Andreas Gursky, Singapur Börse I, 1997, Deutsche Bank Collection. © VG Bildkunst, Bonn
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Bernd und Hilla Becher, Doppelwasserturm, Dortmund, D, 1972, Deutsche Bank Collection. © Becher, Düsseldorf
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Bernd und Hilla Becher, Fachwerkhäuser, 1959-1961/1974, Deutsche Bank Collection. © Becher, Düsseldorf
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Axel Hütte, Vescona II, 1991, Deutsche Bank Collection. © Axel Hütte, Düsseldorf
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Jörg Sasse, S-90-02-03 Düsseldorf, 1990, Deutsche Bank Collection. © VG Bildkunst, Bonn
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Jörg Sasse, W-89-12-05 Bad Salzuflen, 1989, Deutsche Bank Collection. © VG Bildkunst, Bonn
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Thomas Struth, Louvre 2 Paris, 1989, Deutsche Bank Collection. © Thomas Struth
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Candida Höfer, Stadtbibliothek Stockholm I, 1993, Deutsche Bank Collection. © VG Bildkunst, Bonn
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They
represent a completely new idea of photography. Initially, the Becher
students experimented with oversized formats whose crystalline
sharpness makes even minute details visible. They worked with both
found pictorial material and the most advanced digital technology. With
Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse, and Thomas Struth German photography began to take international museums and the art market by storm. All of them studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
Now an exhibition in Deutsche Bank Luxembourg documents this important chapter in the history of photography, with around 70 works from the Deutsche Bank Collection and loans from the renowned photo collection of the German Stock Exchange. The show Photo Artists Make History is part of the official program of the European Month of Photography in Luxembourg, which is being celebrated starting April 24, 2013 at diverse exhibition venues in the Grand Duchy.
The
exhibition illustrates how the Becher couple laid the foundations for a
new kind of German photography in the 1960s. Their photographs of
“anonymous sculptures” (as they titled their first illustrated book,
published in 1970), which they conceived as series, show factories,
blast furnaces, and water towers. The buildings – most of which no
longer exist today – have a peculiar beauty. The Bechers viewed their
sober typologies as being in the tradition of the New Objectivity. But
starting in the late 1960s, their work was increasingly exhibited in
connection with Minimal and Conceptual Art.
While Bernd Becher
was the first person to be appointed professor of photography at a
German art academy, when it comes to teaching students, the couple work
together closely. Initially, the works of their first students were
strongly influenced by their style. In the Luxembourg exhibition, this
is illustrated by Thomas Struth’s views of a dreary suburban
development from 1986/87 and Axel Hütte’s Dusseldorf from
1987. The latter photograph shows the corridor of a building as an
ensemble of geometric surfaces. Jörg Sasse’s early interiors were also
impacted by Becher’s eye for details. However, Sasse departed from
documentary black and white at an early stage of his career. His color
photos of lounge suites, flowerpots, and curtains can be viewed as
investigations of formal issues. A short time later, Sasse stopped
taking photographs and began reworking amateur photos at the computer.
He enlarged them, selected details and colors, and eliminated
disruptive aspects. The result were suggestive pictures, at once real
and unreal, which cast doubt on photography’s ability to reflect
reality.
Thomas Ruff also repeatedly questioned the conventions of photography, for instance, with his 210 by 165 cm Portraits
(1986-91) which radically refuse to perform the classic task of this
genre, namely, to penetrate the psychology of the person photographed.
His Portraits show pure surfaces. “A portrait does not go
one millimeter under the skin,” says Ruff, “and a single photo says
nothing about the personality of the person portrayed.” The artist goes
a step further with his series Other Portraits (1994/95).
Using a “Minolta montage unit,” a picture generation machine used in
the 1970s to produce phantom images, he fuses two portraits into a
single ghostly face. Along with Ruff and Sasse, Andreas Gursky also
turned to digital image processing, without which his detail-rich large
formats such as Singapore Stock Exchange I (1997) from the Deutsche Bank Collection wound not have been possible.
While
Gursky’s panoramas of stock exchanges, supermarkets, and techno clubs
are devoted to settings of a globalized mass society, Candida Höfer
focuses on places representing culture and tradition. Her deserted
libraries, museums, and churches are diametrically opposed to Gursky’s
scenes with masses of people. But what links the two artists, and the
other Becher students on exhibit in Luxembourg, is their precise grasp
of details and the cool objectivity of the their photos. The main
attribute shared by the teachers and their students, however, is their
mastery of composition.
Achim Drucks
Photo Artists Make History
Bernd
and Hilla Becher and their important students, with works by Bernd and
Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff,
Jörg Sasse, and Thomas Struth
April 25 – June 30, 2013
Deutsche Bank Luxembourg
Boulevard Konrad Adenauer 2
Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm
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