Collective Portrait: Objects with Different Functions, Grube Anna, Alsdorf / Aachen

1965–92

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

By the end of the 1960s, the Bechers had already built a fascinating archive of industrial forms that they would continue to enlarge for another forty years. As the collection grew, the conceptual possibilities of combining related pictures in varied typologies expanded exponentially. This eighteen-part work, one of a small series of "collective portraits," includes views of different types of technical buildings at the Anna mine in Alsdorf. Located just over an hour by car from Düsseldorf, the site offered the Bechers the rare opportunity to record each building generally in isolation. Arranged in grid form, the suite of photographs presents an impressive graphic tableau.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Collective Portrait: Objects with Different Functions, Grube Anna, Alsdorf / Aachen
Artist: Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, active 1959–2007)
Date: 1965–92
Medium: Gelatin silver prints
Dimensions: 22 3/16 × 18 1/4 in. (56.3 × 46.3 cm), each
Frame: 22 1/4 × 18 5/16 × 1 1/8 in. (56.5 × 46.5 × 2.8 cm), each
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd & Hilla Becher Archive, Cologne, acquired with funds from the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Sparkassen-Kulturfonds des Deutschen Sparkassen- und Giroverbandes, and Sparkasse KölnBonn.
Curatorial Department: Photographs