November 21, 2011, By Charles Hagen / document.getElementById( "ak_js_21" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_22" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_23" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_24" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_25" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_26" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_27" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_28" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_29" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_30" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Fraenkel Gallery The Bechers typologies of banal buildings and structures aim to document the physical leftovers of disappearing industries. Tate. This German couple met as art students in Dsseldorf, in 1957. Working as a rare artist couple, they developed a rigorous practice focused on a single subject: the disappearing industrial architecture of Western Europe and North America that fueled the modern era. Fraenkel Gallery. What issues or problems might you anticipate in setting out to create a photographic typology? This photograph shows a cooling tower in Bochum, Germany against a grey sky, rendered in black and white. Thomas Struth, one of the Bechers' students, argued that their work was so extreme in its pursuit of the apolitical that the position read as a response to the recent past rather than as a neutral act, suggesting their approach reflects the difficulty of engagement; others have criticized them for prioritizing the aesthetic qualities of factories that almost certainly contributed to the German war effort. Our view of the surrounding landscape in places like Los Angeles is partly dictated by the mode of transport we choose. Their work can be linked to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of the 1920s and to such masters of German photography as Karl . [Internet]. Yet, despite this cadre of followers and the many accolades at Paris Photo and elsewhere, Bernd and Hilla Becher were outliers. To photograph things frontally creates the strongest presence and you can eliminate the possibilities of being too obviously subjective. January 22, 1993. Hannah Dawson DEPT.STORE Manager of the United States. The Bechers distanced themselves from approaches to their work that were overly interpretative, arguing that their work was purely a record which did not convey personality or feeling, yet maintained that others were free to view the images in whichever way they wished. Some, such as Ed Ruscha, organized their images as the Bechers did, by type. Get the best of Aperture in your inbox every day. The camera's ability to make an accurate record of particular visual phenomena has meant that artists and photographers, seeking to make a systematic document of aspects of the world, have been repeatedly drawn to photography. 'Every building on the Sunset Strip' captures this sense of an unfolding, largely homogenous, urban landscape, passing by through a car window. In 1991, the pair won a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. Their consistent focus on presenting structures associated with the coal and steel industries leads the viewer to reconsider their aesthetic preferences and encourages ongoing interest in industrial form. ), The Bechers approached photography the way a botanist might approach the cataloguing of flora and faunaSean OHagan, theGuardian, They are the lines on the face of the world. Calling yourself an artist does not make you one, that's for others to decide. Bernd Becher retired from teaching in 1996, but Bernd and Hilla Becher continued to work, visiting sites across Europe and North America, until Bernd Becher's death in 2007. Hilla Becher was born in Potsdam. Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each otherin print, in person, and online. Working methodically, the itinerant Bechers followed a very deliberate practice depicting these architectural forms and complexes, producing sequences of separate photographs that looked at individual structures from every side, as well the surrounding natural and manmade contexts, though never showing workers or any other people. People of PrintWorkflow Studio, RODHUS16-30 Hollingdean RoadBrightonBN2 4AA+44 (0)207 971 1127 Later, while working in advertising photography in Dsseldorf in 1957, Hilla met Bernd Becher, who was then a student at Kunstakademie Dsseldorf. Photography with ideology falls to pieces. The Becher's typologies of banal buildings and structures aim to document the physical leftovers of disappearing industries. Gelatin Silver Print - Art Gallery of New South Wales. What Is the Relationship between Literature and Photography? Kate Hollowood Editor Like objective scientists removing a specimen from the field, the Bechers framed their subject in a manner that isolated it from its environment. The Bechers scientific approach to their documentation enters a much larger conceptual arena when their study of the specific is placed in context of the generic, and you can view each specimen as it defines the entire species. There are no figures or other visual indicators, such as steam, that suggest the structure's ongoing use. 49 Geary Street, 4th Floor He describes the "dead-ahead", "emotionless" approach to depicting the subject, whether it be a gas station, swimming pool or parking lot. Host an Exhibition, Lead Supporters Bernd and Hilla Becher: Landscape/Typology @ MoMA Because industry continues to evolve with new technologies, the Bechers work is that much more significant as a meticulous record of an industrial era as it enters the realm of artifact.. For over 40 years, Bernd and Hilla Becher photographed the architecture of industrialisation: water towers, coal bunkers, blast furnaces, gas tanks and factory facades. The husband and wife team of Bernd and Hilla Becher began photographing together in 1959. