Bernd and Hilla Becher : Artist Profile

Bernd and Hilla Becher, a collaborative force in the world of photography, embarked on a project that redefined the very notion of photographic representation. Their work, a meticulous and dispassionate cataloguing of industrial structures, transformed the way we perceive both the landscape and the camera's capacity to document it. They were not, perhaps, artists in the conventional sense, but rather chroniclers, driven by an almost scientific impulse to classify and preserve a disappearing world. Their black and white images, devoid of dramatic lighting or sentimental framing, presented blast furnaces, water towers, grain elevators, and other functional structures with an austere beauty that resonated far beyond the realms of documentary photography.  

The Bechers' project began in the late 1950s, a time when photography was moving beyond the pictorialism that had dominated its early years. They were influenced, perhaps, by the New Objectivity movement in German art of the 1920s, which championed a realistic and unidealised representation of the world. One might also detect echoes of August Sander's ambitious project to document the German people through portraiture, though the Bechers' focus was on the industrial landscape rather than the human face. They sought, as they often stated, to create an objective record, a typology of industrial forms. “We don’t have any message,” Bernd Becher once said. “We are only interested in the object.” This seemingly simple statement belies the profound impact of their work.  

What is important about the Bechers' work lies precisely in this self-imposed limitation. By stripping away subjective interpretation and focusing on the pure form of their subjects, they revealed the inherent beauty and complexity of these often-overlooked structures. They presented these industrial behemoths not as symbols of progress or pollution, but as objects worthy of attention in their own right. Their photographs, often presented in grids of similar structures, emphasised the variations within a type, revealing the subtle design choices and functional adaptations that shaped each individual building. This typological approach, reminiscent of scientific classification, allowed viewers to see the underlying logic and evolution of industrial architecture. “We wanted to make the object speak,” Hilla Becher explained. “We didn’t want to add anything.”  

The Bechers' work evolved over the course of their career, though their fundamental approach remained consistent. They refined their technique, achieving a remarkable clarity and depth of field in their images. They also expanded their geographical scope, documenting industrial structures not just in Germany, but also in other parts of Europe and North America. Their early work focused primarily on the heavy industry of the Ruhr Valley, the heartland of German industrial production. Later, they turned their attention to other types of structures, such as water towers and grain elevators, broadening their survey of the industrial landscape. While their subject matter expanded, their photographic style remained remarkably consistent, a testament to their unwavering commitment to their chosen method.  

The Bechers published a number of influential books throughout their career, each one a meticulously crafted collection of their photographs. Anonymous Sculpture (1970) was an early and important work, showcasing their typological approach to industrial structures. Other significant publications include Blast Furnaces (1971), Water Towers (1988), and Grain Elevators (1997). These books, with their stark black and white images and minimal text, became essential references for architects, artists, and anyone interested in the built environment. Their exhibitions, too, were significant events, often featuring large grids of photographs that transformed the gallery space into a kind of industrial museum. One recalls the austere beauty of their installations, the sheer number of images creating a powerful cumulative effect.  

The Bechers' work occupies a unique place in the history of photography and art. It challenged the traditional notions of artistic expression, blurring the lines between documentary photography and fine art. Their influence can be seen in the work of many contemporary photographers, particularly those who explore the relationship between landscape, architecture, and industrialisation. Their work also resonated with artists working in other media, influencing conceptual art and minimalism. One might argue that their detached, objective approach paved the way for a new kind of photographic practice, one that prioritised concept and documentation over subjective expression. As the art critic and curator Douglas Fogle noted, "The Bechers’ photographs are not simply documents of industrial structures; they are also meditations on the nature of representation itself."  

The Bechers' influence is vast and continues to grow. They have inspired generations of photographers to look at the world with fresh eyes, to see the beauty in the mundane and the significance in the seemingly insignificant. Their students at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, including photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer, have gone on to become major figures in contemporary photography, each developing their own distinct style while sharing a common interest in the objective representation of the world. While not explicitly acknowledging the Bechers as an influence, one can see a certain kinship in the work of these artists, a shared commitment to clarity, precision, and the exploration of the contemporary landscape.  

The Bechers' legacy lies in their profound impact on the way we perceive the world around us. They taught us to see the beauty and complexity in the industrial landscape, to appreciate the ingenuity and functionality of the structures that shape our lives. Their work is a testament to the power of photography to document, to classify, and to reveal the hidden order of things. They transformed the way we think about photography, moving it beyond the realm of personal expression and into the realm of objective observation. "They are not artists in the traditional sense," wrote the critic and curator Jeff Wall, "but their work is art, of a very high order." This assessment captures the essence of the Bechers' contribution, their ability to transcend the conventional categories of art and photography and create a body of work that is both aesthetically compelling and historically significant. Their photographs, with their stark beauty and unwavering focus, stand as a powerful reminder of the industrial age and its enduring impact on the world we inhabit.

