Thomas Ruff

Galerist is proud to host the internationally renowned German photographer Thomas Ruff’s first solo exhibition in Turkey, between July 7 and August 7, 2010. The exhibition compiles five of Thomas Ruff’s collections that have great importance in his career path: The key elements of the series ‘Nudes’ are rooted from internet pornography. Colossal ‘Jpegs’ series contains massively enlarged images, and their ancestor’s are some pixilated visuals downloaded from the internet. ‘Substrat’ restructures the architecture of its origins in such a way that, they transform into something completely new. ‘Sterne’, merges the disciplines of photography and astronomy, which are among the favorites of Ruff. Finally, “Newspaper Photos” converts simple clipped newspapers into amazing works of art. In his ‘Substrat’ series, Ruff uses digital tools on Japanese Manga pictures downloaded from the internet, to reshape them as abstract, metaphysical images. He magnifies them to extreme proportions, until their anatomy extends to be seen with the naked eye. The revealed fluent colors and the dazzling puzzle they offer, reach the deeper parts of the mind. With his series ‘Subtrat’, Ruff initiates a new abstract style in photography, and its name also emphasizes this. The works in this series, explores the functioning principles of perception, and with the images they present, they provoke an abundant world of references, questions, explanations and interpretations. As its name implies, the main source of ‘Jpegs’ are the most popular type of compressed images in the digital world. During the attack to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Ruff was shooting photos in the region with his camera; subsequently, he realized that all the images he had taken were corrupted. As a reaction, he decided to search and seize similar images from the internet. In addition to those, a wide range of resources like the nuclear explosion visuals, old postcards and many photographs are brought together to be used in this series.

In order to highlight the digital roots of the visuals, Ruff enlarges their pixels, and sometimes changes their colors. When the artworks are observed from a moderate range, the themes of the pictures can be identified. However, as the observer gets closer to them, they become more abstract and artistic.

Ruff digitally reshapes the low-resolution pornographic visuals downloaded from the internet, and extends them to bigger proportions with his artistic touch, to create the series ‘Nudes’. He thinks that, the diversity of sensual fantasies that can be reached on pornographic internet sites presents a more realistic portrayal of the existing digital age than the minimized and conventionalized figures of traditional nude pictures and naked fashion photographs.

On the other hand, he also reacts against the ordinariness of the pornographic images that can be found on the internet in extreme quantities. As a result, after accumulating free images from web sites, Ruff transforms these pixilated visuals, removes some of the details and constructs new compositions.

Ruff’s renowned series ‘Sterne’ is inspired by one of his greatest passions; astronomy. He bought 29 × 29 cm negatives of night sky stars that were shot by the European Southern Observatory, and it was the first time that he used existing visual materials. Then he selected some sections, reproduced and enlarged them to 200 × 134 cm. ‘Sterne’ series, triggers a feeling similar to the one that can be experienced while observing the stars, on a dark and cloudless night. They grab the viewer and take them inside to enjoy the enormous beauty of stars.

‘Newspaper Photos’ will cover Galerist’s walls from one end to another, lengthwise. It represents a group of clipped photographs from German newspapers, which Thomas Ruff assembled in 7 years. The artist collected the clipped newspapers that he found amusing or absurd, photographed again, separated from the accompanying writings, and manipulated them. When the images are abstracted from the headlines and body copies, and framed as a singular entity, they create wider opportunities for different meanings.

Thomas Ruff exhibition at Galerist, presents a variety of photographs that carry references from his career’s diverse periods, and it will also provide the opportunity to read about the artist, in detail.

About the Artist

Born in 1958, Thomas Ruff lives and works in Düsseldorf.After studying photography with Bernd Becher at the Art Academy Düsseldorf, Ruff taught Photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 2000 to 2005. His latest exhibitions are: (1988) Schloss Hardenberg, Velbert, Germany,(1988) Porticus Frankfurt, Germany, (1992) documenta IX, Kassel, Germany, (1995) Venice Biennale, Italy, (2000) Museum Haus Lange, Frankfurt, Germany, (2001) Chabot Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands, (2001) Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, (2002) Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany; Städtische Galerie Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany, (2002) Artium Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Vitoria (Gasteiz), Spain, (2003) Casa de Serralves-Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal, (2003) Tate Liverpool, Great Britain, (2003) Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany, (2003) Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan, South Korea, (2007) Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, (2008) Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary, (2009) Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany, (2009) Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy, (2009)Thomas Ruff, cassini + zycles, Gallery Koyanagi, Japan, (2009)Thomas Ruff, Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, München, (2009)Thomas Ruff, Schwarzwald.Landschaft., Museum für Neue Kunst – Städtische Museen Freiburg, Freiburg, (2009) Interiors, Centre National d’Art Conetmeporain de Grenoble.