Bernd and Hilla Becher - The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 1 New York Monday, April 3, 2017 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
    Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, New York, 15 April 2002, lot 43

  • Literature

    te Neues, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Basic Forms, pl. 42 for print 2
    Becher, Grain Elevators, pls. 31, 37, 38, 43, 44 for prints 1-6
    Zweite, Typololgies, pp. 82, 85 for prints 1-5

  • Catalogue Essay

    "We want to offer the audience a point of view, or rather a grammar, to understand and compare the different structures. Through photography, we try to arrange these shapes and render them comparable. To do so, the objects must be isolated from their context and freed from all association." - Bernd and Hilla Becher

  • Artist Biography

    Bernd and Hilla Becher

    German • Bernd 1931-2007 - Hilla 1934-2015

    Husband and wife Bernd and Hilla Becher began photographing buildings and relics of the Industrial Revolution, such as coal mines and cooling towers, in 1959. Like objective scientists removing a specimen from the field, the Bechers framed their subject in a manner that isolated it from its environment. Often, these stark, beautifully detailed prints were then displayed in grid-like structures, forming stunning 'Typologies'.

    By the time Bernd Becher became a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1976 (policy would not allow Hilla to be a simultaneous appointment), the Bechers' photographs, with their seemingly neutral point of view and serial display, were already being applauded by the international art world as important works of Minimal and Conceptual Art.

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34

Grain Elevators

1986
Six gelatin silver prints.
Each 12 1/8 x 15 7/8 in. (30.8 x 40.3 cm)
Signed by both artists and inscribed with a sequence map in pencil on the reverse of the mount of print 1; each print sequentially numbered 1-6 and lettered 'F' in pencil on the reverse of the mount.

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for $50,000

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The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 1

New York 3 April 2017