Curated by Sophie Hackett

Since the 1970s, Thomas Ruff has been developing the argument that whatever a photograph depicts, its true subject is ultimately photography itself. To this end, the Art Gallery of Ontario will present some fifty large-scale works by this well-known figure of the Düsseldorf School. The pieces, culled from Ruff’s various series from the ’90s to the present, trace the artist’s investigations into the very nature of imagemaking through his manipulation of found or appropriated archival images. Accompanying Ruff’s works will be items drawn from the artist’s own collection of photographic materials, ranging from Arthur Siegel photograms to a selection of Lucien Waléry’s Art Deco nudes to medical electrocardiograms taken in 1909. Such inclusions will reveal Ruff’s evocative dialogue with the material history of his medium.

— Richard Deming