Thomas Struth
The work of German Photographer Thomas Struth. A new exhibition opens tomorrow at the Whitechappel gallery in London and runs till the 16th of september. More images at read more/
Struth studied under Gerhard Richter and Bernd Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1973-80), moving from painting to photography and thus becoming part of a new generation of photographers known as the ‘Becher School’. After beginning in 1976 with black-and-white studies of deserted streets, and bird’s-eye views of cities such as Düsseldorf, Berlin, Paris, London, and New York, he turned to colour, including peopled street scenes in the Far East. In these cityscapes, with clarity and formal precision, Struth investigates the relationship of individuals with public spaces as sites of a collective unconscious and daily urban existence. This interest in exploring social interaction also informs his ongoing portraits of friends and their families in their private environments. His series of visitors contemplating works of art in museums and religious sites reflect the acts of seeing and representation, and the way we relate to the past and position ourselves in the present. Since the 1990s Struth has also photographed flowers, deserts, and primeval forests.
