Photography Essays Bernd and Hilla Becher

Photography Essays Bernd and Hilla BecherIdentify what you consider to be the bequest of the cunningist Bernd and Hilla Becher for the importance of the photographic image.The modern photographer is the architects greatest publiciser that is, if one considers architectural picture taking a dumb copying device, and a pure record that informs the onlooker only of the building and its functionality. However banal a series of photographs depicting only water towers whitethorn seem, Bernd and Hilla Becher dedicated much attention to photographing such(prenominal) icons of post-war Germany and so created a historical document. In this way, the Bechers living legacy is a narrative of socio-historic reality based on picture takings potential to retain well-nigh indexical trace of its subject, still as mentioned by Mack, the Bechers are amongst those photographers who are also affect in some level of construction or fabrication, distinct from the realist and objective position which i s usually attributed to photography. Their photography and teachings represent a time when photography was winning serious consideration by the European artifice scene and so are undeniably important and influential, but perhaps the most pointed question to take up of their work is the exact nature of its influence on other artists, on the nature of the photographic image, and on the landscape of Germany of which the mine shafts and silos they photographed were a vital divorce.Just as an historic text is the subject of the writes interpretation of the reality of the times, a photograph is the product of the photographers choice and utilisation of an image. It is plain that the Bechers were not attempting to flatter architects or approve of the design and function of the buildings they photographed, as is often the object lesson in the classic apprehensiveness of architectural photography. Although it disregardnot be denied that their many images, like those of August smooth er, create a social document for posteritys sake, the photographs are in no way a slushy harking back to the medieval or a reassurance of German identity. The technology depicted in the Bechers typological sequences, often in a state of deterioration or abandonment, could be said to represent a time of ghostly poverty and the erosion of inherited cultural and moral values. In light of this suggestion, Bernd and Hilla Becher seemed to be seek to document their subjects in a clinical, objective manner remaining fascinated with but shedding the past in the hope that the unburied industrial sources of Modernist imagery be sanitized and distanced from us, lest they invade the minds of another times. Therefore, unlike August Sander, the Bechers are more interested in showing us death (rather than Sanders emotional state study of the classes of Germany) the photographs can be said to be looking ahead to a remedy futurity only if the viewer interprets it so.Shouldnt these photos then , fascinated by death to the point of necrophilia, be filed away and forgotten? Rather, it should be said that the photos enlarge our understanding of the photographic image, precisely because they lot as a stark monitoring device of a past away from which the world has escaped. As much as it was tactful for German artists to reject history in the immediate post-war period, Bernd and Hilla Becher chose to show it, with characteristically functionalist honesty and truth. Viewing the photographs, we know that the spiritually repressing time to which the buildings belong has passed and so view our position favourably. Photography is the art form that is most close comparable to our reality whether they meant to or not, the Bechers lease created art through which we view history with a pellucidity that cannot be gained through memory or other art forms.Photography has always been associated with some effect of cutting out and keeping the past in order that it is not forgotten, a lthough not necessarily in order to commend or legitimate the events therein. An extensive charm of nakedly truthful architectural portraits such as the Bechers, could be said to be a way of preserving the buildings and what they represent, rather than a way of banishing them to the registers of the defunct in order that fiat moves forward (or at least away from the faux progression of industrialisation). Preservation, yes, and as important to the renewal of German identity as is the conservation of Auschwitz. Indeed, the Bechers were heavily involved in the German industrial preservation movement that started in the 1950s and resulted in numerous icons of the countrys frugal and cultural history being listed and their demolition prevented. The power of the Bechers art, and so let out of their rendering of photography as an important form, is tangible in that the photographs were so compelling that they became a part of a movement which changed (or maintained) Germanys landsca pe.It can also be said that, in preserving the winding gear, the framework workers houses and silos in their art, the Bechers industrial archaeology was an assignigation into specific communities. Despite claims that their subjects are completely isolated from their environment, the photographs are often dated and their locations documented, and therefore offer a pertinent propeler of a specific space and time for each same but significantly different image. From there, a viewer can take time to study the stilled physicality of the buildings, their silent watch, whilst remaining aware of their specialised existence within individual societies.Whilst this is a large part of the Bechers typological studies legacy, their way of showing buildings is most certainly not anthropocentric. Never do they purposefully use the merciful form to legitimise or enrich their industrial subjects. Indeed, it is the very absence of the human form that makes these photographs so interesting because actually the handiwork of men is everywhere visible and the collection stands partly as a testimony to humankinds inexhaustible ingenuity and inventiveness. The Bechers spell with metal and all that goes with its production could not be a