Bernd and Hilla Becher, Idris Khan

Bernd, born in Siegan Germany, 1931, completed an apprentice in decoration. Hildegard Wobeser, born in postdam 1934 who completed an apprentice in photography. They married in 1961. There cooperation began in 1959. They developed a concept of systematic industrial photography with an encyclopedic charactor. Architecturally specialised, their images concentrate on average buildings and industrial structures of similar layout, usually related in function. They spent 30 years taking photographs of water towers, store houses, blast furnaces, windind towers, silos and cooling towers, that were then systematically aranged. Helped public appreciation of artists such as Albert Renger-Patzsch or Karl Blossfeldt. Information from 20th century photography, museum ludwig cologn.

Although some of the work of the Bechers, seems a little uninteresting at first, I greatly appreciate what they did. And respect the amount of effort they must have put in for those 30 years to create the images that they did. I find when you see the images as sets like you do before they are actually quite powerful, and make the mundane objects portray a beauty, and you see them in a totally different light. I also feel after discovering the work of these artists that it makes me look at things differently and notice things more than I used to, and see them for the beauty that they hold.





The next 3 images are by the artist Idris Khan. He takes the work of other artists, such as Becher and merges them all into one, to show the architectural sculpture of them. He exposes the images in translucent layers anchored by the compositions continuous shapes. Information from http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/idris_khan.htm

I find the work of Khan very interesting, and the fact that they look almost like they are moving, spinning is really effective. The images almost look like sketches of the structures and have an arty, pencil like feel to them.