Lewis Baltz: Artist Profile

Lewis Baltz’s photographs are not about beauty in the conventional sense. They are about the stark realities of the contemporary landscape, the overlooked corners, the banal architectures, the spaces in between. They are about the quiet unease of the post-industrial world, the subtle violence of urban sprawl, the creeping anonymity of late capitalism. Baltz’s work, one could argue, is a kind of forensic examination of the built environment, a meticulous cataloguing of the often-unseen structures that shape our lives. As he himself stated, “I am a describer. I describe things as accurately as I can.” It’s this commitment to description, this almost clinical detachment, that makes his work so powerful. He wasn’t interested in the picturesque, the sublime views that had defined landscape photography for so long. As he explained, “I was living in Monterey, a place where the classic photographers—the Westons, Wynn Bullock, and Ansel Adams—came for a privileged view of nature. But my daily life very rarely took me to Point Lobos or Yosemite; it took me to shopping centres and gas stations and all the other unhealthy growth that flourished beside the highway. It was a landscape that no one else had much interest in looking at.”

Born in Newport Beach, California, Baltz’s own journey through this overlooked landscape began with studies at the San Francisco Art Institute before receiving his MFA from Claremont Graduate University. His subsequent career, marked by his involvement in the seminal 1975 “New Topographics” exhibition, solidified his position as a key figure in redefining landscape photography. Alongside Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, Baltz presented a new vision, one that focused on the “man-altered landscape,” the often-unassuming spaces of tract housing, office parking lots, and industrial parks. As William Jenkins, the curator of the "New Topographics" exhibition, noted, the photographers shared a “stylistic anonymity,” which he linked to the detached point of view employed by Ed Ruscha.

Baltz’s influences are complex and not always immediately apparent. He admired the work of Walker Evans, particularly his documentary photographs of the American South during the Great Depression, but Baltz’s approach was fundamentally different. Evans’s images, while often stark and unadorned, possess a certain humanism, a sense of empathy for his subjects. Baltz’s photographs, on the other hand, are more detached, more focused on the structures themselves, the way they impose themselves on the landscape. He also acknowledged the influence of the New Topographics exhibition itself, a landmark show that provided a crucial context for understanding his work and that of his contemporaries. As he said, “I never saw myself as a photographer. I never liked photography very well. I never felt any allegiance to its so-called history … I made photographs because photography was the simplest, most direct way of recording something.”

His early work, particularly his series The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California (1974), established his distinctive style. These photographs, taken in the newly developed industrial parks of Southern California, depict rows of identical warehouses, anonymous office buildings, and vast expanses of empty parking lots. They are images of a world without people, or rather, a world where human presence is reduced to a mere trace, a fleeting shadow. As he explained about this series, “I was interested in the idea of a kind of tabula rasa, a place where everything was possible, but in fact, nothing much was happening.” This sense of emptiness, this feeling of potential unfulfilled, is a recurring theme in his work. As he recalled, growing up in Southern California, “You could watch the changes taking place and it was astonishing. A new world was being born … this new homogenised American environment that was marching across the land. And it seemed no one wanted to confront this; it was invisible.”

Baltz’s photographs are not always easy to look at. They can be monotonous, even depressing. But they are also strangely compelling. They force us to confront the often-unseen realities of the world we inhabit, the structures that shape our lives, the forces that drive our society. He had a knack for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, for revealing the hidden beauty, or perhaps the hidden ugliness, of the everyday. His minimalism, as seen in his influential photobooks like The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California, San Quentin Point, and Candlestick Point, possessed a stark, geometric beauty, making visible this “new homogenised America” in a way that echoed – and criticised – the soullessness of urban planning and the corporate rationale behind it.

Lewis Baltz in Jean Nouvel's Amat hotel. Image: Slavica Perkovic

The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, published in 1975, quickly became a seminal work in the history of photography. It established Baltz as a leading figure in the New Topographics movement and helped to redefine the way we think about landscape photography. The book itself, with its minimalist design and its stark, unadorned images, mirrored the aesthetic of the photographs themselves.

Later in his career, particularly in the late 1980s after moving to Europe, Baltz’s work underwent a significant shift. He moved away from the modestly scaled black-and-white photographs that had defined his early work and began to produce large-scale colour prints. He was interested, he said, in representing “the generic European city.” This change in format and medium allowed him to capture the “massive hermetic spaces” of hi-tech and government research facilities in France and Japan with a new level of detail and intensity. He also became fascinated with digital technology and its uses, particularly in surveillance and control, as seen in his monumental 1992 installation Ronde de Nuit at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Baltz’s work fits into a broader context of 20th-century art that explored the themes of alienation, industrialisation, and the changing nature of the landscape. His photographs share a certain kinship with the work of artists like Edward Hopper, whose paintings depict the isolation and loneliness of modern life. They also resonate with the work of photographers like Bernd and Hilla Becher, who documented the industrial architecture of Germany with a similarly detached and objective eye.

Baltz’s influence on subsequent generations of photographers is undeniable. His work has paved the way for a more conceptual and critical approach to photography, one that questions the traditional notions of beauty and landscape. Photographers who explore the built environment, who examine the impact of human activity on the land, owe a debt to Baltz’s pioneering vision.

Lewis Baltz’s legacy is complex and multifaceted. He is remembered as a photographer who challenged our notions of landscape, who revealed the hidden structures of our world, and who explored the quiet unease of the contemporary condition. His photographs continue to fascinate, to disturb, and to inspire. They are a testament to the power of photography to illuminate the often-unseen forces that shape our lives and to remind us of the beauty, or perhaps the strangeness, of the everyday. As he himself said, “I certainly wanted my work to look like anyone could do it. I didn’t want to have a style. I wanted it to look as mute and as distant as to appear to be as objective as possible, but of course it’s not objective.” Therein lies its enduring power.