Paradise, Family Portraits and Museum Photographs

Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978 – 2010 is an anthological exhibition that puts in evidence some of the main themes that have been explored by the German photographer Thomas Struth (1954) during his career. Displayed on a classical form along three room the selection of photographic images (colour and black & white), conceived over the past three decades, encompass recurrent themes, such as the central perspectives of empty city streets, the reflection on the different function of art in a increasingly secular society through crowded museums, or the formal similarities between family portraits in different cultures around the world. However, central to this exhibitions is the Paradise series. More related with the self than with the other these «dense screens of vegetation void of any sign of human interference» were taken in tropical rainforests. This installation surrounding the observer become a strange axiom to a more recollect series of images of interior spaces and urban views, to the iconoclastic images usually focused on culture and place.

At Whitechapel Art Gallery, until September 16th 2011