more powerful statement about that which is alien to human fleshly existence, but in the same way it is a comment on the extents to which industrial people are pressure to go because of their reliance on the laws of nature.Not nowadays interested in the human form, but tho a product of the human mind and skill, the Bechers art shows humankinds flagging attempt to rule nature, to reign it in and use it or, indeed, to make nature in the image of their own desires. Such a battle can only end in failure as, with water towers for instance, the very function of the buildings remind us that we are utterly reliant on the earths resources only when we combine our understanding of forces such as gravity with our desire to remain alive are we able to cr eate technologies that serve us whilst abiding by natures laws. In so saying, it is interesting to note that the smooth image of the photograph reminds one of the denial of evolution. The Bechers help the viewer see, through their almost exhaustive collection of similar images, the differences between the humans self and the buildings in the photographs. The most pointed distinction being how each succumbs to the processes of evolution. Whilst we move on from war, from old ideas about art, from economic peak to economic trough, these buildings stay very much the same. This flummoxs part of the distancing process that seems to make the Bechers work so important the photographic image is unchangeable, undeniable truth that leave always remain in the past whilst we move on ourselves. The photographs come to deny the progress they to begin with stood for, and so reaffirm our place in the present and, more importantly, suggest our continuation into a hereafter that will be different. The Bechers work has received much attention even winning a reputable prize for sculpture. The framing of the photographed buildings, the uniform lighting used and the subjects apparent freedom from their visible environment allows a neutralisation, which brings the buildings closer to sculptural treatment than the two-dimensional reportage that is often the lot of the photographic image. As Klaus Bussmann states in his introduction to the Bechers Industrial Faades in these photographs the function of the architecture does not emerge from its form. Unlike the art of the Neue Sachlichkeit, the Bechers photography does not celebrate the dynamic and dramatic functionality of the industrial machine indeed it does not invest them with any meaning at all. We invest them with meaning and memories but the Bechers were seemingly fascinated by their deadness, their still place in history and their comparison with the vibrancy of human existence.The Bechers work made a unique impact on the art world, and the affect of their legacy is partly due to the manner in which they chose to viewing their photographs when their work was exhibited. If there is an argument that depicts the photographic image as a bland record of what we can all see as it exists or existed in nature, then the Bechers typological constructs deny this. Seen in groups one building in comparison to a dozen others of almost (but pointedly not) identical appearance, the subjects of the photographs are recreated anew, and suddenly become something other than their pure physicality. The viewer is irresistibly invited to take note of those differences, to see the similarities and variations all at at once are they impersonal or not, beautiful or ugly? Seen together, the images become a greater argufy to the viewers notion of banality, of universality and the fundamental core of human needs.Alongside their fellow post-war photographers, the Bechers recreated photography as an art form, which is as legit imate as any other. Their subject matter is not directly passionate, does not reveal the interior workings of the photographers identity and does not even deal with emotional issues, as is the common arena of the art world. Instead, their calm, measured series of photographs introduces a part of western industrial society in the most honest way. Because of its closeness to our pick up of reality, we react very deeply to photography the experience of looking at a framed portrait is intensely emotional whether the subject is treated in an emotional manner or not. The legacy of the Bechers runs deep, especially in light of their teachings at Dsseldorf and the photographers who have come after them. Bernd and Hilla truly understood the power of photography and have had a hand in investing the medium with the power to influence our perception of the world around us. Their legacy is confused and the personal reaction to their work can be confusing as one finds a fascination with the dea dness of their subjects at the same time as being instilled with some semblance of hope for the future. Their industrial archaeology will remain with us to aid the excavation of man-made landscapes and, indirectly, lead to a better understanding of the human condition.ReferencesBecher, B. Tipologie, Typologien, Typologies Bernd and Hilla Becher. Munster Klaus Bussmann, Bonn 1990Becher, B. Industrial Faades Bernd and Hilla Becher. Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT Press 1995Becher, B. Water Towers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT Press 1988De Mare, E. Architectural Photography. capital of the United Kingdom B T Batsford 1975Gillen, E (ed.) German Art from Beckman to Richter images of a divided country. London DuMont 1997Homburg, C (ed.) German Art Now. London Merrell 2003Honnef, K Sachsse, R Thomas, K (eds.) German Photography 1870 1970 power of a medium. cologne DuMont 1997Mack, M. Reconstructing Space architecture in recent German photography. London AA Public ations 1999Robinson, C Herschmann, J. Architecture Transformed a history of the photography of buildings from 1839 to the present Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT Press 1987Rosselli, P. (ed.) Architecture in Photography Milan Skira 2001Sander, A. August Sander citizens of the twentieth century portrait photographs 1892 1952. Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT Press 1986 http//www.arts.monash.edu.au/visarts/globe/issue6/dptxt.html 31.03.05