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Thomas Ruff, élève des Becher est l’un des photographes majeurs de l’Ecole de Düsseldorf. Il s’est illustré aux côtés de Thomas Struth et Andreas Gursky dans les années 1980 avec ses portraits monumentaux. Ce livre rassemble pour la première fois la série Jpegs achevée en 2007. Connu pour sa capacité à remettre en question notre perception de la photographie selon l’évolution du medium, cette série analyse la façon dont les images sont diffusées et perçues dans notre société actuelle à l’ère du numérique. Ruff reprend des images trouvées sur Internet et les élargient à l’extrême jusqu’à ce que les pixels créent une nouvelle image faite de grilles géométriques de couleurs. L’artiste détourne principalement des images intactes: de paysages, de scènes de guerre ou de scènes de nature, modifiées par l’homme et les transforme en de sublimes paysages abstraits et colorés. Cette remarquable série, exposée récemment à l’exposition “Objectivités: La Photograhie à Düsseldorf” au Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, crée une encyclopédie visuelle de notre culture de l’image et contribue à l’histoire du paysage pictural. Cette édition élégante, au format colossal, fait écho à la taille des photographies de cette série.

Thomas Ruff, Jpegs, texte de Bennett Simpson, Ed. Aperture / David Zwirner, New York, Mai 2009. 28,3 x 38,1 cm, 132 pages, 65 photographies couleur.

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Thomas Ruff is among the most important international photographers to emerge in the last fifteen years, and one of the most enigmatic and prolific of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s former students, a group that includes Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, and Axel Hutte. In 2007, Ruff completed his monumental and very timely Jpegs series in which he explores the distribution and reception of images in the digital age. Starting with images he culls primarily from the Web, Ruff enlarges them to a gigantic scale, which exaggerates the pixel patterns, until they become sublime geometric displays of color. A fittingly deluxe and oversized volume, Jpegs is the first monograph dedicated exclusively to the publication of Ruff’s remarkable series.

When viewed up close the images in Jpegs look abstract; as you move away they merge into decipherable photographic images. Like Impressionistic paintings, Ruff’s photographs require the viewer’s active participation and shift in perspective in order to make a complete assessment of the image content. The work ranges from idyllic, seemingly untouched landscapes and popular tourist spots, to scenes of war and nature disturbed by human manipulation. Places and global events that have defined the visual media world of recent decades are represented, including the familiar, almost iconic pictures of atomic bomb tests; 9/11; scenes of warfare in Baghdad, Beirut, and Grozny; the killing fields of Cambodia; and the ravaged Asian coasts after the 2004 tsunami, among others. Taken together, these masterworks create an encyclopedic compendium of contemporary visual culture that also actively engages the history of landscape painting. Jpegs is a testament to the effects of the digital age on the medium of photography.

Thomas Ruff, jpegs, essay by Bennett Simpson, Ed. Aperture / David Zwirner, New York, May 2009. 28.3 x 38.1 cm, 132 pages, 65 four-color images.

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Thomas Ruff is among the most important international photographers to emerge in the last fifteen years, and one of the most enigmatic and prolific of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s former students, a group that includes Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, and Axel Hutte. In 2007, Ruff completed his monumental and very timely Jpegs series in which he explores the distribution and reception of images in the digital age. Starting with images he culls primarily from the Web, Ruff enlarges them to a gigantic scale, which exaggerates the pixel patterns, until they become sublime geometric displays of color. A fittingly deluxe and oversized volume, Jpegs is the first monograph dedicated exclusively to the publication of Ruff’s remarkable series.

When viewed up close the images in Jpegs look abstract; as you move away they merge into decipherable photographic images. Like Impressionistic paintings, Ruff’s photographs require the viewer’s active participation and shift in perspective in order to make a complete assessment of the image content. The work ranges from idyllic, seemingly untouched landscapes and popular tourist spots, to scenes of war and nature disturbed by human manipulation. Places and global events that have defined the visual media world of recent decades are represented, including the familiar, almost iconic pictures of atomic bomb tests; 9/11; scenes of warfare in Baghdad, Beirut, and Grozny; the killing fields of Cambodia; and the ravaged Asian coasts after the 2004 tsunami, among others. Taken together, these masterworks create an encyclopedic compendium of contemporary visual culture that also actively engages the history of landscape painting. Jpegs is a testament to the effects of the digital age on the medium of photography.

Thomas Ruff, jpegs, essay by Bennett Simpson, Ed. Aperture / David Zwirner, New York, May 2009. 28.3 x 38.1 cm, 132 pages, 65 four-color images.