Literature: Okwui Enwezor, Thomas Weski and Valeria Liebermann: “Thomas Ruff, Works 1979–2011”, 2012. Similar works shown p. 174–183. Provenance: David Zwirner, New York (label on the reverse numbered RUFTH0594). Provenance: Holtermann Fine Art, London. Acquired here by the present owner. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark / Norway.

The German photographer Thomas Ruff is one of the most important European contemporary photographers to emerge at the end of the 20th century. His works are rooted in the documentary tradition of the Düsseldorf School of photography founded by Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for its detached, objective gaze. He is part of the first and most influential generation of students from this school, which counts notable artists such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer.

Since his first series “Interieurs” appeared in 1979, Thomas Ruff took on new approaches to photography and has since then constantly challenged the conventions of the medium and the documentary style his work sprung from. Essentially his works are photos on photography. And with each new series of works, he has explored the medium, its genres, motifs and techniques, with a methodical approach:

“His work contains neither narrative nor anecdotal moments it is purely an expression of a conceptual working method in a scientific form which dissects the objects, reassembles them and in doing so combines analysis and original image creation: “The artist is not there to entertain, but to enlighten and contextualize. Art must make people think.”” (Thomas Weski: The Scientific Artist. In: Thomas Ruff, Works 1979–2011. (2012), p.36)

Ruff experimented with human perception, references to reality and the conventions of photography early on, e.g. colour vs. black and white, small vs. oversize, analogue vs. digital photography. Later he moved away from exploring the boundaries of traditional photography to discover the Internet and its way of generating visual information: “The computer is an excellent new tool for photography, an extension for the dark room. It allows us to change colours and resolutions, parts of a picture or even an entire picture.” (Weski, 2012, p.31)

The work from the series “Substrat”, presented on the opposite page, is an example of this new approach to photography. It is a form of appropriation art more than a traditional photograph. Ruff has taken a Manga comic figure found on the Internet and edited it digitally. The original image ends up as a completely different, colourful and abstract amorphous structure becoming a work in its own right, enhanced further by the large format (this piece measures 269.2×167.6 cm).

In 2004 Thomas Ruff presented the series “jpeg” (lot number xxx). In this series, Ruff initially worked with photos of disasters, e.g. the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, but later he also included his own landscape motifs in the series, like the one presented here. He used low-resolution photos and enlarged them many times, creating images that can be seen from the distance but dissolve into abstract squares when you approach them, like impressionist paintings. “The denial of information is part of the artistic strategy, which not only reflects the nature of digitally generated images, but also poses the question as to their technical construction and truthfulness.” (Weski 2012, p. 34)