Thomas Struth, strangers and friends, photographs, 1986-1992

In Thomas Struth: Strangers and Friends, German photographer Thomas Struth explores the social space and mental state of the modern metropolis. From empty streets to urban crowds, from intimate family portraits to frenzied museum interiors, Struth's photographs portray the relationships, conscious and unconscious, through which we build and abandon our identities in a world of transitory physical. A former student of artist Gerhard Richter and of photographers Hilla and Bernd Becher at the Dusseldorf Academy, Struth began in the early 1980s to make steely black and white photographs of deserted city streets and decaying buildings in a restrained and rigorous style that seemed to underscore his debt to his teachers. Since then, he has continued to depict the empty spaces of the contemporary city in photographs that have an eerie, almost archaeological sense of detachment. But in recent years, his work has diversified in subject, scale, and color to embrace increasingly ambitious subjects and challenging locations. Struth has extended his urban investigation to the inhabitants of the city and the places they live in, from Naples to Tokyo, Chicago to Berlin. This book moves beyond the mute facades of buildings to the expressive architecture of friends', families' and couples' lives. It is not only the anonymous and generic space between buildings, but the psychological and subjective space between people, close and distant, which Struth's looking describes. Thomas Struth: Strangers and Friends is the most complete presentation of the photographer's work to date. It continues a notable tradition of books by German photographers from August Sander and Albert Renger-Patzsch to Hilla and Bernd Becher. This is Struth's third book, following Unconscious Places (1987) and Museum Photographs (1993). It is also his first book to be published in the United States.