19.01.08 | 28.04.08

Audience 08 Florence 2004 Audience 09 Florence 2004 VIA GIOVANNI TAPPIA Naples 1989 VICO DEI MONTI Naples 1988 Paradise 1 (Pilgrim Sands) 1998 Via Del Parco Margherita, Naples 1988 Via Della Sanità Naples 1988 Corso Vittorio Emanuele Neapel 1989 Via Vannella Gaetani Naples 1988 Via Giuseppe Verdi Milan 1992 Via Emilio Cornalia (Mit Hochhaus) Milan 1992 The Consolandi Family Milan 1996 New York 2001 The Lingwood & Hamlyn Family London 2001 The Richter Family 1 Köln 2002 The Falletti Family Florence 2005 The Okutsu Family In Western Room Yamaguchi 1996 The Ayvar Family Lima, S.M.P / Peru 2005 Veddeler Brückenstrasse Hamburg 1986 Via Monte Cardonet Rome 1988 Via Guglielmo (Mit Lkw) Rome 1988 Via San Giovanni A Mare Neaples 1988 Le Lignon (Horizontal) Geneve 1989 Via Emilio Cornalia Milan 1992 Piazza Virgilio Mailand 1998 Kanzlerstrasse 1, Duisburg 1989 Leipziger Strasse Essen 1989 Kunsthistorisches Museum 3 Wien 1989 Louvre 4 Paris 1989 Art Institute Of Chicago 1 Chicago 1990 Museo Del Prado 8-1 Madrid 2005 Museo Del Prado 8-2 Madrid 2005 Museo Del Prado 8-3 Madrid 2005 Museo Del Prado 8-4 Madrid 2005 Museo Del Prado 8-5 Madrid 2005 Paradise 9 1999 Paradise 22 2001 Stanze Di Raffaello 2 Rome 1990 Galleria Dell’ Accademia 1 Venice 1992 Cerro Morro Solar Lima / Peru 2003 Pasaje Gaspar Lima / Peru 2003 Calle Wakulski Lima / Peru 2003 Plaza Elguera Lima / Peru 2003 Pasaje Sta. Rosa Lima / Peru 2003 Jiron Cailloma Lima / Peru 2003 Drammen 1 Drammen/ Oslo 2001 Manzhouli Inner Mongolia, China 2002 Las Vegas 1 Las Vegas, Nevada 1999 Pudong Shanghai 1999 Chong Wen Meng Dong Beijing 1996 Hazienda Rio Palpa Palpa / Peru 2003 Paradise 30 2005

Thomas Struth

Friedrich-Engels-Strasse Leverkusen

1980

Courtesy :

In the late 70s Struth began taking black and white photos of city streets in different countries around the world, from the Rhineland to Italy, New York and Tokyo. The favoured subjects of these first experiments were featureless residential buildings photographed with meticulous precision under greyish-white skies, illuminated by a neutral light and without shadows, which isolated the buildings from their contexts, recording the simplicity but also the repetitiveness of their structures. They reveal a careful assimilation of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who fostered a restrained and rigorous documentary realism at the Academy in Düsseldorf; but unlike them Struth prefers a slightly transversal point of view to the fully frontal view, because it renders the form of the building and the urban space in it is set more clearly. This is evident whether he is taking detached houses in German suburbia [Friedrich-Engels-Strasse Leverkusen 1980; Kanzlerstrasse 1 Duisburg 1989] or high density apartment blocks erected in Europe after World War II and following the economic miracle of the sixties [Veddeler Brückenstrasse Hamburg 1986; Via Guglielmo (Mit Lkw) Rom 1988; Via Emilio Cornalia Mailand 1992]. This plastic objectivity in the rendering of buildings seems to contrast with the two-dimensionality of the photographic medium, leading the gaze on a virtual journey between the spaces and volumes of buildings lacking any animated presence. The pitiless clarity of the images, the distribution of the masses through chiaroscuro and the total absence of atmospheric agents which transforms the skies into abstract white fields, enables him to focus attention closely on the urban reality portrayed and to interpret the territory culturally and politically.
 

Veddeler Brückenstrasse Hamburg

1986

Via Monte Cardonet Rome

1988

Via Guglielmo (Mit Lkw) Rome

1988

Kanzlerstrasse 1, Duisburg

1989

Leipziger Strasse Essen

1989

Le Lignon (Horizontal) Geneve

1989

Via Giuseppe Verdi Milan

1992

Via Emilio Cornalia (Mit Hochhaus) Milan

1992

Piazza Virgilio Mailand

1998

Geldern (Basso Reno) 1954
Born at Geldern in 1954, Thomas Struth began his artistic training by studying painting under Peter Kleemann and Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf ...
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