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3 1 H iroshi Sugimoto (1948). Time Exposed, 1991. Portfolio with 51 original photographs. 24 × 30 cm. Estimate: CHF 20 000/25 000 2 T homas Ruff (1958). Phg.01 l, 2013. C-Print. 234 × 164 cm. Estimate: CHF 30 000/50 000 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PHOTOGRAPHY Gabriel Müller mueller@kollerauctions.com ONLINE CATALOGUE FROM 21 JUNE www.kollerauctions.com For the four-square-metre work offered in our July auc- tion, the German photographer Thomas Ruff, born in 1958, drew inspiration from the early Surrealist photo- grams of László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, as well as from the later works of German painter Christian Schad (ill. 2). The representatives of Classical Modernism exper- imented with photographic techniques without using a camera. Their photograms were direct prints of objects placed on photographic paper and exposed to light. Ruff’s images are no longer optical, but digitally produced. As he often does, here Ruff takes an idea and transfers it into the digital world. The images are not developed in the darkroom but displayed directly on the computer, virtually moved and ‘exposed’ – he thus uses a kind of virtual dark- room. The forms created in this way leave digital traces that are finally transferred to paper as C-prints. ‘The at- traction of a photogram is the photography, not the ob- jects. What can be seen in the pictures are only shadows’, says the artist. Hiroshi Sugimoto uses a large-format camera and the technical as well as creative means of long exposure for his marine photographs (ill. 1). The Japanese artist, born in 1948, produced a portfolio of 51 original photographs using this technique between 1980 and 1991. He creat- ed photographs of seascapes with an expanse of sky that are closely related to one another in their structure and, despite their formal austerity, appear highly individual – especially when juxtaposed as a series of pictures. The horizon line placed in the centre of the picture, precisely defined, separates sea and sky with a sharp cut, or allows water and sky tomerge seamlessly. Sugimoto’s sequence of images is meditative, hypnotic and at the same time elusive. In the end, they are not just images, but rather al- legories of the sea. Preview of the Photography auction on 7 July 2022 Digital Light, Real Landscapes 1 © 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich 2