'Thomas Ruff’s Blurred Memories of 9/11' by Isabella Socci
2026
It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the World Trade Center attacks in Manhattan—a day of mourning and commemoration for New Yorkers and people around the world. Today, the past and present collide through memorials, moments of silence, and images of that day. Photographs play a particularly powerful role in returning us to moments in history. But what happens in the absence of documentation?
German photographer Thomas Ruff was in New York on September 11, 2001, photographing the attacks and their aftermath, only to realize days later that his camera hadn’t captured anything at all. He had experienced it though, and the pictures remained in his mind. Unlike a photograph, memory is ever-changing. Recollections shift as time passes, creating gaps, distortions, and fuzzy details. Ruff harnessed those imperfections to recreate what he had lost, using digital techniques to manipulate existing images from that day. Blurry, distorted, and pixelated, the resulting works approach the tragedy as if viewed through memory itself. The images make up jpegs ny, now on view at David Zwirner in New York. On the occasion of the exhibition, we asked Ruff about his memories of the city, the slipperiness of remembrance, and what he refuses to photograph.
Read more at Interview.
