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Exhibition: ‘Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method’ at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne

Exhibition dates: 5th September, 2025 – 1st February, 2026

An exhibition by Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in cooperation with the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio, Düsseldorf

Anonyme Skulpturen. Eine Typologie technischer Bauten, Düsseldorf: Art-Press
Anonymous Sculptures: A Typology of Technical Buildings, Düsseldorf: Art-Press
1970 (Buchcover)
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln

When we think about the most influential photographers of the first five decades of the 20th century we conjure up names such as Eugène Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, László Moholy-Nagy, Dorothea Lange, and Berenice Abbott, to name just a few – and by influential, I mean those photographers that altered the intensification of the medium – the conceptualisation, creation, veracity, meaning and reception of the image.

In the last 50 years of the 20th century there are less of these medium-shifting artists that have really made a difference. Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander are the two that readily spring to mind. And then there are the Bechers, Bernd & Hilla Becher. These German photographers changed the course of contemporary photographic practice, their conceptual art / objective photographic raison d’être still embedded at the heart of fine art photography today.

But, as I have argued elsewhere, their typologies and grids, their topographic state, their same same photographs and perspectives of industrial sculptures and landscapes are anything but objective. Their pictorial grammar, underlaid by a conceptual approach to subject matter, continuously reflected in the systematics of capture and display (the juxtaposition of works together), is constantly undermined by the ghost in the machine – those viral codes of mutation and difference which cannot be controlled.

While they professed to “eschew entirely entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion,” every photograph they took involves a subjective point of view, an element of uniqueness and beauty that can never be repeated.

“Despite protestations to the contrary (appeals to the objectivity of the image, eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion; the rigorous frontality of the individual images giving them the simplicity of diagrams, while their density of detail offers encyclopaedic richness) these are subjective images for all their objective desire. The paradox is the more a photographer strives for objectivity, the more ego drops away, the more the work becomes their own: subjective, beautiful, emotive.

Even though the Bechers’ demonstrate great photographic restraint with regard to documenting the object, the documentary gaze is always corrupted / mutated / distorted by personal interpretation: where to position the camera, what to include or exclude, how to interpret the context of place, how to crop or print the image, and how to display the image, in grids, sequences or singularly. In other words there are always multiple (con)texts to which artists conform or transgress. What makes great photographers, such as Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, August Sander and the Bechers, is the idiosyncratic “nature” of their vision: how Atget places his large view camera – at that particular height and angle to the subject – leaves an indelible feeling that only he could have made that image, to reveal the magic of that space in a photograph. It is their personal, unique thumbprint, recognisable in an instant. So it is with the Bechers.”1

For a deeper dive into the work of the Bechers, please see my text “Ghosts in the machine,” on the exhibition Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, July – November, 2022.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Marcus Bunyan text on the exhibition Bernd and Hilla Becher: Mines and Mills – Industrial Landscapes at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich, November 2011 – February 2012 [Online] Cited 05/12/2025

Many thankx to Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007)
Mudersbach
1950s
Watercolour
35.5 x 59.9cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne showing Bernd Becher’s Calatayud 1956 (below)

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007)
Calatayud
1956
Aquatint on laid paper
20.8 x 44.0cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007)
Grube Eisernhardter Tiefbau, Eisern, D (Eisernhardter Tiefbau mine, Eisern, Germany)
1955/56
Pencil on paper
42.0 x 56.5cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne showing Hilla Becher’s Untitled (Makroaufnahme von Schaum) (Macro shot of foam) c. 1960

Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015)
Untitled (Makroaufnahme von Schaum) (Macro shot of foam)
c. 1960
Gelatin silver print
38.9 x 19.4cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Hilla Becher (née Wobeser) discovered photography as a teenager. Her mother had trained as a photographer at the Lette Verein in Berlin and supported her daughter’s interest. Accordingly, from 1951 to 1953, Hilla completed an apprenticeship as a photographer at the Walter Eichgrün studio in her hometown of Potsdam. In 1953, the family fled East Germany, and Hilla continued her career in West Germany. For example, in 1957 she worked at the Troost advertising agency in Düsseldorf, where she also met Bernd Becher.

The photograph shown above belongs to a series of surface and structural studies from around 1960. Nothing is known about the exact context of the photographs; however, their stylistic affinity to the “Subjective Photography” movement, which gained influence from the early 1950s onward, is interesting. Distortion techniques were an important tool in “Subjective Photography,” and Hilla Becher’s macro photographs utilise extreme proximity to the subject as a means of creating a sense of alienation.

