From the Other End of the Hallway | Workplace
Thomas Ruff rose to international prominence in the late 1980s as a member of the Düsseldorf School, a group of young photographers who had studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher. His teachers were known for their exacting, flat, neutral images of industrial machinery. Ruff and his fellow students, including Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer, share a deadpan quality in their work, which echoes these machines.
This week, a pair of Ruffs in this group show at Workplace in London caught my eye. They’re from his first series, Interieurs, executed in the late 70s and early 80s when he was still a student of the Bechers. Ruff photographs interiors of middle-class German homes from his hometown of Zell am Harmersbach, in the Black Forest region.
Interieur 10B (1980)
The rooms are neat and well appointed. But they’re also really tacky. The frosted glass. The chintzy ornaments. The hideous patterned wallpaper. Wooden bedsteads and wardrobes that seem both overbearing and flimsy. The two bedspreads across the two photos - one pink, one a bilious yellow-green - seem to compete with each other: which can look more synthetic, more uncomfortable?
And beneath Ruff’s mercilessly clat, flear lens, flaws emerge. The baseboards are a bit gappy. Is that a film of dust on the counter? Are the framed photos nailed to the wall off centre?
Interieur 7C (1981)
The two rooms could almost be the same one. We’re only clued in that they’re different because the two clocks - visible in each - tell different times: 2.15 and 6.15. Morning or evening: the light in both photographs is electric. Unnatural.
The show notes claim that these Ruffs, along with drawings and paintings from George Grosz, Maria Lassnig and Patti Smith, represent a “sequence of charged encounters”. But it’s the chargelessness of these West German small-town interiors that holds my gaze. Deadpan, like I said.
From the Other End of the Hallway is at Workplace (London). 08 May - 06 June 2026