Born 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany, residing in Düsseldorf
In addition to Thomas Struht, Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer, members of the Düsseldorf School, it is Thomas Ruff who crosses the boundaries of photography in the most radical way. Already as a student of Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for their bluntly pragmatic, black-and-white photos of industrial buildings, he began photographing the living rooms of German suburbanites. In the 1980s, he created a series of photos of his friends “Porträts” (Portraits): these are austere, colour photos focusing on the face that refrain from any emotional expression. In addition, all defects are digitally removed from the photos. With his series “Retuschen” (Touch Ups), based on altered illustrations found by chance in medical books, Ruff started a new phase in his work. He now did not seek images that his camera produced, but aimed more at processing discovered images.
In 1989, Ruff acquired old photos from an observatory in the Andes that he later re-photographed. “Sterne” (Stars) is a series of nostalgic shots for ordinary Europeans of a reality that has disappeared, because it is no longer possible to photograph the night sky in Europe due to air pollution. A fair amount of commotion was produced by Ruff’s series “Nudes”, digitally processed, colour pornographic images that he took from the Internet. By altering the images, he changed these often harsh pictures of crude reality into romantic, dreamy, and almost innocent documents of sexual passion.
However, Ruff not only changes already existing photos. He is also interested in the possibilities of images that go beyond the methods he has at his disposal, whether it be an analogue or digital camera. With the help of instruments developed for night vision during the Gulf War, he made night images of cities. The result is beautiful abstract images in a rainbow of colours. The farthest away from the original photographic process is his series “Zycles” (Cycles), records of three-dimensional projections of mathematical curves inspired by drawings that were found in ancient books on electromagnetism. The result is completely abstract images made of lines and curves and giving the illusion of spatial depth, which shows that Ruff, as opposed to a traditional photographer, understands things like a visual seismographer of real events. “I live my life,” Ruff explains. “And occasionally I come across something that intrigues me, upsets me, or amuses me, and that does not leave me alone, and this is what results from such things.”
Text by Noemi Smolik
