The deadpan portrait, championed by Thomas Ruff in the 1980s, has permeated both contemporary art and consumer culture alike. The approach, which began as a meticulous investigation into how the portrait functioned within a social and political context, has been co-opted by fashion and advertising for commercial interests. With the help of the company American Apparel, the aesthetic has become a sanitized version divorced from any political context, often used to convey a type of detached and cynical demeanor.

Once, when discussing photographs in an interview, Thomas Ruff said, “I think a lot of people just aren’t aware of how they can be manipulated by either the government or the advertising industries if they aren’t being attentive … as soon as photographs are made by a professional, you need to be careful, because there is then a vendor/client relationship, and that begins to involve personal/political/commercial interests.”

American Apparel Portraits (After Thomas Ruff) is a series of animated GIFs created using appropriated catalog photography from the company's online photo database. This work forces the commercial images back into a contemporary art context, conflating the function of photography in art and in commerce, alluding to Ruff’s warning.