David Zwirner will present Thomas Ruff: In Series, 1979–2024 at its Los Angeles gallery from 13 November 2026 to 6 February 2027, the German photographer's first major presentation in the city and his first solo show there in more than a decade. The exhibition, at 606 N Western Avenue, surveys more than four decades of Ruff's work, tracing his path from analogue photography to digital image-making.

Ruff rose to international prominence in the late 1980s as a member of the Düsseldorf School, studying under Bernd and Hilla Becher. Across the show, the gallery says, the photographs highlight the many different procedures Ruff has used to make images — from his early portraits and architectural views to series built from found internet pictures, star charts and computer-generated imagery — and the way he has absorbed new technologies as they emerged while continuing to rely on older methods.

The presentation underscores how Ruff has pushed photography beyond the lens, treating the medium as a field for experiment rather than a means of recording what stands in front of the camera. Works on view will span his portraits of the 1980s through his substrat and phg series and later projects, showing a practice that has continually rethought what a photograph can be.

Ruff has been represented by David Zwirner since 2000, and the gallery has staged fourteen solo exhibitions of his work in New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris. The Los Angeles survey arrives as his work returns to wider attention in the city: works by Ruff will also appear at The Broad in the group presentation Has the myth been shattered, on view from 21 November 2026 to 4 April 2027.