Text from the SK Stiftung Kultur Die Photographische Sammlung Instagram page

Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015)
Meeresschnecke (Venuskamm) (Sea snail (Venus comb))
1960s
Gelatin silver print
39.6 x 30cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015)
Pflanzenstudie, Photogramme (Plant study, photograms)
1960s
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

An exhibition of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in cooperation with the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio, Düsseldorf

The artist couple Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931-2007/1934-2015) has written photographic history. With their joint work, which they developed from 1959 until the 2000s on the basis of an almost uninterrupted photographic activity in the industrial regions of Germany, the Benelux countries, Great Britain, France, Italy, the USA and Canada, they created a new artistically motivated documentary style.

For the first time in Europe, this exhibition will present the methodological and thematic range of their oeuvre in great detail with over 300 original black and white photographs and other exhibits by the artist couple. In the individual sections, almost all of Becher’s found subjects can be located in a compilation and sequencing largely determined by themselves. Photographs of landscapes, winding towers, blast furnaces, cooling towers, gas tanks or even views of entire collieries etc. are considered her trademark. The juxtaposition of the groups of works authentically conveys the pictorial grammar developed by Bernd and Hilla Becher and their continuously reflected systematics and conceptual approach.

The exhibits come from the Bernd and Hilla Becher Archive in Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur and the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio, Düsseldorf, in collaboration with Max Becher under the supervision of the Bernd & Hilla Becher Estate. There are also loans from Sprüth Magers and the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn.

The publication accompanying the exhibition will be published by Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, with texts by Max Becher, Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Marianne Kapfer and Urs Stahel.

Text from the Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne website

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne showing Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photograph Kühlturm (Cooling tower) 1962, “Mont-Cenis” mine, Herne, Ruhr area 1965 (below)

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Kühlturm (Cooling tower) 1962, “Mont-Cenis” mine, Herne, Ruhr area
1965
Gelatin silver print
40.3 x 31.5cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

We have dedicated an entire room of our current exhibition to the group of “Anonymous Sculptures.” With this series of images, Bernd and Hilla Becher defined the building types that were important to them, such as cooling towers. The fundamental principle of the comparability of the motifs was introduced, and the work on publications, so crucial to Bernd and Hilla Becher’s artistic output, was also initiated.

You can trace the artists’ approach using 41 photographs that exemplify the building types presented in seven chapters of the 1970 publication “Anonymous Sculptures: A Typology of Technical Structures.” An exhibition at the Düsseldorf Municipal Art Gallery preceded the book in 1969 [see the book cover at the top of the posting].

The term “Anonymous Sculptures” establishes a link to conceptual art. This connection between Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work and the visual arts was important for their subsequent work and its presentation in museums and galleries.

Text from the SK Stiftung Kultur Die Photographische Sammlung Instagram page

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Seven Sisters Pit, South Wales, GB
1966
Gelatin silver print
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 2025

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Gasbehälter (Gas container) 1886 Tyldesley near Manchester, UK
1966
Gelatin silver print
30.4 x 41.5cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Förderturm (Conveyor tower) 1958 “Graf Bismarck” mine, Gelsenkirchen, Ruhr area
1967
Gelatin silver print
40.3 x 31.1cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Hochofen (Blast furnace) c. 1930, Blast furnace plant, Esch, Luxembourg
1969
Gelatin silver print
40.4 x 31.5 cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Hochspannungsmast, Düsseldorf, D (High-voltage pylon, Düsseldorf, Germany)
1969
4 gelatin silver prints
Each approx. 41.3 x 30.4cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Giebelseiten Fachwerk, Siegerland D (Gable sides half-timbered, Siegerland D)
1959-1973
15 gelatin silver prints
Each approx. 40 x 31cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen und Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln

The first subjects Bernd and Hilla Becher photographed on their nearly fifty-year journey to documenting industrial buildings were half-timbered houses in the Siegerland region. For Bernd Becher, it was natural to photograph these “poor people’s houses,” as Hilla called them, from his childhood and youth. For the film “The Photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher,” we attempted to identify the Bechers’ subjects using the book “Siegerland Half-Timbered Houses” by Schirmer/Mosel. We asked locals and showed them the book. Although the Bechers provided the exact address of each house, they were often unrecognisable. Many, being drafty and cold, had been clad with asbestos cement, thus obscuring their exposed timber framing. Their original appearance is preserved only in the Bechers’ photographs.

