The artist duo and couple used large-format cameras to create striking black-and-white images of industrial forms, strictly adhering to their formal aesthetic principles and typological approach. Their photography simultaneously distils each construction into a taxonomy of visually and functionally homogeneous structures, whilst emphasising the particular and eccentric character of each.

The eponymous solo exhibition features several groupings of the Bechers’ most recognisable archetypal forms: gas tanks, water towers, winding towers, framework houses and preparation plants. The French, Belgian and even two rare Italian water towers reflect the formal diversity that can arise from buildings with corresponding functions across national borders and within them.

This is the artists’ first solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers, London, in over a decade, marking the first since Hilla Becher’s passing in 2015. In recognition of this fact, the five gas tanks that commence the exhibition are from Great Britain, several from London specifically, and most of the work has never been shown in the country before.

The Bechers’ photographs of gas tanks depict the circular edifice characteristic of historic gasometers: a metal guide frame with an expandable and retractable storage vessel within. These photographs record these gasometers at various levels of containment. Yet, unlike the other gas tanks on view, Gas Tank, Ilford, London, UK (2009) captures the gasometer at a moment in which it is nearly empty, thus revealing the complete ring of the structure’s discoid form. This visual distinction is made all the more apparent by the Bechers’ rigorous aesthetic approach and commitment to objectivity, which encourages close looking and the identification of difference.

Interweaving early and later work by the Bechers across a range of building types, including both single pieces and a typology, this exhibition reflects the profound variety produced from the artists’ concise methodology. Within the gas tanks on display, there are further formalistic groupings of structures that read as vertical, horizontal and even circular.

On the second floor, several winding towers are also presented. Unlike gas tanks and water towers built for containment, the purpose of these structures was operational, transporting materials and workers in and out of underground mines, and the corresponding photographs do not depict the full structure, which is partially underground.

The framework houses are the earliest works in the exhibition and record the distinctive architecture of Germany’s industrial Siegen region, one of the oldest iron-producing parts of Europe.