Bernd and Hilla Becher German, 1931/1934-2007/2015

Renowned German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931-2007; 1934-2015) changed the course of late twentieth-century photography. Using a large-format view camera, the Bechers focused on a single subject, the disappearing industrial architecture of Western Europe and North America, which often included abandoned blast furnaces, winding towers, grain silos, cooling towers, and gas tanks. Their standardized photographic practice allowed for comparative analyses of structures, which they exhibited in grids of [between] four and thirty photographs. They would describe these formal arrangements as “typologies” and the buildings themselves as “anonymous sculpture[s].”

Bernd Bercher studied painting and lithography at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, and Hilla studied graphing and printing techniques at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where the Berchers met. The couple first collaborated in 1959, and after their marriage in 1961, they began working as freelance photographers. In 1963, they had their first gallery show in Germany, and by 1968, their work was exhibited across Europe and the United States.

Bernd and Hilla Becher utilize the structure of typology to catalog structures for a singular purpose in a grid format. This format generalizes the objects while simultaneously focusing on their uniqueness. Their typologies record the history of the industrial era before the relics of that time shift in an ever-changing urban landscape.

The Bechers’ objective style recalls nineteenth-and early twentieth-century precedents but also resonates with a serial approach to contemporary Minimalism and Conceptual art. Their works also challenge the gap between documentary and fine-art photography.