Medium: Imprinted on photopaper
Edition 100 + 20 A.P.
Image size: 40 x 30 cm
Paper size: 50 x 40 cm
Signed, dated and numbered
Born in southwest Germany in 1958, Thomas Ruff has long been viewed as a key figure of the Düsseldorf School of photography, having studied under such greats as Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (where he later taught). Ruff earns his reputation in part through his continual innovation, leading him to explore in recent years the experimental possibilities offered by digital image-making and camera-less photography.
The exhibition at Zurich‘s Mai 36 consisted of new works from Ruff’s “Photograms” and “Negatives” series. The “Photograms” on view are huge prints, with six pieces nearly 8 by 6 feet and one even larger work in landscape format. They are glorious yet enigmatic images, and no wonder, for Ruff creates them with an elaborate process he devised himself. Whereas Surrealists like Man Ray generated monochrome photograms by placing objects on light-sensitive paper and exposing the materials to the sun, Ruff reimagines the photogram as an entirely digital technique. Using neither physical objects nor light-sensitive backgrounds, Ruff instead programs the vectors of a form into animation software customarily used to make 3-D films. Within that digital environment the form is subjected to numerous virtual light sources of different intensities and colors, resulting in the final image. The operation requires mammoth computing power, and the seven photograms in the main exhibition space necessitated the use of the supercomputer JUROPA at a scientific research center in Jülich, Germany. Out of the resulting images, phg.09_II (all works 2014) most resembles the series’ Surrealist forebears, with its white, coglike shapes casting pale shadows on a black background. Elsewhere, phg.02_II gave away next to nothing about its initial subject: yellow, tawny orange, pale green and gray refractions and shadows articulate a reverse S-shape that surges from the bottom right to the top left with a sort of Futurist dynamism.
La fotografía de Thomas Ruff abarca todas las posibilidades materiales del medio. El artista utiliza una variedad de técnicas que van desde la producción anticuada del cuarto oscuro hasta la manipulación digital mientras explora la autenticidad, la apropiación y los límites de la fotografía como forma de arte; sus intereses se alinean más con el arte conceptual que con la fotografía documental o escénica, y sus temas abarcan retratos, paisajes, desnudos, arquitectura y formas abstractas.
Ruff saltó a la fama como parte de la Escuela de Düsseldorf, un grupo de fotógrafos poco afiliados que estudiaron con Bernd y Hilla Becher. La serialidad de sus temas se inspira en la adopción de las "tipologías" de Becher en su propio trabajo. Ruff ha expuesto en Nueva York, Londres, Tokio, Berlín, París y muchas otras ciudades. Su obra pertenece a las colecciones del Art Institute of Chicago, el Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, el Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moderna Museet, el Guggenheim Museum y el S.M.A.K. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, entre otros.
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