Bernd (1931–2007) and Hilla Becher (1934–2015) are considered the most influential German photographers of the post-war period. Over the past 50 years, the couple and artist duo captured the aesthetic of disappearing industrial facilities, often making the overlooked structures visible to viewers for the first time. Their strict adherence to particular formal principles and their typological approach gave rise to the idea of photography as conceptual art. The Bechers taught at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and shaped the work of an entire generation of photographers, including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth. Sprüth Magers represents the artist couple’s Estate.
Bernd & Hilla Becher
September 16–November 7, 2023
Berlin
For over five decades, Bernd and Hilla Becher produced a remarkable oeuvre in the pursuit of a straightforward theme: variation within limits. Precision, fine detail and methodology mark the Bechers’ work, which straddles several artistic categories. By systematically photographing commonplace industrial buildings across Europe and North America, they captured an architectural landscape in the process of disappearing. Approaching the structures with scientific interest, the artists classified, compared and contrasted their subjects in varying groups and ‘typologies,’ as they named their celebrated grids. Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to announce Bernd and Hilla Becher’s first solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers, Berlin. Showcasing the Bechers’ iconic style and formal rigor will be several seldom-seen works along with two typologies, one of which features a rare amount of twenty-four photographs – intriguing images that allude to the cultural and social significance of the constructions the artists referred to as ‘anonymous sculptures.’
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