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, theymarried. Bernd and Hilla Becher | Typology Watertowers (1967-1997) - Artsy They called these grids typologies. The Typology is nothing but comparing and giving it a shape, giving it some sort of possibility to be looked at, Hilla Becher said. Bernd and Hilla Becher - 13 artworks - photography - WikiArt.org The Bechers' work represents the past, in the form of buildings, without acknowledging or engaging with this rupture and this approach to modern history can be seen as either part of or counter to the struggle amongst German artists, most prominently Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, to come to terms with postwar identity. Bernd Becher foresaw that the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957 would transform industrial landscapes and he began sketching the Siegerland area and taking photographs to use as a basis for linocuts and lithographs around this point, due to the speed with which buildings were being demolished. The public lecture accompanied two exhibitions of work that she and her husband Bernd Becher, who died in 2007, had produced over the past half-century. Hilla Wobeser was born in 1934 in Potsdam, in what was later East Germany. America is a place where scale and number are features of the culture. Relating similar buildings according to their structural forms and original purposes, the Bechers created a vast taxonomy of modern architectural types facing eradication. Hilla Becher claimed, in 1974, that the question of whether their work was art or not was "not very interesting." Michael Collins profiles the winners of 2002s prestigious erasmus prize for Europeanculture. by using a diverse array of perspectives and visual approaches, Wolf uses his camera to reveal the human energy that flows through the contemporary city. They fit within Bernd and Hilla Becher's larger body of work, however, as documents of a particular element within industrial sites, illustrating the way in which buildings respond to the need to be affordable and durable. Their structuralist approach and their interest in ordered sets and serial presentations were unusual in photography at the time; as a consequence, the Bechers often presented their work elsewhere, in austere Conceptual Art publications and exhibitions rather than the contexts of photography or architecture. 9 Gelatin Silver Prints - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom. Typologies - PhotoPedagogy Portrait of Bernd and Hilla Becher, 1985. As professors of The Dusseldorf School of Photography, they influenced a generation of German photographers who were their students (including Andreas Gursky, Candida Hfer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth. Bernd and Hilla Becher first began their still-ongoing project of systematically photographing industrial structures - water towers, blast furnaces, gas tanks, mine heads, grain elevators and the like - in the late 1950s.1 The seemingly objective and scientific character of their project was in part a polemical return to the 'straight' aesthetics and social themes of the 1920s and . The weight of their achievement is grounded in a tradition of photographic documentation that is scientific in method and ostensibly mundane in its choice of subject. We didnt really see it as artists, we saw it as something like natural history, Hilla Becher noted in 2012. The degree to which these buildings remain inscrutable even as the image represents them clearly is indicative of a paradox underlying Bernd and Hilla Becher's work, in which clearly documenting industrial buildings does not provide the audience with an understanding of them, but rather marks a level of remove. The image, like the group to which it belongs, is a record of a regionally specific industrial architecture. All Rights Reserved, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Typologie, Typologien, Typologies, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Stonework and Lime Kilns, Coal Mines and Steel Mills, Bernd & Hilla Becher, August Sander/Bernd and Hilla Becher: 'A Dialogue', Hilla Becher, Photographer Who Chronicled Industrial Scenery Dies at 81, Review/Photography; Making Industrial Buildings Look Like Butterflies, Becher Photography Exhibition in the Ruhr Valley, Bernd and Hilla Becher: 4 Decades - Michael Blackwood Productions (2006), Lecture: Shannon Ebner on Bernd and Hilla Becher, Photographer Peter Holzhauer on New Topographics movement. Bernd and Hilla Becher: Life and Work Hardcover - amazon.com Susan Sontag wrote "all photographs are memento mori" (, the colours of all the cars in the supermarket car park, mugs/cups in your kitchen cupboard seen from above, your friends' hairstyles seen from behind. Bernd and Hilla Becher spent their career documenting industrial structures across the Western world, creating a form of photography arranged by type that, through repetition, encourages viewers to engage deeply with the formal qualities of the subject matter. They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. Their extensive series of water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples, industrial facades, and other vernacular industrial architecture comprise an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function. The full text of the article is here , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher. about byHans-Michael KoetzleaboutSander's epic project. Such an approach had long been advocated by the Bechers, who in 1970 called their first book on vernacular architecture Anonymous Sculptures and who eagerly participated in Conceptual and Minimal Art exhibitions. Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography can be considered conceptual art, typological study, and topological documentation. His seminal influence can be measured in the success of his studentsamong them Andreas Gursky, Candida Hfer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struthwhose work extends the tradition of clinical documentation, undertaken with a conceptual eye, to photography as an art-making discipline. This has evoked questions about the moral responsibilities of artists, with some critics arguing that representation of the world is sufficient while others suggest that such a position is immoral; another group argues that the Becher's reluctance to engage is so extreme that it constitutes a response to, rather than an evasion of, questions of historical responsibility. In 1970, Bernd and Hilla Becher began to actively campaign for the preservation of the structures they photographed and their images played a part in wider appreciation of industrial form. Bernd and Hilla Becher have spent their life together photographing the unintended beauty that can be found in industrial structures. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. Bernd and Hilla Becher were German artists working as a collaborative duo. In 1957, Bernd and Hilla Becher launched a campaign to document the anonymous and often-disused manufacturing and domestic buildings they encountered in the abandoned wasteland of postindustrial Europe. Driven by a belief in the scientific objectivity of photographic evidence, the logics utilized to classify photographs-in groups and categories or sequences of identically organized images-also shape our visual consciousness.
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