This unique group of 24 photographs was shown in the important early exhibition of Thomas Struth’s work in New York City at The Clocktower Gallery in 1989. Curated by Ute Eskildsen and Chris Dercon, The Periphery, Part I: Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth was Struth’s second exhibition in New York City, and showcased images from his Unbewusste Orte (Unconscious Places) series, the body of work that first brought him international attention. The Clocktower Gallery was one of many unconventional exhibition venues pioneered by innovative gallerist Alanna Heiss, founder of the Institute for Art and Urban Resources, and founding director of PS1. This exhibition was the first entry in Clocktower’s Periphery series which focused on urban ‘peripheries, sprawling regions and speres immediately outside the city center.’ As such, Struth’s images meshed perfectly with the objectives of this exhibition program.
“The street is a universal topos to which countless people can relate. . . Streets are not objects, but complexes that have evolved over time, subject to a wide range of conditions. As to the title, Unconscious Places, I have always wanted to explore our common responsibility. On what level are we all responsible for letting it happen? So, this title just popped into my mind. I just wanted to analyze that. There’s a scientific aspect to it that I wanted to emphasize.”
—Thomas Struth
The images in The Clocktower Gallery’s exhibition have their origin in a commission Struth received (along with Gursky) to photograph Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley region. Within this spare environment, much of it reconstructed in the decades after the second World War, Struth employed his exacting and minimalist approach, creating an entirely new sort of photographic document of the urban space. A student of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Struth employed their highly regimented practice that emphasized photographic precision in the service of documentary detail. But Struth widened this approach, incorporating a more humanistic element. He has said he initially chose to photograph street scenes because ‘the street is a universal topos to which countless people can relate.’ Largely unpeopled, Struth’s photographs from Unconscious Places nonetheless are utterly human in that they document an environment that is entirely constructed, one that is modified and rebuilt in response to many factors, and in which the population exists.
Within the context of the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation Collection, Struth’s Clocktower exhibition photographs demonstrate a curatorial commitment to documentation of the built environment, and an exploration of the cultural and sociological implications of the spaces in which we live and work.
