- Hardcover: 197 pages
- Publisher: The MIT Press (Aug 8 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0262024306
- ISBN-13: 978-0262024303
- Product Dimensions: 30.1 x 28 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 2.1 Kg
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
Since 1959 Bernd and Hilla Becher have been obsessively photographing imperiled industrial structures such as pit-head frames, water towers, blast furnaces, cooling towers, gas tanks, and silos. As documenters of the industrial era in Europe and the United States—an era now drawing to a close—they are not only photographers, but "industrial archaeologists," salvaging testimonies of past developments in the form of "readable" documents for posterity. At the same time, the Bechers could also be called conceptual artists, as their photographs reveal the meaning and transformative character of structure.
The Bechers spent two decades searching industrial regions of Western Europe and North America for mineheads. These delicate giants stand over the shaft entrances of mines, housing the cages attached to cables that move up and down the mine shaft, bringing minerals to the surface and transferring miners back and forth from underground.
Regardless of their subject, the Bechers' photographic technique has remained constant for decades. Eschewing dramatic lighting effects, they shoot under overcast skies, framing their subject in the center of the picture and shooting from a slightly raised standpoint. The effect of their cool, rigorous approach is to reduce the individual structures they photograph within each typological category to morphological studies executed with artful neutrality. Their single-minded vision, signature style, and photographic identity have influenced an entire generation of younger photographers and have had a major impact on the worlds of conceptual art, architecture, sculpture, and criticism.
* Not for sale in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria.
The Bechers spent two decades searching industrial regions of Western Europe and North America for mineheads. These delicate giants stand over the shaft entrances of mines, housing the cages attached to cables that move up and down the mine shaft, bringing minerals to the surface and transferring miners back and forth from underground.
Regardless of their subject, the Bechers' photographic technique has remained constant for decades. Eschewing dramatic lighting effects, they shoot under overcast skies, framing their subject in the center of the picture and shooting from a slightly raised standpoint. The effect of their cool, rigorous approach is to reduce the individual structures they photograph within each typological category to morphological studies executed with artful neutrality. Their single-minded vision, signature style, and photographic identity have influenced an entire generation of younger photographers and have had a major impact on the worlds of conceptual art, architecture, sculpture, and criticism.
* Not for sale in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria.
About the Author
Bernd and Hilla Becher have collaborated since 1959. Founders of the internationally acclaimed Becher class at the Dusseldorf Art Academy, they have received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the 1990 Venice Biennale and the 2002 Erasmus Award. Bernd Becher retired as Professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art in 1999.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Evocative Photos of a Decaying Landscape, Nov 29 2000
By Walter O. Koenig "Amoxtli" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Mineheads (Hardcover)
Looking at these amazingly detailed Photographs I see and feel: Cold, cloudy, rainy, foggy days; lonely abandoned Mines; silence in a once noisy environment; decaying buildings; the scars that have been left on flat landscapes...Though I also like "Industrial Facades", "Gas Tanks", "Water Towers", and especially the now out of Print "Blast Furnaces", and can recommend them all, there is something about this book I like best of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Perhaps it is because I worked in the Dortmund area at one time, and these photos evoke memories of the past...
The Bechers offer little commentary. It is not neccessary. The photographs say it all. They speak of an active, busy past and of the transitory nature of humankind's endeavors, once the mines were exhausted or too costly to operate. The photographs are crisp and incredibly detailed. Each Minehead has its own distinct character and beauty. In Germany they used to have names...
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