TYPOLOGIES:
A photographic typology is a study of “types”. That is, a photographic series that prioritizes “collecting” rather than stand-alone images. It’s a powerful method of photography that can be used to reshape the way we perceive the world around us. The noun TYPOLOGY means the study and interpretation of types. This became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art.
LINKS USED:
https://www.photopedagogy.com/typologies.html
HILLA AND BERND BECHER:
The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, invented New typologies, they began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.
Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America.
They won the Erasmus Prize in 2002 and Hasselblad Award in 2004 for their work and roles as photography professors at the art academy Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes.
THREE PEOPLE WHO INFLUENCED THE BECHERS:
CRITICS:
‘They are the lines on the face of the world. The photographs are portraits of our history. And when the structures have been demolished and grassed over, as though they were never there, the pictures remain.’
Michael Collins, The Long Look
This quote from Michael Collins connects with my personal study, Nostalgia. ‘The photographs are portraits of our history’
LINKS USED:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-718/who-are-bechers
IMAGE ANALYSIS:
Emotional Response:
The way these images are presented shows different buildings and how they could evolve. This is how I’m going to incorporate typologies into my personal study, by presenting different locations which bring me nostalgia. If I am able to get some portrait images of my family I will also try to use their portraits and display them in the style of typologies.
Visual – what we can see in the image
With the presentation of these images you are able to see a stationary and repeated sequence. The images seem to be taken at the same angle and height which creates this this organised aesthetic look. Each individual image presents a different building, which shows the evolution of building structures. Each infrastructure in the individual images in centred in the middle thirds, in the rule of thirds which creates this repetition. By using the form of the grid the Bernd’s were able to emphasise the repetition, which can suggests that the industrialisation was becoming repetitive. “we want to change nothing about the objects we photograph.. namely strip the individual object of context, in other words to position them such that they fit the frame” this quote by the Bernd’s show they photographed industrial buildings without context, just to view them as an overall form.
Contextual – who, when, where etc…the story, background, impact:
Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America. The Becher’s themes to photograph were the overlooked beauty within the relationship between form and function. Both of the subjects addressed the effect of industry on economy and the environment.
The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-718/who-are-bechers#None