Thomas Ruff
"Art is an intelligent examination of our surroundings," says German photographic artist Thomas Ruff, questioning not only his environment but also photography itself in his work.
Ruff was born in 1958 and studied photography at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Bernd and Hilla Becher between 1977 and 1985. At the end of the 1980s, he achieved his breakthrough with large-format portraits. Ruff also worked on photographs with the subjects of interiors, buildings and starry skies. Ruff often alienates existing material from various media using digital technology; most recently, he processed NASA photos of the surface of Mars.
Ruff has been exhibiting worldwide for about 40 years, among others in New York and Ghent. In 1992, he took part in the documenta and in 1995 in the Venice Biennale. "Today, Thomas Ruff is one of the best-known photo artists of his generation, with an undisputed top position on the market, where his works are traded like high-priced paintings," wrote the German newspaper Die Zeit in 2013.
