Thomas Struth’s latest exhibition is both a departure and a continuation of the themes and practices that his many admirers will recognise from earlier works. The result of six working visits that Struth made to Israel and Palestine between 2009 and 2014 — where he roamed between East Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Golan Heights, Ramallah, Al–Khalil/Hebron, Nazareth and the Negev — the London show collects a series of photographs that blur the line between landscape and portraiture. “You can only look at a landscape as a potential location for human experience”, Struth has said. Thus, a piece such as Silwan, East Jerusalem combines the spontaneity and serendipity of documentary/landscape photography with Struth’s meticulous eye for composition and narrative. This combination fills the show with compelling glimpses of both moments, and the stories that lead to and result from those moments. It gives numerous compelling answers to the question that Struth points to as one of his fundamental challenges: “how to condense an epic narrative into a still image?”
Given the geopolitical realities, another central challenge was how to approach the region’s political and personal unrest; how to acknowledge social, cultural and political injustice without adopting a high-handed, moralistic role. He approaches it by seeking out apparently small moments that could represent “a particle of the conflict of the region”. As he has always done, he also made sure to allow the work to remain enigmatic and mysterious, compositionally complete yet narratively elliptical: the aim, he says, is to make work that is unforgettable yet whose details “you cannot remember … because the innate composition of all its elements does not fully disclose the entirety of its narrative and thus keeps you puzzled”.
The interest in a single geographical area is a departure for Struth, but it’s not the only change here. The exhibition also includes photographs of scientific research from the Weizman Institute, Rehovot, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, and elsewhere. Struth’s dispassionate yet deeply involved gaze allows these very different subjects to be compelling in their own right; yet, simultaneously, the photographs pass lightly sardonic comment on the contrast between ultra-modern scientific progress and the lack of corresponding progress in the resolution of age-old and deeply destructive political conflicts and injustices.
The Metropolitan Museum in New York held an exhibition of their large holdings of Struth’s work early in the year. This UK show — running till 6 June at Marian Goodman Gallery, London — is an opportunity for those new to Struth’s work to acquaint themselves with an artist both aesthetically and politically astute. Those already familiar with the photographer won’t require any urging from me to come to witness the latest evolution in his fascinating praxis.
City Hall, Tel Aviv, 2011
Inkjet print
Framed: 50 1/2 x 64 4/6 in. (128.2 x 164.5 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth, 2014
Inkjet print
Framed: 58 1/2 x 82 1/8 in. (148.6 x 210.7 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Har Homa, East Jerusalem, 2009
Inkjet print
Framed: 58 1/2 x 72 5/6 in. (148.6 x 184.9 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Off Al-Shuhada Street 1, Al-Khalil / Hebron, 2009
Inkjet print
Framed: 25 5/8 x 32 1/3 in. (65.1 x 81.5 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Epitaxy, JPL, Pasadena, 2014
Inkjet print
Framed: 71 3/8 x 53 1/2 in. (181.1 x 135.8 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Polymer Head, JPL, Pasadena, 2013
Inkjet print
Framed: 32 1/6 x 47 5/6 (81.8 x 121.5 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
High Harmonic Generation Spectrometer,
Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, 2009
Inkjet print
Framed: 26 1/3 x 32 5/6 in. (67.4 x 83.7 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Front Yard, Tel Aviv, 2014
Inkjet print
Framed: 35 2/3 x 49 2/7 in. (89.4 x 125 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
Hushniya, Golan Heights, 2011
Inkjet print
Frame: 48 1/8 x 59 3/8 x 1 7/8 in. (122.2 x 150.8 x 4.8 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Copyright Thomas Struth
