15071" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15071</span></a>) and <i>Desert Houses </i>(see Tate L03189) as well as more self-contained works like <i>Neighbors #4 (Apple Valley) </i>2009 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-neighbors-4-apple-valley-p15068" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15068</span></a>) – individual houses are captured in various states of dilapidation, showing the legacy of human influence on, and interaction with, the landscape. Human influence here, as in <i>Westward the Course of Empire</i>, is shown to be comically hubristic. The landscape is figured both as passive terrain and active agent, and it is the play between the two that Ruwedel draws on throughout his work.</p>
<p>Ruwedel’s series reveals a focused interest in cataloguing and collecting, presenting many examples of a specific phenomenon. The detailed titling, indicating the precise location of each photograph, gives a scientific strand to the artist’s methodology. Ruwedel’s work can also be read as historical evidence and typology, something he has noted himself when considering the legacy of his photography: ‘Regardless of their intentions almost all photographs grow up to become documentary photographs … my assumption is that they have some sort of information in them that someone might find of use.’ (‘Mark Ruwedel, interview by The Photographers’ Gallery’ 2019, <a href="https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/content/db2019-mark-ruwedel">https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/content/db2019-mark-ruwedel</a>, accessed 20 August 2019). Ruwedel has stated that his work develops out of ‘being out there and photographing and looking around’ (‘Mark Ruwedel, ‘Mark Ruwedel – Studio Visit’, <i>TateShots</i>, 6 December 2013, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv64hL0VaGg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv64hL0VaGg</a>, accessed 22 January 2020), his series unfolding organically and developing gradually over long periods of time, although some are shorter and self-contained (see <i>Wendover Air Force Base: Nine Bomb Craters, Utah</i> 1999, printed 2008, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-crater-1-p79991" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P79991</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-crater-9-p79999" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P79999</span></a>; and <i>Crossing</i> 2005, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-crossing-2-p14602" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14602</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruwedel-crossing-bottle-p14607" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14607</span></a>).</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Karen Love (ed.), <i>Mark Ruwedel: Written on the Land</i>, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada 2002.<br/>Mark Ruwedel, <i>Westward: The Course of Empire</i>, New Haven and London 2008.<br/>Grant Arnold (ed.), <i>Mark Ruwedel</i>, Göttingen 2015.</p>
<p>Emma Jones<br/>August 2019<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>January 2020</p>
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Summary
2024-04-05T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT