Richard Sennett

Thomas Struth

Mundane buildings, nondescript streets, anonymous facades--these are the features that first strike in viewing Thomas Struth's pictures of streets--"unconscious places". Both in black-and-white and in color, Struth uses a frontal, eye-height view, with no optical distortion to disrupt the impression that what we see is a neutral, objective recording of reality. At the same time, Struth's urban landscapes are also a critical depiction of different human habitats. This volume presents a comprehensive survey of Struth's street views from the 1970s to 2010: narrow lanes in Edinburgh, Wuhan, Naples, and Erfurt; satellite towns in Paris, Leverkusen, Chicago, and Pyongyang; thoroughfares in Brussels, Lima, and Los Angeles; grand boulevards in St. Petersburg, New York City, and Beijing. Frequently there is an almost total absence of people in his cityscapes, which provides a feeling of desolation. In contrast, his famous Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, is bustling with people and billboards.

Unconscious Places

The latest title of the LiberArs series is dedicated to German artist Thomas Struth (Geldern, 1954), regarded as one of the most prominent contemporary artists, who with the title walking makes us participants of a powerful reflection on architecture and its evocative power. Walking through the streets of different places and countries, Struth fixes his gaze on how architectural spaces inform us about the stances taken by their inhabitants to populate them. Decisions that create the structure and soul of cities. Images that represent a particular way of looking at what is around us. The photographs that are comprised by this project were taken in Berlin, Bethlehem (New Hampshire), Corrubedo, Düsseldorf, Munich, New York, Potsdam and Zürich.

Walking

Still is a beautiful survey of all phases of Struth's work, including his urban investigations - extended to the inhabitants and spaces of cities from Milan to Tokyo - as well as his recent lyrical views of landscapes and flowers, and his intimate group and single-subject portraits, which together comprise a unique vision of the alternately public and solitary conditions of being."--BOOK JACKET.

Still

Dieter Schwarz

Dandelion Room

Estrella de Diego

In 2005 the German artist Thomas Struth worked in the Museo del Prado on his celebrated series devoted to museums which he began almost two decades ago and which focuses on the works on display and on museum visitors. Two years further on, the Prado presented, for the first time, the result of Struth's experience in the Museum, alongside a special selection of works from his unique "Tour" of institutions such as the Tokyo National Museum, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and the Art Institute of Chicago, amongst others. Distributed throughout the Museum's galleries, Struth's photographs proposed a contemporary reflection on the different ways of presenting art and on the individual or collective experience of the viewer within the conceptual context of the museum. In parallel, the project was completed by a special installation - in the exhibition galleries of the Museum's new extension before its inauguration of three of his most recent works in the Prado. the Hermitage and the Accademia in Florence.

Thomas Struth

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