For over forty years, photographer Thomas Ruff has been exploring the image in all its forms, while re-appropriating major genres and techniques in the history of photography. Until August 28, in Saint-Étienne, the MAMC+ is dedicating a major retrospective to this heir to the Düsseldorf school, now aged 64. Through 17 series, it shows how the artist took hold of a wide variety of modes of visual production, appropriating their codes for purposes that were sometimes critical, sometimes purely aesthetic. From his famous Portraits from the early 1980s to his anaglyph views of Mars (an image printed to be seen in relief), including his series devoted to Chinese propaganda, we zoom in on how the German was able to trap the image society into its own trap.