• DOROTA KOZINSKA on Suburb Beautiful at Projex-Mtl. ARTnews, June 2009 •
“Suburb Beautiful,” the latest exhibition from the Montreal photographer Andreas Rutkauskas, provoked comparisons with the work of other observers of despoiled landscapes, such as Edward Burtynsky and Roy Arden. But Rutkauskas quickly seduces viewers with his very personal take on suburban sprawl. Recording locales from Quebec to Vancouver, the ten images here depicted disturbing, but mesmerizing, homogeneity and blandness.The artist’s typological series begins with Kanata, Ontario (2007). Rows of identical boxy homes languish in a regimented and constricted landscape. Photographs titled Winnipeg, Manitoba(2007) and Ste. Rose, Quebec (2007) feature similarly eerie and empty scenes.
With the land devoid of greenery and people, the viewer’s eye travels toward the ubiquitous housing complexes marking the dreary horizon. The prairie skies may be a touch different in hue than those over Quebec, but otherwise little distinguished one place from another. Snow-covered Kanata reappeared in the final image of the group, but this time the field leading to the rows of vacant and fragile-looking houses is a battlefield of giant boulders that seem to jostle one another with tectonic energy.
Closed Course (2008), picturing a serene golf course with a meandering water feature and precisely trimmed lawns, offered a respite from this monotony. But despite its beauty, the photo tells the same story as the others: its grounds are contained, nature has been subverted.