Highly Specialized Imaginations

By showing “Nature & Politics”, the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, presents large format prints by Thomas Struth dealing with complexity. March 4, until May 29, 2016.

Whether research institutions, a theme park, or sacred spaces: in recent years, Thomas Struth has photographed an astonishing variety of locations. Apart from being forged by human hands, these locations all share one overriding similarity: they are extremely complex, albeit fulfilling entirely different functions. The pictures are surely testament to the strength of humankind’s imaginative and technical capacities. However, Struth’s works also show how technology and technological progress can place excessive demands upon us. Only a select few, after all, are able to work these machines.

Thomas Struth (b. 1954) ranks internationally among the most important artists of his generation. During the 1970s he was a student at the Kunstakadamie Düsseldorf, where he first studied painting under Gerhard Richter, and later photography under Bernd and Hilla Becher. Together with fellow Becher alumni, including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Höfer, he formed the so-called Düsseldorf School. Struth’s work draws attention to contemporary structures, which he documents and examines with tremendous clarity and eye for detail. His photographs of landscapes, streetscapes, and even museum visitors, might easily be interpreted as scientific studies that seek to map networks of historical, functional, and social interrelationships.

Please find more information at the Museum Folkwang