THOMAS RUFF

Works
Texts
About

17

negatives

2014—
This series reexamines negatives, an indispensable part of making analogue photography, as images. Ruff’s collection of albumen prints, made between the late 19th and early 20th century, served as the source material for the work. Using various motifs, including artists’ studios, still lifes, and portraits of maharajahs from colonial-period India, Ruff digitally treated the originals, and by inverting and imbuing them with blue gradations, transformed them into negative pictures.