PROPERTY FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF RITA KRAUSS, PALM BEACH Elger Esser Drôme, Frankreich 1998 Chromogenic print, Diasec mounted. 35 5/8 x 50 1/4 in. (90.5 x 127.6 cm) Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 3/5 on an artist's label affixed to the frame backing.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, Europe Christie's, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 24 June 2005, lot 255 Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2009, lot 463 Sonnabend Gallery, New York Literature Schirmer/Mosel, Elger Esser Vedutas and Landscapes, pp. 22-23 Catalogue Essay Often referred to as the Düsseldorf Photographers, Candida Höfer (b. 1944), Axel Hütte (b. 1951), Thomas Struth (b. 1954), Andreas Gursky (b. 1955), and Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) all grew up in a country whose cities were devastated by the allied bombing during World War II and whose recent past questioned the very nature of humanity. Silence and post War depression was the adult norm. How do you teach history to children when your country is occupied and on trial? The answer came from a generation of artists who, led by the avant-garde visionary Josef Beuys at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, sought to examine their cultural heritage through art. Legend has it that Beuys, a Luftwaffe pilot in WWII, was shot down and then saved by an aboriginal society who wrapped him in fat and animal skins and brought him back to life. In the early 1960s Beuys joined the faculty at the Düsseldorf Art Academy as a sculpture professor. His lectures and electrifying performances expanded art into theater, politics and social activism. His 1965 solo performance, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, suggested the healing potential of art for a world in need of revitalization and hope. It was Beuys’s premise that we need to Show Your Wound in order to heal. Though dismissed from the academy in 1971, before the aforementioned photographers had enrolled, Beuys had set the stage for future generations by transforming the Düsseldorf Art Academy into a center for new European avant-garde that attracted such artists as Gerhard Richter and the photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher Höfer, Struth, Hütte , Gursky and Ruff were some of the first students at the Düsseldorf Art Academy to study photography with Bernd Becher Bernd and his wife Hilla, began photographing structures together (often relics of the Industrial Revolution such as coal tipples and cooling towers as seen in lot 147) in 1959. Like scientists removing a specimen from the field, the Bechers framed their subject in a manner that isolated it from its environment. They further invited investigation by placing images of like-structures in grids and classifying them by title. By the time Bernd Becher became a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (policy would not allow Hilla a simultaneous appointment), the Bechers’ photographs, with their seemingly neutral point of view and serial display, were applauded by the international art world as important works of Minimal and Conceptual Art. After studying film (1973-1976) at the Academy, Candida Höfer (lot 45) joined Bernd Becher’s first Photography class in 1976. Thomas Struth began his studies in painting, but with the encouragement of his teacher, Gerhard Richter switched to photography along with Höfer and Axel Hütte Thomas Ruff joined them in 1977, and Andreas Gursky in 1988. They were the first generation of the Bechers’ students to receive acclaim in the international arena of Contemporary art as photographers. Although trained by the Bechers to use photography as a tool for artists to explore the cultural, commercial, and political history reality reflected in the world around them, what ultimately made the Düsseldorf Photographers famous as a group was their collective switch to color photography from the traditional use of black and white, and the monumental size of their pictures. Thomas Ruff was the first of the Düsseldorf Photographers to make color photographs. Using members of the post-punk band EKG and fellow students as models, Ruff began a series of portraits, a genre that had been all but ignored by the post WWII Düsseldorf Art Academy. Applying the Bechers’ emphasis on artistic neutrality, he asked his sitters to
PROPERTY FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF RITA KRAUSS, PALM BEACH Elger Esser Drôme, Frankreich 1998 Chromogenic print, Diasec mounted. 35 5/8 x 50 1/4 in. (90.5 x 127.6 cm) Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 3/5 on an artist's label affixed to the frame backing.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, Europe Christie's, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 24 June 2005, lot 255 Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2009, lot 463 Sonnabend Gallery, New York Literature Schirmer/Mosel, Elger Esser Vedutas and Landscapes, pp. 22-23 Catalogue Essay Often referred to as the Düsseldorf Photographers, Candida Höfer (b. 1944), Axel Hütte (b. 1951), Thomas Struth (b. 1954), Andreas Gursky (b. 1955), and Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) all grew up in a country whose cities were devastated by the allied bombing during World War II and whose recent past questioned the very nature of humanity. Silence and post War depression was the adult norm. How do you teach history to children when your country is occupied and on trial? The answer came from a generation of artists who, led by the avant-garde visionary Josef Beuys at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, sought to examine their cultural heritage through art. Legend has it that Beuys, a Luftwaffe pilot in WWII, was shot down and then saved by an aboriginal society who wrapped him in fat and animal skins and brought him back to life. In the early 1960s Beuys joined the faculty at the Düsseldorf Art Academy as a sculpture professor. His lectures and electrifying performances expanded art into theater, politics and social activism. His 1965 solo performance, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, suggested the healing potential of art for a world in need of revitalization and hope. It was Beuys’s premise that we need to Show Your Wound in order to heal. Though dismissed from the academy in 1971, before the aforementioned photographers had enrolled, Beuys had set the stage for future generations by transforming the Düsseldorf Art Academy into a center for new European avant-garde that attracted such artists as Gerhard Richter and the photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher Höfer, Struth, Hütte , Gursky and Ruff were some of the first students at the Düsseldorf Art Academy to study photography with Bernd Becher Bernd and his wife Hilla, began photographing structures together (often relics of the Industrial Revolution such as coal tipples and cooling towers as seen in lot 147) in 1959. Like scientists removing a specimen from the field, the Bechers framed their subject in a manner that isolated it from its environment. They further invited investigation by placing images of like-structures in grids and classifying them by title. By the time Bernd Becher became a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (policy would not allow Hilla a simultaneous appointment), the Bechers’ photographs, with their seemingly neutral point of view and serial display, were applauded by the international art world as important works of Minimal and Conceptual Art. After studying film (1973-1976) at the Academy, Candida Höfer (lot 45) joined Bernd Becher’s first Photography class in 1976. Thomas Struth began his studies in painting, but with the encouragement of his teacher, Gerhard Richter switched to photography along with Höfer and Axel Hütte Thomas Ruff joined them in 1977, and Andreas Gursky in 1988. They were the first generation of the Bechers’ students to receive acclaim in the international arena of Contemporary art as photographers. Although trained by the Bechers to use photography as a tool for artists to explore the cultural, commercial, and political history reality reflected in the world around them, what ultimately made the Düsseldorf Photographers famous as a group was their collective switch to color photography from the traditional use of black and white, and the monumental size of their pictures. Thomas Ruff was the first of the Düsseldorf Photographers to make color photographs. Using members of the post-punk band EKG and fellow students as models, Ruff began a series of portraits, a genre that had been all but ignored by the post WWII Düsseldorf Art Academy. Applying the Bechers’ emphasis on artistic neutrality, he asked his sitters to
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