Selected Images of the Ruhr Valley from Unconscious Places

Thomas Struth

Thomas Struth’s mesmerizing, large-format photographs capture the wonders of nature, machinery, architecture, and contemporary life itself. Struth is best known for his pictures of museum crowds and of scientific megastructures such as CERN; the act of looking, and human achievements across art and technology, have served as major motifs. Influenced by German artists such as Gerhard Richter and the industrial “typologies” of photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, Struth considers chaos and industrial order throughout his frames. He has exhibited in New York, London, Basel, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich, Milan, and Madrid and been the subject of institutional shows at the Gropius Bau, the High Museum of Art, the MAST Foundation in Bologna, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Kunsthaus Zürich. Struth’s work has sold for seven figures at auction.