ART CITIES:Berlin-Thomas Ruff
Instead of photographing our everyday reality, Thomas Ruff concentrates on the depiction of photographic reality. His approach is based on the methods of so-called “researcher-artists”. In each of his series Ruff uses the medium of photography as an instrument of systematic analysis that can be used to aid in the examination of social, political and aesthetic aspects of image production.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive
Thomas Ruff in his solo exhibition “New Works” at Sprüth Magers Gallery in Berlin presents new works from his latest series “press++”, all of which are exhibited for the first time. The “press++” series continues Ruff’s long-standing interest in the deconstruction of the image and the new structures of photography following digital technology. From the ‘30s onwards, most of the photographs were no longer sent by mail from the press agency to the newspapers but instead sent as a wire and were then printed out by the newspaper, therefore showing the structure of the wire transmission. Ruff scanned the front and back of the original documents, which he has been collecting over several years, and combined the two sides. Interested equally in the subject matter (and any touch-ups) on the front of the paper and the words, stamps, signatures, and smudges on the back, he thus created seamless montages of image and text, in the process compromising the integrity of the former as well as adding relevant context. The overlap causes each side to lose its intended information and merge into a new image altogether. Ruff has commented how photo-editors at the newspapers had little respect for the photograph, significantly altering the look and meaning of the original with their retouching and comments. The source photographs for the main Gallery space come from Hollywood publicity shots used by casting agencies to promote the actresses on their books, with names scrawled on the reverse to identify them: Portland Mason, Connie Russell, Rosemary Clooney. Their faces are interrupted by paint enhancing contours or attached clippings of their final published version, for example the announcement for a new play starring the actress, creating a ghostly repetition within the image. Another body of works examines the images handed out by press departments of museums. A large stamp across a Joan Miró painting identifies its source as the Guggenheim, this textual addition intermingling with the artist’s own, meandering marks. The text may also detail the route of the photograph; a stamp reads “Please return to the Baltimore Museum of Art”, and a pencil note “Sunday Sun Feature Sect”, tells us where it was published. The credibility of annotations and printed text on the image cannot always be trusted however, with a Chuck Close image labelled as Jasper Johns.
Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, Oranienburger Straße 18, Berlin, Duration: 7/7-2/9/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.spruethmagers.com
