INDUSTRIEBAUTEN 1830 - 1930
Bernd und Hilla Becher
Bernd [Bernhard] und Hilla Becher: INDUSTRIEBAUTEN 1830-1930 [EINE FOTOGRAFISCHE DOKUMENTATION VON BERND UND HILLA BECHER]. MŸnchen: Staatl. Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Die Neue Sammlung, 1967. First edition. Square quarto. Photographically printed thick wrappers. Side stitched perfect binding. 34 pp. 103 black and white photo reproductions. Light indentions from the side stiched staples on front panel. Mild edgewear. Black panel lightly scuffed. A very good or better copy of this rare catalog -- the first publication by the Bechers.8.5 x 7.5 softcover catalog with 34 pages and 103 black and white photo reproductions for the exhibition from March 6 to April 16, 1967 at the Munich Staatl. Museum fur Angewandte Kunst. The first publication by the Bechers.
Typological, repetitive, at times oddly humorous, Bernd and Hilla Becher's photographs of industrial structures are, in their cumulative effect, profoundly moving. The Becher's serenely cool, disarmingly objective, and notoriously obsessive images of watertowers, gas tanks, grain elevators, blast furnaces, and mine heads have been taken over a period of almost thirty years, under overcast skies, with a view camera that captures each detail and tonality of wood, concrete, brick, and steel.
Culturally, their brilliant black and white photographs of industrial buildings are rooted in the history of architecture and engineering, where their work provided an early research tool and resource for industrial archaeologists seeking to broaden the scope of architectural conservation. With their photographs of water towers and winding towers, blast furnaces, silos and gas tanks, over sixty of which are reproduced in this book, Bernd and Hilla Becher set new standards in perceptual aesthetics, presenting heavy industry as an object of art. Rendered timeless by the camera and isolated from their original, often perplexingly complex surroundings, they appear as monumental symbols of their own history - with all the stylistic diversity of the great masterpieces of architecture.
These photographs convey the unique characteristics, physical complexity, and eerie presence in the landscape of blast furnaces and other Industrial Structures in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Austria, Germany, and the United States. Bernd and Hilla Becher [taught] at the DŸsseldorf Art Academy. They began their collaborative photographic enterprise in 1957, when they did a study of workers' houses in their native Germany. The Bechers follow in a distinguished line of German photographers that includes August Sander, Albert Renger-Patzsch, and Werner Manz, all of whom contributed in different ways to the definition of "objective" photography.
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