Text from the Text from the SK Stiftung Kultur Facebook page

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Bottrop, D
1976
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 2025

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Fördertürme (Winding towers)
1966-1979
12 gelatin silver print
Each approx. 41 x 31cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
auf der Grube Ensdorf, Saarland (at the Ensdorf mine, Saarland)
1979
Gelatin silver print
12 x 14.1cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

The artist couple Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931-2007/1934-2015) set a benchmark in the history of photography with their work. Beginning in 1959, they collaborated almost continuously for decades on a joint oeuvre, developed across Germany, the Benelux countries, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States, and Canada. Their artistic style, characterised by a precise, documentary visual language and methodical systematisation, resonated significantly with movements such as Minimal Art and Conceptual Art. Against the backdrop of New Objectivity and inspired by 19th-century documentary photography, they created a visual grammar whose influence remains palpable in contemporary photography.

For the first time in Europe, Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur presents an extensive retrospective featuring over 300 original black-and-white photographs and complementary exhibits, showcasing the formal and thematic breadth and depth of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work. The exhibition centers on the themes and methods developed by the Bechers: consistent methodical approaches to the photographic motif that evolved and were variably applied over decades. The exhibition explores how these methods emerged, how they developed, and how they reflected the Bechers’ perspective on the different shapes, functions, and integration of industrial buildings into the landscape.

Rare early works from both artists – created between the 1950s and 1970s – are on view, many for the first time. These pieces provide insight into the evolution of their shared aesthetic.

Room 2 is dedicated to the book Anonyme Skulpturen. Eine Typologie technischer Bauten (Anonymous Sculptures. A Typology of Technical Constructions), 1970, considered the foundation of their work. This publication systematically catalogued industrial structures and remains a key reference point. Quoted texts on the function of the objects and original prints illuminate its significance within their oeuvre.

Industrial Landscapes and photographs of entire sites form another focus and demonstrate that the Bechers did not merely document isolated buildings, but also functional and spatial relationships. Featured works include views of the Zollern 2 coal mine in Dortmund (published 1977) and the Ewald Fortsetzung mine in Recklinghausen (1982-1985).

The exhibition also includes “portraits” of residential and settlement houses from the Ruhr region – especially from the post-war era – reflecting the everyday life and environment of industrial workers. A framework house from the Siegerland region is used to show how a single subject can take on different meanings depending on presentation and context.

“Sequences” or “unfoldings” are illustrated using various building groups, presenting structures from multiple perspectives, so that a sculptural image of the motifs is created.

Lastly, the exhibition presents typologies – photographic series of coal bunkers, grain silos, winding and water towers, blast furnaces, and cooling towers. These highlight how the Bechers used specific representational strategies, systematic arrangement, and variation to achieve artistic expression. Created between the 1960s and early 2000s across different countries, the works powerfully demonstrate the visual grammar developed by the Bechers.

A kind of “cinematic epilogue” is provided by a video created by Max Becher, who accompanied his parents on a work trip to Ohio in 1987, offering an evocative glimpse into their working process.

The works are drawn from the Bernd and Hilla Becher Archive at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur and the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio in Düsseldorf, directed by Max Becher. Additional loans are provided by Sprüth Magers and the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn.

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition, published by Schirmer/Mosel Verlag, Munich, with texts by Max Becher, Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Marianne Kapfer, and Urs Stahel. (Will be released in early November.)

Press release from Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Essen-Schönebeck, D
1981
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Wassertürme, USA (Water towers, USA)
1974-1983
Gelatin silver prints
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 2025

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007)
Untitled (Water tower, Béziers, Hérault, F)
c. 1984
Ink on paper
9 x 5.1cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 20255

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Wassertürme (Water tower)
1960s-1980s
Drawings with felt-tip pen, pencil, ballpoint pen on cardboard, paper, index cards
Various sizes around 10.5 x 8.5cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Walker Evans (United States of America 1903-1975)
Graveyard and steel mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1935
Gelatin silver print

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne showing at left Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photograph Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA 1986 (below)

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
1986
Gelatin silver print
46.7 x 60cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

With their blast furnaces, chimneys, pipes, and conveyor belts, steelworks are less buildings than gigantic machines. They are among the most imposing industrial structures that Bernd and Hilla Becher have photographed since the late 1950s. Anatomically speaking, blast furnaces are like a body without skin, the artist couple wrote in 1990: excessively high temperatures, too much pressure, too many gases make cladding the steel shell impossible; they are nothing but function. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the enormous work practically hangs over the town. Photographed from an elevated vantage point (similar to the one Walker Evans had chosen in 1935), the blast furnaces, houses, and the cemetery – work, life, death – are compressed into an inescapable proximity. Space compressed, time compressed.

