Thomas Ruff is one of the key figures of photography in the postmodern era, and his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, will probably already be pencilled into your calendar if you have any interest in contemporary art.
His work, along with that of other notable alumni of the Dusseldorf School of photography who were mentored by Bernd and Hilla Becher, has been crucial in visually representing postwar, and post-Soviet Union philosophical concerns about truth, authenticity and historical narrative. Ruff has more recently experimented with the process of photography without using a camera, producing extraordinary images that are visually pleasurable on a more visceral level.
The extensive collection of works in this exhibition — progressing from his strict, formal "Portraits" series from the 1980s through experimentation with 3-D stereoscopy to large semi-abstract photograms — is without fault in showing us the diversity of Ruff's travails. The artist was personally involved in the design of the show, and created "Press ++," a new series of scanned and enlarged newspaper photos combined with the scribbled and printed text from their reverse sides.
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