Studio: Thomas Ruff

For decades, Thomas Ruff has taken a skeptical yet conceptually serious approach toward investigating the photographic image. In each of his series, Ruff explores the technical conditions of the medium through various means, including the use of color, scale, and digital manipulation.

For his most recent series, tableaux chinois, Ruff examines the use of photographs in political propaganda, beginning with images sourced from La Chine, the French iteration of a periodical that Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party produced specifically for Europe. The series, now on view at David Zwirner in Paris, debuted in the fall of 2020 as part of the artist’s solo exhibition at K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf.