THOMAS RUFF

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07

andere Porträts

1994—1995
andere Porträts is a series of portraits that are reminiscent of the photographs of wanted men and women used in criminal investigations. This seems perfectly natural when you consider that Ruff made the works with a device that is actually used by the German police to make composite photographs. Ruff borrowed an old photo-synthesizing machine from a police museum and created these pictures based on photographs of real people. They are portraits of people who seem to exist but actually do not. The series raises questions about the relationship between photography and reality, and the issue of a surveillance society.