| | | |  | | | Bernd & Hilla Becher
Winding Tower, Zeche Concordia, Ruhr area, Germany, 1967–1970
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher – represented by Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur –
Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Cologne, 2022 | | | | | | | 15 July – 6 November, 2022 | | | | The Metropolitan Museum of Art 5th Ave, New York in cooperation with Studio Bernd & Hilla Becher, Dusseldorf, and Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne. | | |  | | | | | | | | | |  | | | Bernd & Hilla Becher
Details, 1983–93
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher – represented by Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur –
Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Cologne, 2022 | | | | | | Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931-2007, 1934-2015) are among the most important artists of the second half of the 20th century. Since the 1960s, their works have provided decisive impetus for photography, art and also generally for dealing with our culture, economy, science and society. For more than 50 years, the artist couple has devoted themselves to the subject of the industrial landscape, the functional buildings and constructions of the mining industry in Western Europe and North America. They created countless black-and-white photographs, which they took with their large-format cameras, of winding towers, blast furnaces, water and cooling towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks, half-timbered houses, entire industrial plants and landscapes. The photographs show precise, at the same time analytical views and individual forms, which Bernd and Hilla Becher subjected to a comparative analysis. So-called typologies, unfolding photographic sets or also large-format typologically conceived individual photographs were the results of their collaboration, which they exhibited internationally and published in monographs. Works that received a special appreciation under the term "Anonymous Sculptures" and attained top-class awards.
The method used by the Bechers can be regarded as style-defining. It transformed the descriptive, objective view of photography of the 19th and early 20th century, which the artist couple highly valued, into a new era, integrating it into clearly sequenced series of images and thus at the same time pointing to perspectives of minimal and conceptual art, which further underscores the innovative power of their work. | | | | | |  | | | Bernd & Hilla Becher
Framework Houses of the Siegen Industrial Region, Slates Gable Sides, 1961 – 1978
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher – represented by Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur –
Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Cologne, 2022 | | | | | | Between 1976 and 1996 Bernd Becher taught at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf. Numerous well-known photographers and artists emerged from his photography class. As of the 1960s Bernd and Hilla Becher had their studio in Dusseldorf. Today the studio is being continued as the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio by their son, estate administrator and artist Max Becher. From 1995 until their death, the artist couple worked together with Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne, from which the Bernd & Hilla Becher Archive emerged. The majority of the exhibition is furnished from this collection, including numerous previously little-shown and unknown materials by Bernd and Hilla Becher. Overall, the retrospective, which will be on view in a second venue at the SFMoMA between December 17, 2022 and April 2, 2023, introduces all of the artist couple's areas of work.
The exhibition was curated by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator, Department of Photographs, assisted by Virginia McBride, Research Associate, Department of Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The catalog is available in the exhibition shop of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Im Mediapark 7, Cologne, and in bookshops (58 €). BERND & HILLA BECHER - NEW YORK, THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - Catalog by Jeff L. Rosenheim. New York/San Francisco 2022/23. Contributions by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Virginia Heckert and Lucy Sante. Interview with Max Becher. 282 p., 108 b/w plates, as well as 144 text illustrations, bound - in English. | | | | | |  | | | Bernd & Hilla Becher
Assemblage of Pipes, 1964 or later
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher – represented by Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur –
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