German artist Thomas Ruff makes photography that look conventional, but isn't. In his upcoming exhibition of monumental portraits, he photographs his sitters in a highly objective and banal manner. Their gigantic scale, however, magnifies every blemish, every stray hair, seducing the viewer into a sense of intimacy with the "subject." Ruff tempts us to read meaning into the faces and project onto them, while constantly insisting upon the surface. We are reminded of photography's inability to reproduce anything other than the purely superficial; in viewing the work of Thomas Ruff, we might like to think we are being allowed a close look at people, but we can only acknowledge our inability to penetrate the photographic surface.
