Year: 2014
Medium: chromogenic print, framed
Dimensions: frame size: 71 x 61 cm (28 x 24 in.) / image size: 22 x 29 cm (8 5/8 x 11 3/8 in.)
Edition: of 1 of 8
Acquired from Gallery Koyanagi, 2022
This work is part of “negatives” series, created using the old albumen print photographs from Ruff's own collection. It features a person who appears to be a dancer from a Balinese dance. Albumen print is paper coated with egg white and used as photographic paper in early photography. Until the gelatin silver print came on stage, which is still the mainstream today, albumen print was often used when developing photographs. Albumen print photographs are processed to finish in a warm sepia-toned color and are characterised by their unique and soft expression of the beautiful contrast. This work is inverted by using digital technology to make the negative film-like image with blue tones, like those blueprint photographs. As a photographer who does not take photographs himself, Ruff refrains from holding a camera in this work either. Nowadays, many people may not be familiar with film system, such as the phenomenon of color inversion in negatives. as digital photo with smartphone has become the most familiar form of photography. Before the widespread of digital technology, film photography for general use such as daily snapshots, used negative film which was easy to adjust the color negatives This made the concept of images reversing colors well-known. In the golden age of digital photography nowadays, Ruff turns the former photography techniques like albumen print, negative film, and blueprint into an artwork. When this work is visually recognized as a negative film imagery through a device such as a smartphone, the original image on albumen print is vividly brought to life.
