THOMAS RUFF
neg◊stil_07, 2015
Chromogenic print
11 9/16 × 8 13/16 inches (29.4 × 22.4 cm)
Ed. of 8
© Thomas Ruff
Thomas Ruff: nature morte – Gagosian Gallery London Gagosian Gallery London presents recent work by Thomas Ruff, a leading innovator in the generation of German artists that propelled photography into mainstream art. 6 August – 26 September 2015.]]>
Source: Gagosian Gallery London
Open and explorative, he has pushed the limits of the medium, harnessing technologies both old and new—including night vision, hand-tinting, and stereoscopy—to reconceptualize architectural, astrological, pornographic, and portrait photography. In the objective tradition of his former professors Bernd and Hilla Becher, Ruff’s deadpan Portraits are characterized by a startling level of legibility; while in the ma.r.s. series, he amplified black-and-white NASA reconnaissance images with 3-D rendering and saturated color. In recent works, he has engaged the photogram, the camera-less technique advanced by Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy and others during the early twentieth century; and the visual and evocative properties of the photographic negative.
Ruff’s recent negatives extend his explorations of the photogram, in which he used positive and negative imagery to create a mesmerizing photographic world of nebulous shadows, spheres, zigzags, and hard edges against richly colored backgrounds. Reversing the negative’s role as a means to an end—the master image from which the print is created—he digitally transforms sepia-toned albumen prints into dramatically contrasting apparitions. The size of the prints—29 x 22 centimeters—roughly corresponds to the scale of the glass plates that could be exposed with a large camera during the nineteenth century. In the negatives shown at Gagosian Beverly Hills in 2014, Ruff portrayed posed nude subjects with white marble skin tones; in new works he imbues plants with sculptural dimensionality, heightening the form and character of each specimen. Reduced to a white silhouette, a vase of lilies resembles rising smoke; the bright puff of a drooping hydrangea is a focal point among hazy grey tones. Revisiting historical techniques to invent meta-photographic genres, Ruff continues to expand the subjects, possibilities, and appearance of images.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication with an essay by Philip Gefter.
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