Solingen, Germany
Artist
Bernd and Hilla Becher
(German, partnership established 1959)
Date1994
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionssheet: 40.1 x 31 cm (15 13/16 x 12 3/16 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund in honor of Stephen B. Jareckie
Object number1995.31.6
Label TextBeginning in the late 1950s, Bernd and Hilla Becher worked collaboratively, traveling from their home in Düsseldorf throughout Northern Europe and the United States to systematically document industrial sites, especially mines and blast-furnace plants that have been essential to the production of steel but increasingly face obsolescence. Working within a strict template—isolating a single structure, photographing it head-on in black and white, cropping out any distracting incidentals (trees, cloud formations, etc.)—the Bechers arrange related images into groupings they call “typologies.” Scaled to the same size and presented in tightly hung grids, the images comprise an exacting visual grammar of forms powerfully shaped by their industrial function.ProvenanceSonnabend Gallery, New York, NYOn View
Not on view
