Frank Breuer

This is Cologne-based Frank Breuer's first solo exhibition in London. His series of work Warehouses and Logos is being shown at 5 Great Newport Street alongside Walker Evans' work at 8 Great Newport Street as both share an obsessive interest in roadside advertising and signage. Evans worked from the 1930s until the 1970s mainly across the United States, but also in Cuba and Europe; Breuer worked during the 1990s across mainland Europe. Whereas Evans studied literature in Paris and was greatly influenced by the work of Eugène Atget, Breuer studied photography in Düsseldorf with the seminal German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher.

The Bechers have, over the years, produced an ongoing and formidable archive of black and white photographs. Their industrial subject matter and formal rigour was aligned with the 'New Topographic' style of photography predominant in 1970s America. Photographers such as Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Stephen Shore and Joe Deal were amongst this group and chose to photograph the contemporary man-altered landscapes of industrial parks and retail outlets.

Formally, Breuer's work relates to these European and American antecedents. He has produced Warehouses and Logos, an ongoing series of colour work, whilst travelling in his car across Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and France. His classically composed photographs reflect the impersonal uniformity of the subject matter, and reveal how commercial globalisation has altered the European landscape. Pre-fabricated warehouses, with company names on their exterior, appear in transitory spaces on the outskirts of towns close to airports and other transport hubs. The logos are huge sculptural signs designed to be seen from afar along motorways: Marlboro, McDonald's, Mercedes, Mitsubishi; ubiquitous structures that are symbols of corporate internationalisation. In his work, Breuer dramatically reduces the forbidding scale to more intimate proportions.

Camilla Jackson Programme Organiser

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Frank Breuer: Warehouses and Logos