The founding of Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery in Munich in 1968 marked the beginning of a forum of contemporary art that over the years has presented a great number of artists with their first solo exhibitions in Germany, or indeed their first solo exhibitions at all. The list includes such artists as Jenny Holzer, Günther Förg, Dan Graham, Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, James Coleman, Karin Kneffel, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Katharina Fritsch, Thomas Ruff or Anri Sala.
One of the focal points of the gallery's activities during the 1970's was the presentation of Concept Art with artists like Douglas Huebler, Daniel Buren, Ian Wilson, Lawrence Weiner, and On Kawara. Conceptual content, the questioning of the correlation between art and reality and the reflection upon the context of art are to this day the common, cross-generation and cross-media link between the artists represented by Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery. The compositions of Martin Creed or Goska Macuga follow this tradition.
In the 1980s and 1990s the owner, curator and essayist Rüdiger Schöttle pursued a program that opened up the partial return of the narrative and the re-evaluation of images. Since the 1980's the Dusseldorf School of Photography has been one of the emphasis of the gallery programme. Artists like Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth are regulary exhibited and were enhanced by the young Chinese artist Chen Wei.
Besides cultivating a programme of longstanding artists, Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery has a decisive interest in exploring new approaches in the contemporary art scene and regularly presents works of young emerging artists such as Toulu Hassani, Sophie Reinhold or Thu Van Tran.