To a large extent, contemporary photography looks the way it does because of two major revolutions. The first, originating in the US in the 1970s, not only made colour photography the dominant image mode, but also opened up new ways of seeing. The second, originating in Düsseldorf, Germany, very forcefully also made us see things in new ways. Thankfully, there are now two new books that talk about these two revolutions. The first, Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980, I reviewed last week. The second, The Düsseldorf School of Photography is the subject of this review.
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“I have progressed. Axel Hutte, Thomas Struth or Candida Hofer, for example, still all work on specific subjects for certain periods. But in my case I don’t distinguish between one area and the next - for me it’s much more of a slow process. But I also think that if you compare me to Thomas Ruff, you can see that he has moved on as well because what he is doing is maybe more like the work of a scientist who is trying to find out what the essence of photography is.” - Andreas Gursky
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I found a moving interview with Hilla Becher, which, unfortunately, only appears to be available in German. I translated some of the passages that struck me below.
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Picking up a thread from my earlier discussion, I occasionally get email telling me about a photographer who has done the same work (or something very similar) as someone featured on the blog, often with the implication that someone is ripping someone else off. For me, the issue usually is not about whether there is a rip-off going on (especially since two people, in different countries and without actual contact with each other, can easily create the same kind of work), but, instead, which of the work is more interesting. I think it might help if I gave an example.
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