Dr. Maria Müller-Schareck, art historian and member of the PS/SK management team

Text from the SK Stiftung Kultur Die Photographische Sammlung Instagram page

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Förderturm, Schacht 2 (Winding tower, shaft 2)
1982
6 gelatin silver prints,
Each approx. 40 x 31cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Installation views of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne showing Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Zeche Ewald Fortsetzung, Kühlturm/-türme (Ewald mine continuation, cooling tower(s)) 1985 (below)

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Zeche Ewald Fortsetzung, Kühlturm/-türme (Ewald mine continuation, cooling tower(s))
1985
5 gelatin silver prints
Each approx. 40.0 x 31.0cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Over the course of their artistic career, Bernd and Hilla Becher documented approximately 200 industrial sites, including the Ewald Fortsetzung coal mine in Recklinghausen, which we are featuring in our exhibition.

These documentations are based on systematic walks through the industrial sites and surrounding areas. A panoramic photograph, often central to each site, provides an overview of the grounds and allows the individual buildings to be located and understood in relation to one another.

The subsequent photographs portray the individual building types, in this case, two cooling towers. The five images in this group clearly demonstrate how Bernd and Hilla Becher approach their subject, photographing the building from different sides and perspectives, and highlighting a specific detail. The aim of this approach was to depict the industrial buildings in a way that is both technically clear and aesthetically pleasing.

Text from the SK Stiftung Kultur Die Photographische Sammlung Instagram page

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Kühltürme (Cooling towers)
1964-1993
9 gelatin silver prints
Each approx. 41 x 31cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Kies- und Schotterwerk, Oberbüren/St. Gallen, CH (Gravel and crushed stone works, Oberbüren/St. Gallen, CH)
2001
3 gelatin silver print
Each approx. 30 x 40cm
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Sprüth Magers

Installation view of the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne September, 2025 – February, 2026

Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method book cover

Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur
Im Mediapark 7, 50670 Cologne
Phone: +49 221/888 95 300

Opening hours: Daily (except Wednesdays): 2pm – 7pm

Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur website

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Exhibition: ‘Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974’ at Haus der Kunst, Munich

Exhibition dates: 11th November 2012 – 20th January 2013

Alice Aycock (American, b. 1946)
Clay #2
1971/2012
1,500 pounds of clay mixed with water in wood frame
Size: each 121.9 x 121.9 x 15.2cm
Courtesy of the artist

“Not taking Land art as a given the exhibition revisits various milieus and networks of heterogeneous practices around the world where the desire to engage the land or to work with the earth followed diverse artistic objectives and impulses. In researching this diversity, we found that the dominant art historical interpretation of Land art – as fundamentally an American sculptural phenomenon that developed out of Minimalism and Postminimalism, expanding into the “field” beyond art spaces to occupy or to become one with vast landscapes like the deserts of the Southwestern United States – accounts for only a limited number of artists’ works.”

Philipp Kaiser and Miwon Kwon. Ends of the Earth and Back catalogue essay, p. 18

This posting continues the theme of land/(e)scape, combining as it does performance, site, nonsite, language, film and earth. It is such a pity that the documentation of these early Land Art events in the form of photographs tends to be so poor. The paucity and quality of the visual evidence adds to the ephemeral, transient nature of the art while undermining the works cultural significance. As Robert Smithson notes in his commentary on the piece Spiral Jetty (1970), if the work occupies a “site” and the essay and the film are Nonsites where language (the essay), photographic images (the film), and earth (the jetty) are viewed as material equals – in other words, each is given equal weight within the project – then on the evidence of these images as a lasting artefacts of an action, the photographs seem to me to be just shorthand notes, cursory artefacts like a smudged fingerprint at a crime scene.

Is it necessary that they be great art? No, because the art was not about ego it was about being there at the actual event. But, other than an overt ability to show the outcomes of the performance, what is necessary from these documentary photographs is that they engage the viewer on a higher level than just ocular observation. While Land Art must be extremely difficult to photograph there is nothing memorable here that will stick in my consciousness, that will trigger a memory of the photograph as “vision” (hallucination, simulation, projection?) of these amazing events, which is a great shame. Rendering shapes of things does not make for memorable art, even as that very (Land) art aimed to investigate higher concepts relating to “this tortured earth.”

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Haus der Kunst, Munich for allowing me to publish the text and photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Please also read the accompanying essay, Ends of the Earth and Back by Philipp Kaiser and Miwon Kwon (615kb pdf).

Zorka Ságlová (Czech, 1942-2003)
Homage to Gustav Obermann (detail)
March 1970
Six gelatin silver prints
15 3/4 × 23 5/8 in. (40 × 60cm) each
Collection of Jan Sagl; Courtesy Jan Sagl

Beginning in the late 1960s, Ságlová was one of the first artists to work in the landscape outside Prague, carrying out actions with her friends, many of whom were part of the artistic underground in then-Communist Czechoslovakia. For Homage to Gustav Obermann, Ságlová arranged twenty-one plastic bags filled with jute and gasoline in Bransoudov (near Humpolec) in a circle during a snowstorm. The bags were set on fire at nightfall. This event was held in memory of a shoe-maker from the town who was said to have protested the German occupation during World War II by walking in the surrounding hills while spitting fire. Two months later, for Laying Napkins near Sudomer (below), the artist laid out approximately 700 napkins to form a triangle in a grass field near Sudomer, the site of a famous Hussite battle in 1420. The action referred to local folklore relating how Hussite women would spread pieces of cloth on a marshy field to snag the spurs of the Roman Catholic cavalrymen as they dismounted, making them easy targets for the Hussite warriors.

Zorka Ságlová (Czech, 1942-2003)
Laying Napkins Near Sudomer
1970
Six gelatin silver prints
15 3/4 × 23 5/8 in. (40 × 60cm) each
collection of Jan Sagl

For Laying Napkins near Sudomer, the artist laid out approximately 700 napkins to form a triangle in a grass field near Sudomer, the site of a famous Hussite battle in 1420. The action referred to local folklore relating how Hussite women would spread pieces of cloth on a marshy field to snag the spurs of the Roman Catholic cavalrymen as they dismounted, making them easy targets for the Hussite warriors.

Zorka Ságlová (1943-2003)

Zorka Ságlová was born in 1942 in the town of Humpolec. Her mother was a teacher and seamstress and her father was a financial clerk. Her brother, Ivan Martin “Magor” Jirous (1944-2011) went on to become a poet and artistic director of the dissident psychedelic rock band Plastic People of the Universe. Her cousin, the prominent Czech modern art historian Jifií Padrta, influenced her artistic interests from an early age.

After secondary school Ságlová took an apprenticeship as a weaver. From 1961 to 1966 she studied textile design at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Prague. In 1964 she married the photographer Jan Ságl. Their daughter Alenka was born in 1968 After graduating, she took up geometric painting and performance art. Her performances of the late 1960s and early 1970s combined happening and land art, and often occurred in open air settings. After the Prague Spring, she carried out more collective actions, often in rural areas. After “Hay-Straw” in 1969, she was persecuted by the media and sidelined by official art circles during the period of ‘Normalization’. After 1972, she retired from public life and returned to tapestry and painting, influenced by political pressure due to the persecution of her frequent collaborators in Plastic People of the Universe. She did not revisit performance until the late 1980s with small, more private happenings. Ságlová continued to work throughout the 1990s, and died in 2003.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Michael Snow (Canadian, 1928-2023)
La Région Centrale (still)
1971
16mm film transferred to DVD (blackbox projection), black-and-white, sound
191 min.
Courtesy of the artist

Michael Snow CC RCA (born December 10, 1928) was a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are Wavelength (1967) and La Région Centrale (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in avant-garde cinema.

Robert Kinmont (American, b. 1937)
8 Natural Handstands
1969/2009
Nine gelatine silver prints
Size: each 21.5 x 21.5cm
Courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York

Utilising an amateur and handmade approach to both photography and sculpture, Kinmont illustrates the human scale and its relationship to one’s surroundings. Incorporating both irony and humor his work explores the systems and structures that continue to develop within this relationship.

Robert Kinmont (American, b. 1937)
8 Natural Handstands (detail)
1969/2009
Nine gelatine silver prints
Size: each 21.5 x 21.5cm
Courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York

Keith Arnatt (British, 1930-2008)
Liverpool Beach Burial
1968
Gelatin silver print
Size: 40.6 x 50.8cm
Courtesy of the Keith Arnatt Estate and Maureen Paley, London

Liverpool Beach Burial, which the artist described as a “situational sculpture,” was realised by Arnatt with his students at the Manchester College of Art. It was first exhibited in Konzeption – Conception: Dokumentation einer heutigen Kunstrichtung / Documentation of Today’s Art Tendency at the Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany, in 1969. The artist recorded instructions for its making: “(1) Choosing a site and marking out a straight line. (2) Marking off 4-foot intervals. Each mark representing a digging position for each of the hundred-plus participants. (3) Each participant chose a site on the line and dug his / her own hole. (4) When the holes were deep enough the participants were ‘buried’ by nonparticipants.” (Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997, p. 50).

As the first major museum exhibition on Land Art, Ends of the Earth provides the most comprehensive historical overview of this art movement to date. Land Art used the earth as its material and the land as its medium, thereby creating works beyond the familiar spatial framework of the art system. The time period covered in Ends of the Earth spans the 1960s to 1974, when, in the context of Land Art, movements such as Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Happenings, Performance Art, and Arte povera, became more distinct and began to diverge.

