I am not interested in what is in front of the camera, but in what happens to the image
— Thomas Ruff
Thomas Ruff (b. 1958, Zell am Harmersbach) is an artist whose work has played a significant role in the development of contemporary photography since the late twentieth century. He came to international attention in the late 1980s as part of the Düsseldorf School, having studied from 1977 to 1985 at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Bernd and Hilla Becher. While sharing their interest in seriality and typological thinking, Ruff established an independent approach that expanded the conceptual and technical parameters of the medium.
Working primarily in discrete series, Ruff has examined a wide range of photographic genres, including portraiture, architectural photography, landscape, the nude, and appropriated imagery. From his early large-scale portraits and interiors to later digitally produced works, his practice has consistently investigated the conditions under which photographic images are produced, circulated, and perceived. Beginning in the 1990s, Ruff increasingly shifted away from the camera as a recording device, instead manipulating existing images and digital data, incorporating material from the internet, scientific visualization, and computer-generated imagery. Across these bodies of work, he has explored how technological developments reshape notions of objectivity, realism, and visual truth.
Ruff has exhibited extensively at major international institutions. Selected solo exhibitions have been presented at K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2020–2021); the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung (2021); Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole (2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017); The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2016); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2016); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2012); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2009); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2007). A major retrospective, Thomas Ruff: Photographs 1979 to Present, originated at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in 2001 and traveled internationally through 2004.
His work is held in numerous public collections worldwide, including those of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf.
Ruff lives and works in Düsseldorf. He has exhibited with Konrad Fischer Galerie since 1984.