BERND BECHER

A new edition of the first book by photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, featuring framework houses of the Siegen region of Germany.Bernd and Hilla Becher have profoundly influenced the international photography world over the past several decades. Their unique genre, which falls somewhere between topological documentation and conceptual art, is in line with the aesthetics of such early-twentieth-century masters of German photography as Karl Blossfeldt, Germaine Krull, Albert Renger-Patzsch, and August Sander. Framework Houses, their first and most famous book, was originally published in Germany in 1977 and quickly went out of print. This new edition of that classic work takes advantage of reproduction and printing technologies not available in 1977. Most of the houses in the book were built between 1870 and 1914 in the Siegen region of Germany, one of the oldest iron-producing areas of Europe. The houses were built by immigrants who came to work in the mines or blast furnace plants. In 1790 a law was enacted to save wood for iron production by preventing its excessive use for house-building. The law prescribed the amount of lumber structurally required and forbade the construction of elements serving only ornamental purposes. It also specified the maximum strength for beams, sills, cornerposts, and studs. A functional framework, combined with neoclassical proportions, determined the new type of house; it was also applied to other buildings such as barns, churches, schools, inns, shops, factories, and mine structures.* Not for sale in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria

Desde los años 50, el trabajo de estos dos fotógrafos alemanes ha consistido en registrar y documentar la arquitectura industrial de varios países.

Tipologías de edificios industriales refleja el cambio de paradigma que se produce en la cultura visual a mediados del siglo XX, cuando la fotografía adquirió valor artístico. El libro recoge las tipologias o series de reproducciones de identico formato de edificios provenientes,en su gran mayoria, de la coleccion de los artistas ; cuarenta paisajes industriales den los que las instalaciones industriales se presentan en su entorno; y una serie fotografica documental realizada a comienzos de la decada de los años setenta en el complejo minero de Zollern II, en Dortmund-Bovinghausen, la mayor industria de fabricacion de acero en Alemania a comienzos de siglo XX. Desde sus inicios, Bernd y Hilla Becher han seguido el mismo criterio fotografico: la estructura se ubica en el centro de la imagen, aislada de su entorno, para lograr un punto de vista privilegiado. Del negativo queda desterrada toda posible distraccion (personas, nuber o humo). La utilizacion del tripode y el uso de un material que requiere largos tiempos de exposicion son recursos que participan de ese proposito de excluir cualquier elemento de espontaneidad. Como en el arte conceptual, neutralizan el objeto elevandolo a la categoria de arte.