From the mid-1970s, Thomas Struth photographed the streets of European cities including Düsseldorf, Cologne, Münich, Brussels, and Paris.
Read MoreIn 'Unconscious Places 1', Struth scrutinises how a single location can summarise a city. By capturing the architectural history of ordinary city streets, Struth reveals the changing conditions of contemporary society and the constant urban development that is taking place in our cities.
After living in Naples and Rome, Struth became interested in the intimate connection between painting and religion. 'Museum Photographs 1' (1989) is a series of large-scale colour photographs that captures people observing classical and Impressionist paintings in grand museum settings. Struth's series includes museums like the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Gallerie dell'Academia in Venice.
'Museum Photographs 1' explores Struth's interest in the juxtaposition of contemporary situations and historical moments. The series of large-scale photographs documents two converse circumstances within one photographic plane.
In 'New Pictures From Paradise' (1998), Struth uses dense forest and jungle as the foundation for his photographs. While visiting China, Japan, and Australia in the late 1990s, Struth sought out densely wild locations for his 'Paradise' pictures.
The series came about when Struth decided he wanted to make a different kind of work with a different subject, in stark contrast to his cityscapes and museum settings. Struth's jungle landscapes reveal the potential for photographs that have a variety of layers and a depth of detail.
In this work, Struth depicts the first acknowledged self-portrait in art history by Albrecht Dürer. Alte Pinakothek (Self-Portrait) frames Struth as a blurred anonymous viewer looking at Dürer's well-known painting from the periphery.
By photographing a self-portrait from 1500, Struth plays with the idea of an artist contemplating his past and using history as a way to contextualise his own practice in contemporary society.
