Thomas Ruff

by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Editor)

Thomas Ruff is one of the best-known and most influential German photographers working today. Ever since the early 1980s, he has investigated the photographic medium, the use that is made of it, and the world of contemporary visual culture in general. This volume brings together and comments upon a selection of over eighty-four photographic works on the most diverse house interiors, portraits, architecture, starry skies, and nocturnal urban views. Also included are the recent nudes taken from web sites and other images from the internet, paying particular attention to the artist’s most recent works and his relationship with the visual production of the digital era in general. The volume is also the catalogue for an exhibition (Castello di Rivoli, March 16–June 21, 2009) and it includes a number of previously unpublished essays by the curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Daniel Birnbaum, director of the Venice Biennial 2009, Visual Arts section. In addition to the works in the exhibition, it presents some of Ruff’s most important and widely discussed creations since the 1980s. The volume also contains a complete bibliography and an anthology of writings on the artist, some never previously published in English.

Genres: Art

312 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2009

About the author

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev was the Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA (13) which opened in Kassel on June 9, 2012, and of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney. Previously, she was the director of the Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Torino at Castello di Rivoli in Turin until 2009, and chief curator of the same museum from 2002 to 2008. She wasalso co-curator of the 2005 Turin Triennale. She is interested in the relations between the historical avant-garde and contemporary art through exhibition-making.