Collecting Thomas Ruff's work is both easy and complex.
Easy, because it is rather difficult to make a mistake, as almost ALL his series are interesting. I read it as a sign that Thomas Ruff is making history. Interiors, Porträts, Hauser, Sterne, Nacht, LMVDR, Jpegs…Even some Nudes images (the ones with immediate impact, and thus the ones that appear more frequently at auctions) deserve attention.
On the other hand, collecting Ruff’s work is very complex. Unless you are a Russian billionaire with unlimited purchasing power, you have to make difficult choices. At a first glance, some series are very different one from another. How to choose between a 1980’s “Portrat” and a 2000’s Jpeg ? Apart from the obvious “subjective” factor, historical significance enters into play.
After several years of wandering through Thomas Ruff’s work, I happen to be more oriented towards his architecture images. They are a recurring theme, as seen in the Hauser series, the LMVDR, some pictures for Herzog & Meuron (the book published in 1994 is a must have) and part of the Jpeg series. And they make full use of Ruff’s image treatment techniques.
Going back to the roots, hence, the Hauser Portfolio released by Schellman Edition in 1989 is a seminal work. The 5 Dye-Transfer prints depict urban landscapes, focused on a house or a building, with so simple an approach that the images come close to abstraction. During a long discussion on Ruff’s work, an art dealer once advised me to have a close look at this Hauser series, as it was the first one where the artist modified images afterwards, in order to rub out some visual interferences. If true, this work announces much of other “image editing” series, such as the LMVDR, the Nudes and Jpegs.
Easy, because it is rather difficult to make a mistake, as almost ALL his series are interesting. I read it as a sign that Thomas Ruff is making history. Interiors, Porträts, Hauser, Sterne, Nacht, LMVDR, Jpegs…Even some Nudes images (the ones with immediate impact, and thus the ones that appear more frequently at auctions) deserve attention.
On the other hand, collecting Ruff’s work is very complex. Unless you are a Russian billionaire with unlimited purchasing power, you have to make difficult choices. At a first glance, some series are very different one from another. How to choose between a 1980’s “Portrat” and a 2000’s Jpeg ? Apart from the obvious “subjective” factor, historical significance enters into play.
After several years of wandering through Thomas Ruff’s work, I happen to be more oriented towards his architecture images. They are a recurring theme, as seen in the Hauser series, the LMVDR, some pictures for Herzog & Meuron (the book published in 1994 is a must have) and part of the Jpeg series. And they make full use of Ruff’s image treatment techniques.
Going back to the roots, hence, the Hauser Portfolio released by Schellman Edition in 1989 is a seminal work. The 5 Dye-Transfer prints depict urban landscapes, focused on a house or a building, with so simple an approach that the images come close to abstraction. During a long discussion on Ruff’s work, an art dealer once advised me to have a close look at this Hauser series, as it was the first one where the artist modified images afterwards, in order to rub out some visual interferences. If true, this work announces much of other “image editing” series, such as the LMVDR, the Nudes and Jpegs.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire