Water Towers

1963-1979

BERND E HILLA BECHER

This series of photographs presents different architectural variations of the single theme of water towers. The selection of a specific typology, which in a post-industrial age tends to repeat itself endlessly, explores how photography has the potential to confer monumentality to an individual structure.

IN DETAIL

Dimensions

50,8 x 40,6 cm (ciascuna)

Technique

Sixteen photographs printed on paper

Description

The Bechers limit themselves to recording this kind of abandoned architecture systematically, neutrally with no suggestive colours and with a relatively uniform treatment of light and shade. This work has a greater visual impact when compared the earlier ‘Gasometers’ (also in the Valsecchi collection) because of the size and arrangement of the photographs in separate frames. This photographic series was first exhibited in Massimo Valsecchi’s gallery in Milan in May 1977 at the exhibition dedicated to the Bechers. The work occupied the entire back wall of the gallery.