Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density #91, 2006
Michael Wolf’s Life in the Cities was the highpoint for me, in every sense. The camera zooms in from huge, beautifully detailed images of tower blocks in Hong Kong and Chicago to invade the privacy of those who live and work there. The show charts Wolf’s development from his early intimate images of life in a small German coalmining town to the alienation of the modern city - a journey in which the viewer progresses from involvement to surveillance and which ends, logically enough, with Google Street View. Some truly beautiful images of the rooftops of Paris are thrown in along the way, together with a huge installation of toys "made in China" surrounding images of the workers who made them.
