Germany's best photographers all studied with two teachers
Stefan Dege ss
April 27, 2017
Bernd and Hilla Becher used to be Germany's most recognized artists. Their images of industrial complexes shook up the art world. Their students knew they had big shoes to fill; their works are now on show in Frankfurt.
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Why Germany's best photographers all studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher
Bernd and Hilla Becher were pioneers in the art of photography and even started their own school. Their students have become some of the most recognized photographers in the world. A Frankfurt exhibition explains why.
Image: Thomas Struth
Jörg Sasse - curtain of history
Jörg Sasse likes to distort reality by manipulating existing images on his computer and creating new realities. Sasse does not consider himself a photographer as such, despite having studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher. His works are featured in important museums and collections and are now on show in the "Photographs Become Pictures. Becher Class" exhibition at Frankfurt's Städel Museum.
Image: Jörg Sasse
Andreas Gursky - passport control
This image of passport control at an airport seems cold, formal and almost technical. Andreas Gursky captures the aesthetics of such moments, firmly believing that "form follows function." Bernd and Hilla Becher also subscribed to this particular take on art. Unlike his teachers, however, Gursky likes to explore color in his photographs.
Image: Andreas Gursky
Petra Wunderlich - at the quarry
Petra Wunderlich's picture of a quarry somewhere in Italy, presented in black-and-white hues (just like Bernd and Hilla Becher's photographs) is also featured at the exhibition in Frankfurt. Wunderlich was a leading student under the Bechers in Dusseldorf but never managed to have a major lucky break. Maybe being part of the Becher Class show at the Städel Museum can help her break the spell.
Image: Petra Wunderlich
Volker Döhne - three cars
One of the first graduates of the Becher school of photography, Volker Döhne worked as a commercial photographer for the art museums in Krefeld. His work depicts urban areas and highlights shapes and forms that are unique to city life.
Image: Volker Döhne
Bernd and Hilla Becher - Good Hope steelworks, Oberhausen
Bernd and Hilla Becher spent decades immortalizing the industrial power of the Ruhr Valley and Rhineland, documenting monumental shifts in western Germany's traditional industries of coal mining and steelworks. Their images epitomize the widespread fascination there is for the form and flow of large-scale industrial complexes. The Becher photographs are vital to the history of photography.
Image: Estate Bernd/Hilla Becher
Andreas Gursky - Montparnasse
Andreas Gursky follows his masters' footsteps, allowing for form to leave a lasting impression. This picture of a massive housing estate in Paris is almost overwhelming. His photographs are digitally enhanced, which observers can only pick up on when looking from a close distance. Gursky is one of the world's most celebrated photographers today.
Image: Andreas Gursky
Axel Hütte - staircase
A cold and empty staircase covered in tiles comes to life through the use of contrasts in terms of light and dark spaces in this picture. Axel Hütte's photograph almost resembles a painting in this regard - and yet it seems to be detached from what it actually depicts. Hütte's work often represents reality in a more narrative manner.
Image: Axel Hütte
Candida Höfer - National Library in Paris
Candida Höfer was one of Bernd and Hilla Becher's leading students in Dusseldorf. After her studies, the photographer from Cologne started her career taking portraits, but later shifted to depicting larger interior spaces devoid of humans. Libraries, lecture halls, concert halls, museums and coffee shops - she's captured them all. Höfer is one of the most celebrated photographers in Germany today.
Image: Candida Höfer
Thomas Ruff - Interior 1 D
Many of the Becher Class students have participated in major global art shows, including the documenta. One of those who has had his work shown at the documenta is Thomas Ruff. His early works depicted interior spaces, like this aesthetic composition here, where the observer feels a distance from the image. Later in his career, Ruff turned his attention to protraiture series and other motifs.
Image: Thomas Ruff
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"Photographs Become Pictures" is the name of a new exhibition opening at Frankfurt's Städel Museum this week, highlighting the works of students of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who established the so-called Dusseldorf School of Photography.
Among those on show are Volker Döhne, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Tata Ronkholz, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse, Thomas Struth and Petra Wunderlich. The one thing they all have in common is having studied under the Becher pair at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf). Hence the exhibit refers to them as the "Becher class."
The 'Becher' school of photography
Bernd and Hilla Becher achieved some milestones in the history of photography with their pictures. Their work spanned over half a century, often depicting buildings from half-timbered houses to industrial facilities.
Their black-and-white photographs of blast furnaces, coal bunkers, factory floors, gas tanks, silos and other complex industrial landscapes shot the married couple to international fame and catapulted photography as an art form to where it is today.
Bernd Becher died in 2007, aged 75. His wife Hilla died in 2015 at the age of 81.
Masters and students
The exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt aims to provide an overview of the Becher students' work. Around 200 photographs are on show, mixing works of Becher protégés like Candida Höfer and Andreas Gursky, who have gone on to become celebrities of photography, with images by the likes of Jörg Sasse or Petra Wunderlich, who still need to be (re)discovered.
The exhibition also hopes to highlight what kind of influence the Becher duo had on their students' work, establishing similarities and contrasting differences between master and student.
"Photographs Become Pictures" also stresses the importance of the Dusseldorf School of Photography throughout, as well as the role it played in art history, especially with regard to its importance in the evolution of conceptual art and minimalism.