Thomas Ruff’s vintage photo-works make art from artifice
A couple of years ago, while browsing Ebay for vintage photographs, German photographer Thomas Ruff happened upon a collection of mid-century press photos featuring models, crime scenes and astronauts in space, the kind used by old newspapers and magazines. When the photos arrived, Ruff noticed that the markings on the backs – rubber stamps and handwritten editors' notes – were just as fascinating as the photographs themselves.
‘I found the juxtaposition of front and back rather interesting,' he says. 'Today, all print media use computer programs to edit images. This was impossible 30 years ago, and editing was done by hand.’ Through trial and error, Ruff started to reposition these old photographs in a modern digital context, ‘using superimposition and montages of the back on the front’. The resulting series called 'Plus++,' on show at Sprüth Magers Berlin, represents a departure from Ruff’s renowned portrait style.
In the C-print press++51.14 (2017), a snap of a Baltimore Museum exhibition superimposed with editor’s notes and hand-drawn brush-line cropping instructions, Ruff nods to the early 20th-century German 'fotomontage' movement. ‘Combining the front and the back of this image became a photo-montage that reminds me of the... 1920s,' he says, ‘which Bauhaus, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch and Kurt Schwitters all had a part in.’
A fashion model and (fictional) murder-scene investigator get the same treatment in press++32.58' (2016) and press++50.08 (2016). Here, ruff riffs on the rapidly evolving status of the photograph, and how this new technology was significantly impacting on the way we see. ‘It’s about the use of day-to-day photographs and the alteration of them,' he says. ‘I’ve always been interested in the changes and the history of photographic images as well as its technology. This is another genre in my exploration into the history and respective technological processes of photography.’
INFORMATION
'New Works' is on view through 2 September. For more information, visit the Sprüth Magers website
ADDRESS
Sprüth Magers
Oranienburger Straße
18 10178 Berlin
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
The moments fashion met art at the 60th Venice Biennale
The best fashion moments at the 2024 Venice Biennale, with happenings from Dior, Golden Goose, Balenciaga, Burberry and more
By Jack Moss Published
-
Crispin at Studio Voltaire, in Clapham, is a feast for all the senses
New restaurant Crispin at Studio Voltaire is the latest opening from the brains behind Bistro Freddie and Bar Crispin, with interiors by Jermaine Gallagher
By Billie Brand Published
-
Vivienne Westwood’s personal wardrobe goes up for sale in landmark Christie’s auction
The proceeds of ’Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection’, running this June, will go to the charitable causes she championed during her lifetime
By Jack Moss Published