Thursday, March 1, 2012

Framework Houses


I am a huge fan of Bernd and Hilla Becher. For years they have photographed all kinds of architecture, and industrial structures like head frames for mines, water towers, and blast furnaces, in Europe. They have published a number of books, in different categories, with each of the objects being only slightly different in their appearance. Here is a collection of 21 framed prints in an exhibit I saw at MoMA today, and they are all framework houses, and they are similar, but different in subtle ways. I had to wait until some people came by dressed in black, to make a good contrast to the very light background of matted prints and a white wall. Please click on this image so you can see it in a larger size.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I had to wait until some people came by dressed in black..." how hard is that to do in New York, where everyone wears black to everything!
I wish you had included the name of this piece. If they let me give it a title, it would be "Options," because it invokes that feeling of same box-multiple choices. We're all the same on the outside (skin, hair, etc.), but on the inside, we're all a bit different.

Ken Spencer said...

I am sorry that I didn't include the name of the piece. It is called "Framework Houses 1959-73" And for the record, I am easy to find when in New York - I was wearing a bright red jacket, because I hate to see everyone dressed in black.