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"The catalog volume for the exhibition in Oberhausen, entitled 'The Future Has Already Begun,' represents the major monograph on Rudolf HOLTAPPEL with photographs from more than 50 years of German industrial and social history. As a freelance photographer, the chronicler of the Ruhr region was active in the 1950s in a wide variety of fields, whether for the theater, advertising agencies, or companies in the retail, chemical and heavy industry sectors. In addition, he created free, experimental works and took photographs on numerous trips. Thus he dissected the urban structure of Manhattan with his camera from the roof of the Empire State Building as well as the transformation of the local urban space, which was subject to constant change due to industrialization, the economic miracle, and coal mine closures. His photographs form outstanding contemporary documents and show the social history of work, technology and industrial mass production in equal measure. The versatility of his work is revealed in the wide variety of clients and in the manifold uses of his images: as illustrations for illustrated books, as material for advertisements and company brochures, or as documentation of social events. In addition to numerous milieu shots in which typical situations of Ruhr life were captured, Holtappel's photographic interest lay in both sober documentary shots and snapshots with precise observation and sometimes grotesque perspectives. In the process, his critical and humorous side always comes to the fore through his own way of depicting people." (© Kettler Verlag, 2021)