"The aesthetic of industry is based on function. It is basically scaffolding with containers and pipes...but to me they are sculptures.” Bernd Becher

The work of Hilla and Bernd Becher fills up the Contemporary Gallery with images that are familiar to us. They are the structures that we took for granted, the structures we saw out of the car window and promptly dismissed. The Bechers have made it their life’s work to re-consider these vanishing industrial sites -- what they called “sacred sites of industry”. Sacred? How did they come to use that word? In the late 1950’s Bernd and Hilla Becher, one from East Germany, one from West Germany, had both come to appreciate Germany’s industrial heritage and saw it vanishing without documentation. They realized that although obsolete, industrial sites were vulnerable to demolition in the name of progress, no one would dream of destroying historic castles, churches or homes. So the Bechers set about recording other kinds of historic landmarks which they felt were equally important.

When we see a ‘grid’ of Becher photographs we are struck by the cool and yet reverential approach they have taken. Imagine this young couple waiting for exactly the perfect time of day and weather conditions to create these ‘portraits’. They are documentary photographers, in that they record the way a structure looks. But their art goes way beyond that. Each water tower, gas tank, winding tower or coal tipple is right in front of us, filling up the frame with little extraneous matter. The Bechers are asking us to look carefully and respectfully at these structures. They could be temples or churches or balloons. But, of course, they are not. They are chosen for their function. After they had photographed each site from all sides, the fun for the Bechers continued in their studio. It was here that they sorted it all and created their ‘typologies’.

If we look at the large grid of water towers on the west wall, we see that the Bechers have made two small grids of winding towers. Each grid shows the same function -- bringing up ore from the earth -- but they show towers built from completely different materials. They’ve made us consider it all again, in a new way. It is instructive to learn that their first book of these photographs was called Anonymous Sculptures.

The Bechers are important to the Museum because of their enormous influence on contemporary art. They worked in Europe and the United States, always one step ahead of the wrecking ball, in a style known as the ‘New Objectivity’. Their work was included in the 1975 New Topographics show, a direct precursor to our own Altered Landscapes collection. They taught in Dusseldorf, but their influence on young artists was far-reaching. Sol Lewitt, Robert Smithson, Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Ed Ruscha all admired and were influenced by the Bechers. Let’s take another look at The Grid!