Grids and Gas Holders
The Bechers didn’t edit their photos the way contemporary photographers might, making the aesthetic continuity between each frame that much more impressive.
Zeche Hannover, Bochum-Hordel, Ruhr Region, Germany, 1973. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2011 (2011.67) © Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, represented by Max Becher)
Bernd and Hilla Becher was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from July 15 to November 6.
Düsseldorf School founders Bernd and Hilla Becher were finally given the retrospective they deserve: an eponymous exhibition at The Met, which closed in early November. Their famous “portraits,” which turn industrial infrastructures into objets d’art, are stunning on the level of photography, their toned blacks, grays, and whites even and soothing. But the Bechers’ photography transcends the medium. It reads not as single images, but rather in layers, almost like an architectural drawing. The photographs’ gridded arrangement on the gallery walls and in the pages of their books only emphasized this effect, vaguely recalling an architect’s iterative process. Taken as a whole, the work also hints at the larger social and economic history in the landscapes and buildings captured by the camera.
Shooting in the ’60s on black-and-white film with a cumbersome large-format camera, the Bechers didn’t edit their photos the way contemporary photographers m…
Login or create an account to read three free articles and receive our newsletter.