Independent Art and Photography - The New Topographics, Bernd and Hilla Becher

New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape was an exhibition in 1975 at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. The images within the exhibition were based in the USA, and all about the USA, treating the built, man-made environment as a subject in and of itself. The artists in this movement were mostly looking to provide an objective view of the way that the natural environment was being forced to collide with the man-made one - Frank Gohlke, one of the photographers featured within the exhibition, describes the places he photographed as being "increasingly un-individuated scenes". The majority of the images lack sentimentality; the photographers aimed to document the landscape without making their opinions of it immediately obvious. However, it can be argued that, whilst the images for the most part remain objective, the fact that so many photographers were documenting that same kinds of scenes, as a collective they are placing their subjective view about the state of America at the time into the exhibition.

Bernd and Hilla Becher were a couple who later founded the Dusseldorf school of photography in Germany. Hilla was the only female to be included in the New Topographics show.

©Bernd and Hilla Becher

©Bernd and Hilla Becher

©Bernd and Hilla Becher

The Bechers most well known images are those of defunct industrial buildings around the world, which were usually displayed in grids, as seen above. By displaying them in this way, viewers are encouraged to notice the subtle differences between each example of the same type of building. The majority of the public would probably assume that industrial buildings like this all look the same, but the Bechers are attempting to make us notice the unique architectural qualities of each one, as opposed to recognising them purely for their function. The work is not only documentary, but analytical, focussing on these industrial buildings in more detail than they had probably ever been seen (within the context of the art world, at least)
Throughout all the images, for the most part the same set of aesthetics has been strictly adhered to - black and white, relatively low contrast, lots of grey tones (as opposed to heavy blacks and pure whites), flat, neutral light, the same composition, always looking straight at the building, as opposed to looking up or down at it etc. However, what is also maintained is the cold, documentary approach; we don't get any hint of what the photographers were feeling. Is it regret, that the buildings are now defunct, and occasionally in disrepair? An aim for people to see the beauty in the mundane? It is only when considered alongside all of the other photographs in the exhibition that we may see the opinions starting to form.