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Portraits
Since 1981
During his time as a student Ruff worked as the ‘art
director’ for the Dusseldorf post-punk band EKG. In return,
the band members modelled for Ruff’s early photographic experiments.
It was at this time that he began working on a series of portraits,
a genre that had all but vanished from the Dusseldorf Academy.
Ruff embarked on a period of research into the history
of portraiture and carried out his own experiments with composition
and framing. He decided on a style of portrait that would be as
neutral as possible, with the aim of emphasising the face of the
sitter. Ruff requested that his models try to be expressionless,
and each one was photographed wearing their ordinary clothes, against
a plain background.
French theorist Roland Barthes, in his book Camera
Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1982), suggests that it
is possible for a photograph to convey deep emotion, and that there
is a moment when the subject of a photograph makes a direct link
with the emotions of the viewer through the surface of the image.
Ruff, however, takes a much more pragmatic view, convinced that
a photograph is only able to express the superficial - literally
showing us the surface of its subject (and in itself the photograph
is nothing more than a surface).
Ruff first produced these works on a large scale in
1986. The Portraits consolidated his international reputation
and gave him the financial support he needed to begin work on a
series of photographs of buildings.
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