neg◊pro01, 2014

Basel 2015
neg◊pro01

Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle

Thomas Ruff neg◊pro01, 2014 Chromogenic print 71 x 61 cm Edition of 8 In his latest series “Negatives”, Thomas Ruff revisits the 19th century origins of photography. Their distinctive blue auras reference the cyanotype process, which was invented in 1827 as a technique for producing photographic images. For the series “Negatives” Thomas Ruff acquired 19th century photographs with motives such as artists' studios or female nudes. He scanned these photographs, digitally inverted the colour scale and compiled a printout in proportion to the size of the original negative. The direct colour inversion of a brownish positive generated the characteristic bluish hue which resembles a cyanotype. With the "Negatives" Ruff is addressing diverse aspects of media science and art history.