Thomas Ruff is a Düsseldorf-based photographer known for the diversity of both technical and conceptual experimentation with the medium. Ruff is especially interested in how photography is easily manipulated and how such manipulation puts the notion of its authenticity into question. jpegcc01 appears to be a low resolution image of a landscape blown up to such a scale that it causes severe pixelation. With clear pixel lines incised across the surface, the viewer must stand at a distance to see the full picture of a cave, located in Copper Canyon. Using JPEGs (the standard compression filed used for Internet images), Ruff salvages such highly mediated images by emphasizing their formal properties, such as the almost impressionistic patchwork of pure squares of color. In doing so, Ruff restores meaning and beauty to what would otherwise be unusable material in fine art photography.

Adapted from

Anna Katherine Brodbeck, ed., TWO X TWO X TWENTY: Two Decades Supporting Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art), 2018, 78.