Thomas Ruff Research Classroom Typologies

Thomas Ruff born in 1958 is a German photographer. At the age of 18 Ruff acquired his first ever camera and once he started to experiment with taking photographs he decided this was the route he wanted to take. Ruff also started to take similar shots to ones he saw in many amateur magazines. He then began to photograph landscapes, followed by a series of portraits of his friends. However, these weren’t glamorous photographs of his friends, they were just ordinary photographs of them looking into the camera lens, with no expression whatsoever. Thomas Ruff’s work definitely inspired me for the ‘Classroom Typologies’ brief and I decided I wanted to base my work around his photography. This is how I came up with the idea of having a natural conversation with my class mates to capture their natural facial expressions and emotions, a similar idea to Ruff’s, although his portraits are more serious and very sharp. Ruff’s first exhibition was held in Munich in 1981 and has widely exhibited all over the world ever since, which just goes to show his success as a photographer.

Exhibitions

1988 Schloss Hardenberg, Velbert, Germany
1988 Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany
1992 documenta IX, Kassel, Germany
1995 Venice Biennale, Italy
2000 Museum Haus Lange, Frankfurt, Germany
2001 Chabot Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2001 Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany
2002 Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany; Städtische Galerie Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
2002 Artium Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Vitoria (Gasteiz), Spain
2003 Fundação de Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal
2003 Tate Liverpool, Great Britain
2003 Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany
2003 Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan, South Korea
2004 Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea
2007 Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2008 Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary
2009 Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany
2009 Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires
2009 Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy
2011 Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
2012 Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany