Photographer Thomas Ruff-the successor to Bernd and Hilla Becher, his teachers at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf-was recently the subject of much discussion, thanks to his controversial Nudes: a series of computer-manipulated images of erotic, in part pornographic scenes taken from the Internet. For his most recent cycle of works, Machines, Ruff combed through the photo archive of a machine- and tool factory in 2003. From this portfolio of some three thousand glass negatives from the 1930s-originally made for use in a sales catalogue-the artist took a small selection and subjected them to digital manipulation. Using a computer, he colorized these product photographs in the iron-oxide colors of old industrial plants and enlarged them. In the approximately sixty photographs produced thus far, Thomas Ruff combines analogue and digital photography to delve into the question of the authenticity of a photographic reproduction and the constellations formed by reality, perception, and representation. Exhibition schedule: Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover, December 5, 2003 - February 29, 2004
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