The work of German photographer Thomas Struth marries the documentary qualities of photography with the composition of traditional Renaissance painting. This style reflects a generation of German photographers who came of age during the 1970s. As a student at the Düsseldorf School of Photography, Struth was influenced by the instruction and impact of artists Bernd and Hilla Becher. The subjects of Struth’s large-scale prints include portraits of individuals, images of groups of museum visitors, and a range of natural and industrial environments. Measuring, Helmholtz-Zentrum, Berlin, 2012, for example, depicts a dense entanglement of cables and machinery in a scientific setting. The complex, detailed, and exhaustive representation of technology in this work is part of what Struth refers to as “landscapes of the modern brain.”

–Ariel Caruso, from the Glenstone Field Guide