‘Thomas Ruff: Questioning Truth Through the Window of Image-Making’ by Wenzhe Qiu
2026
Amid the sweeping currents of mass photography and technological expansion, photography has become an inquiry into the “manufacture of truth.” Numéro Art invited German artist Thomas Ruff to create this issue’s cover under the theme of “image-making.” Ruff digitally reworked Leslie’s photographs of Zhou Xun by lowering pixel density and deliberately introducing compression artifacts. The figure becomes granular and blurred—yet this very degradation reactivates the viewer’s visual perception. Between photographer Leslie, subject Zhou Xun, and Ruff himself, authorship is redistributed, and the “truth” of the image is no longer absolute. Thomas Ruff is often described as a master of “editing and reimagining” images. Since joining the Düsseldorf School of Photography in the 1980s, each subtle shift of his image-making practice has transformed rigorous typological photography into open-ended philosophical inquiry, coolly raising a series of questions about tools, authorship, and the nature of photography itself.
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