Inspired by some of the earliest photographs of India and Burma (Myanmar), Ruff’s series, ‘Tripe | Ruff’, commissioned by the V&A, reimagines a set of 1850s architectural and topographical images by British Army Captain and photographer Linnaeus Tripe. Encompassing over twenty prints, ‘Tripe | Ruff’ is the latest series in Ruff’s 35-year investigation into the […]
Thomas Ruff continually challenges the processes, techniques and concepts of photography, frequently editing and manipulating images made by others in order to re-imagine their possibilities. Victoria and Albert Museum traveled to Ruff’s studio in Dusseldorf to meet the artist, and find out more about this working methods, inspiration – and how his art has evolved. […]
“One form of defense from this snobbism was to create a sort of puritanism within photography – a little village kind of mentality. Our things, our games. Let’s not engage with the outer world as they are mean to us.”
“A good number of the images allegedly had annotations written on the images such as “not interested in pictures”, “Deceased”, and “Looks better from the ground” written on them”
It suggests that the first “thing” or structure to deploy God’s image as creator is that of an “unknowing”, a design for which, he had to create its anti-thesis. By Brad Feuerhelm, ASX, May 2015 Sterne is something of a conjecture in the cartography of the heavens. It is perhaps an anti-empirical look into […]
Ruff has done a great deal to introduce into photographic art what we might call an ‘art of the pixel’, allowing us to contemplate at an aesthetic and philosophical level the basic condition of the electronic image. By David Campany, originally published in IANN magazine No.2, 2008 The photographic art of Thomas Ruff makes […]
Almost always working in series, Ruff frequently develops new technologies to facilitate concepts that are at the edge of visual and technical vanguards. By Vladimir Gintoff, ASX, April 2013 The German photographer Thomas Ruff is the anomalous schoolchild of the Dusseldorf Art Academy and Bernd and Hilla Becher’s tutelage. Breaking and reinventing the rules […]
Spanning two of the gallery’s spaces on West 19th Street in New York, Thomas Ruff’s exhibition features the world debut of his new series, photograms, alongside his ongoing series, ma.r.s.
Sammlung Goetz, Munchen, 1994 Ruff’s work is based on a critical study of the nature and history of photography. To his mind, the reputed objectivity of photography has always been suspect, and electronic processing is no less manipulative than the subjective selection made by the person looking through the lens. By Philip Ursprung, text excerpt […]
Haus der Kunst – Thomas Ruff im Interview mit Thomas Weski, 16.02.12
(All rights reserved. Images @ Thomas Ruff.)
Young Couple in Parked Open-Air Car, Ossining, New York 1932-34 By Carter Radcliff, Originally Published in Tate Magazine, Issue 5, 2003 In 1932, Walker Evans photographed a young couple in a roadster parked at the curb in a small town somewhere in America. The top is down, giving the photographer and his subjects direct views […]