The nearly 200 works by more than 100 artists from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Switzerland demonstrate that Land Art was not a predominantly North American phenomenon. The exhibition presents works that are less well known than the canonical works Spiral Jetty, Lightning Field and Double Negative, thereby creating a shift in perspective. By including works of the then participating artists, the show refers to the earlier and pioneering exhibitions Earthworks and Earth Art (New York, 1968 and 1969). Michael Heizer and Walter De Maria are interested in realisations in outside and lend the mediated part within an exhibition only secondary importance. They are, therefore, not included in this presentation.

Even before the emergence of the movement in the 1960s, artists from the most varied locations around the globe were increasingly moved to claim the earth and use land as an artistic medium. In a basic sense, this also included the examination of the nature of the earth as a planet. Yves Klein, for instance, wondered what the earth looked like from space. In 1961, he transformed his vision that the dominant colour from this perspective would be blue, and that all man-made boundaries could be overcome with this colour, into his series Planetary Reliefs.

Land Art artists often worked under the open sky, making productive use of the fact that the great outdoors posed other conditions for a work’s lifespan than enclosed spaces did. Some works only existed for the short time of their creation, like Judy Chicago’s ephemeral works consisting of coloured flames and smoke, which served as references to religious ceremonies and the landscape as a deity. For ten weeks, the cliffs along Little Bay, Sydney, were packed in synthetic fabric and rope for Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet, which, like many other works of Land Art, was enormous in scale. Another famous work of similar proportions was Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson; on the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA, the artist built a 1,500-foot long spiral-shaped jetty made of material found on site.

Land Art artists were fascinated by remote locations like deserts. Hreinn Fridfinnsson constructed a house on an uninhabited lava field near Reykjavik. The inside was made of corrugated sheet metal and the outside was covered in wall paper, because, as wall paper is intended to please the eye, “it is reasonable to have it on the outside, where more people can enjoy it.” Some artists transported the conditions of specific places into exhibition spaces: The Japanese artist group “i” moved four truckloads of gravel on a conveyor belt into an exhibition space and arranged it into a pile there. Alice Aycock fills a minimalistic grid with wet clay. This work will be recreated for the exhibition in Haus der Kunst; the clay will dry out during the run of the exhibition, will crack and gradually come to resemble the land in California’s Death Valley (Clay #2, 1971 / 2012). With Hog Pasture: Survival Piece #1 (1970-1971 / 2012), not only will new material – in this case a green pasture – make on selected occasions its way into the museum but a live domestic pig as well, which will pasture on the meadow from time to time.

From the earliest days of the movement, collectors, patrons, art dealers, and curators also explored sensitively which works of Land Art could be exhibited in museums and galleries, and how this should be done. In their own way, they helped establish Land Art as a legitimate artistic genre. In the case of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty an art dealer helped funding the production of an accompanying film, and the work was executed in three equally valid versions: as the site-specific headland, as an eponymous essay and as a film.

In general, language, film, and photography played a central role in Land Art’s creation and development. Land Art artists and members of the media established close connections to one another. Magazines and television stations commissioned art works and were the first to publish these. Now legendary is Gerry Schum’s Fernsehgalerie, which was the first exhibition created for television and was broadcast by Sender Freies Berlin on 15 April 1969. For eight consecutive days in October of that same year, the WDR television network interrupted its regularly scheduled programs, at 8.15 pm and 9.15 pm, for a few seconds and presented the eight photographs of Keith Arnatt’s Self-Burial, which depicted the artist gradually sinking into the ground. The television station refrained from accompanying this with an introduction or commentary.

Following the presentation of Tinguely’s self-destructing sculpture Hommage à New York, the NBC television network commissioned the artist to create a work. In collaboration with Niki de Saint-Phalle, Tinguely made a large-scale kinetic sculpture out of waste material he had found in and around Las Vegas. The work was used in choreographed explosions that took place south-west of Las Vegas near a nuclear test site. Tinguely’s spectacle was presented in the same newscast as was a major report about the international nuclear talks, which took place that same week.

Many other works touched on the subject of “this tortured earth”, as Isamu Noguchi described it. Land Art artists examined the wounds and scars that humans inflict on the planet earth, whether by the war machinery (Robert Barry, Isamu Noguchi), dictatorships (Artur Barrio), nuclear testing (Heinz Mack, Jean Tinguely, Adrian Piper) or colonisation (Yitzhak Danziger). The media’s intensive coverage of Land Art activities led to unusual and complex contributions. Receptive to Land Art’s demand for a sensitive consciousness regarding the conditions of production, presentation and dissemination of art, they also gave expression to the technological, social and political conditions of the time.

