Bernd & Hilla Becher

In conjunction with the Morandi survey show, the Museo Morandi is pleased to present a major exhibition devoted to German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, revolutionary interpreters of conceptual photography and masters for the new generation of photographers emerged in Germany since the 1980s. The museum's central rooms host several b/w photographic pieces grouped under the different "Typologies" that are at the centre of the artists' interest as, among the others, blast furnaces, lime kilns, extraction towers, tanks, cooling towers, and gasometers. Bechers' images are striking in their extreme rigour. The shots are strictly front on, with the architectural structure placed centrally, as if suspended in time. The persistent use of black and white images over the years gives a sense of continuity to the artistic project. The industrial structures are completely devoid of environmental detail or human presence, photographed from an objective perspective exalting their monumentality as well as their aesthetic and functional autonomy and encouraging the observer to enquire into the abstract nature of forms. On display at the very heart of the Museo Morandi, usually presenting the works by the Bolognese master, the exhibition establishes an unprecedented comparison between Morandi's own practice and the one of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The exhibition catalogue, published by Schirmer/Mosel Verlag, contains an extended interview between Hilla Becher and the exhibition curator, Gianfranco Maraniello.

Bernd und Hilla Becher
Kurator: Gianfranco Maraniello