{"id":392,"date":"2012-02-02T22:11:55","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T22:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fraenkelgallery.badfeather.com\/?post_type=fraenkel_artist&p=392"},"modified":"2026-02-23T09:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:47:08","slug":"bernd-and-hilla-becher","status":"publish","type":"fraenkel_artist","link":"https:\/\/fraenkelgallery.com\/artists\/bernd-and-hilla-becher","title":{"rendered":"Bernd & Hilla Becher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The husband and wife team of Bernd and Hilla Becher began photographing together in 1959. For close to fifty years, they documented architectural forms they collectively referred to as \u201canonymous sculpture.\u201d Their extensive series of water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples, framework houses of mine workers, and other vernacular industrial architecture\u2014often technologies on the verge of obsolescence\u2014comprise an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function. The Bechers produced impeccable black and white photographs, using a large-format camera carefully positioned under overcast skies to record shadowless front and side elevation views of their subjects. Arranging these matched photographs in a grid, the Bechers produced what they called \u201ctypologies,\u201d which grouped buildings by function, underscoring the similarities and differences between structures.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Cooling Tower [K\u00fchlturm], Mons, Borinage, B<\/span>, 1967<\/span><\/div>\n
gelatin silver print<\/span>, 24 x 20 inches (image & sheet) [61 x 50.8 cm]<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n