Organised in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Press release from the Haus der Kunst website

Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only a s a speck of light among many others. Returning to Earth with breathtaking speed, we move inward – into the hand of the sleeping picnicker – with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Our journey ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell.

This film was inspired by the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke as well as by architect Eliel Saarinen’s statements about scale. It opens with an overhead shot of a man and a woman lying on a picnic blanket in a park in Chicago. In an effort to depict the scale of the couple, the planet Earth, and the galaxy relative to one another and to that of the universe, the camera zooms out at a distance of a factor of ten every two seconds, until the galaxy is seen as merely a speck of light among many others. The camera then zooms back in, with ten times the magnification every ten seconds, focusing in the end on the proton of an atom.

Charles Simonds (American, b. 1945)
Body<—>Earth (still)
1974
16mm film transferred to DVD, colour
3 min.
Collection of the artist

Les Levine (American, b. 1935)
Systems Burnoff X Residual Software
1969/2012
Installation recreation 1,000 copies of 31 photographs (31,000 photographs total) taken by Levine at the March 1969 opening of EARTH ART exhibition in Ithaca, New York
Jello and chewing gum
Courtesy of the artist

Christo (Bulgaria, 1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (Bulgaria, 1935-2009)
Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet
1968-1969
Collages, photographs, model, film
Collection of the artist

The largest single artwork ever made, Wrapped Coast was mounted in Little Bay, Sydney, Australia, on October 28, 1969, and remained on view for ten weeks. Christo and Jeanne-Claude, with the assistance of 125 students, teachers, professional climbers, and workers and under the supervision of Major Ninian Melville, retired from the Army Corps of Engineers, wrapped approximately one and a half miles of coast, including cliffs up to 85 feet high, using synthetic fabric and rope. This was the first work in the series of Kaldor Public Art Projects initiated by Australian collector John Kaldor. The project was financed by the sale of Christo’s preparatory drawings, collages, models, and lithographs. In the end, all materials used were removed from the bay and recycled. ABC Australia filmed a documentary of the project.

Peter Hutchinson (British, b. 1930)
Paricutin Project
1971
Photo and ink on cardboard and moulded bread in object-frame
40 x 55cm
Courtesy Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf

Peter Arthur Hutchinson (born 1930) is a British-born artist living in the United States. Hutchinson is one of the pioneers of the Land Art movement.

The Paricutin Project was first shown in 1969 at John Gibson Gallery in New York as a model illustrating Hutchinson’s conception of an action to take place on Mt. Paricutin, a volcano in Michoacán, Mexico. A year later, Time magazine funded Hutchinson’s trip to the site to make the work in exchange for exclusive rights to publish the photographs. In an attempt to produce life in a place generally thought of as lifeless, the artist laid 450 pounds of bread crumbs in a line approximately 250 feet long around the rim of the volcano. Mould appeared after six days, in part because of the heat and steam rising from the earth. Two photographs of the project were published in the June 29, 1970, issue of Time. Later that same year, large-scale photographs of the work, along with text describing the trip, were shown at John Gibson Gallery.

Patricia Johanson (American, b. 1940)
Stephen Long (still)
1968
CBSTV 1968; edited by Joanna Alexander, WNET TV, New York, 1971
16mm film transferred to DVD, colour, sound
5 min.
Courtesy of the artist

Interested in the physical limitations of sight and in measuring how far the eye can see, Johanson created this 1,600-foot-long by 2-foot-wide sculpture made of plywood planks painted with yellow, red, and blue bands. Sited on a portion of the defunct Boston & Maine Railroad tracks from Buskirk, New York, to Bennington, Vermont, the work is named after Stephen Long, a military officer who became a railroad surveyor and engineer. Both the location of the work and its title emphasise the impact of rail transportation on modern perceptions and experience of the landscape. The work gained considerable local media attention, and John Lindsay, Mayor of New York, invited Johanson to permanently install the piece in the mall at Central Park. As the available space was only 1,300 feet long, the artist, unwilling to alter the work’s length, declined the invitation.

Kristjan Gudmundsson (Icelandic, b. 1941)
Painting of the specific gravity of the planet Earth
1972-1973
Acrylic on metal
Size: 25.4 x 25.4cm
Sólveig Magnúsdóttir, Reykjavik

Kristján’s art reflects both prevailing traditions in late 20th century western art in general, and the dominance of abstract and conceptual art in the post-war art of Iceland in particular. He has said, “I am trying to work within the field of tension that exists between nothing and something”.

Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939)
Atmospheres: Duration Performances
1967-1974
16mm film transferred to DVD, colour, sound
14:12 min.
Courtesy of the artist

Heinz Mack (German, b. 1931)
Tele-Mack
1968
16mm film transferred on DVD, colour, sound
24:35 min.
Production of Saarländischer Rundfunk, author Professor Heinz Mack
Courtesy of Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH

A founding member of Group Zero – an artist collective established in Düsseldorf in 1958 – Mack drafted the final version of his manifesto for Sahara Project in 1959. It was first published in Zero magazine in 1961, and subsequently republished and translated from German into French, Dutch, and English in 1967 for Mackazin, the artist’s journal-catalogue. Sahara Project, made in homage to Yves Klein, proposes placing large-scale sculptural works in remote areas of the world’s deserts, like mirages to be encountered by anyone coming upon them. One such location was the Sahara Desert, which was the main testing site for French nuclear weaponry after 1958. In 1967 Mack went on an expedition to the Sahara with the German public television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), which led to two televised presentations of the project the following year – one for WDR and the other for Saarländischer Rundfunk. The popular weekly German magazine Stern presented the project in a feature spread in 1977.

Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1
80538 Munich
Germany
Phone: +49 89 21127 113

Opening hours:
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Exhibition: ‘Line and Space. American Drawings and Sculpture since 1960, from a private collection’ at Pinakothek de Moderne, Munich

Exhibition dates: 28th July – 25th September 2011

Many thankx to the Pinakothek der Moderne for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the art work for a larger version of the image.

Barry Le Va (American, 1941-2021)
Untitled
1977
Pencil, ink and ballpoint on graph paper
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© Barry Le Va 2011

Sol LeWitt (American, 1928-2007)
A2
1967
Painted steel
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Donald Judd (American, 1928-1994)
Untitled
1962
Woodcut on paper, trial proof
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© Art Judd Foundation, Licensed by VAGA, NY / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Gordon Matta-Clark (American, 1943-1978)
Untitled (cut drawing)
1974
Cuts in paper
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

The exhibition, part of the AMERICAN SUMMER project, features the predominantly American holdings of drawings and sculptures from a private collection, with most of the works going on public display for the first time. What comes to the fore in this exemplary selection of largely American artists from the sixties and seventies and their impressive groups of works is the relationship between the media of sculpture and drawing. At the heart of the show lies the subtle dialogue between the conceptual ideas of ‘disegno’ and their sensual transfer to the materiality of sculpture.

One of the private collection’s particular strengths is its focus on groups of works by individual artists. As a result, entire rooms have been dedicated to the artists Fred Sandback and Barry Le Va, while in addition larger groups of works by other artists, including Donald Judd or Gordon Matta-Clark, can be studied in detail.

The selection of exhibits creates a display of the art movements of the sixties and seventies: among them, Minimal Art, as represented by Carl Andre, Bill Bollinger, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Fred Sandback, Post-minimalism of Barry Le Va or Keith Sonnier, Conceptual Art, as represented by Sol LeWitt, and Land Art of such artists as Michael Heizer and Walter de Maria. The exhibition is enriched with works from the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München and the Sammlung Moderne Kunst.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition: Der Raum der Linie – Amerikanische Zeichnungen und Skulpturen, edited by Michael Semff, Corinna Thierolf and Alexander Klar, with assistance from Pia Gottschaller and Birgitta Heid (containing essays from Jörg Daur, Pia Gottschaller, Birgitta Heid, Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Michael Semff, a conversation with Peter Soriano and an interview with the collector).

Press release from the Pinakothek de Moderne

Barry Le Va (American, 1941-2021)
Bearings Rolled
1966
Ink on paper
Sheet from a series of 15 drawings
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© Barry Le Va 2011

Fred Sandback (American, 1943-2003)
Untitled (Milanese Drawing)
c. 1971/1972
Chalk on paper
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© Fred Sandback Archive 2011

Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996)
from August 5, 1964
1966
Crayon on black paper
Private collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© Estate of Dan Flavin / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Sol LeWitt (American, 1928-2007)
Incomplete open cube drawing – ten & eleven part variations
Undated (c. 1973/1974)
Pencil and ink on paper
Private collection
Photo: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Robert Mangold (American, b. 1937)
104″ Perimeter Series
1969
Pencil on paper
Private Collection
Photo: Arne Schultz
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Pinakothek Der Moderne
Barer Strasse 40
Munich

Gallery Hours:
Daily except Monday 10am – 6pm
Thursday 10am – 8pm

Pinakothek der Moderne website

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