Struth at Marian Goodman Gallery

Let’s get ready for another show of grand proportions. Tomorrow’s New York Times will feature an article on the upcoming Exhibition of new Thomas Struth Museum Photographs at the Marian Goodman Gallery on 24 West 57th Street. (4/30-6/15) Looks like this is another show we can look forward to, as the photographs on display will be even a bit more like Paintings again, grand in scale and sharp in focus. The images will be of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the human objects in them will be extras, not random visitors, a first for Thomas Struth, making this Exhibition an important transition for him from observer, to creator of a constructed reality. His influence on the image will be the one of a director, not the one of a painter, but the reality is not just the pure observed given anymore. It is created for the sole purpose of art making. Less Cartier-Bresson with a huge camera, now more a Gursky, a Wall, a Muniz or a Lauck. A slow move and a very controlled one. The show will certainly be a success, no matter how success is measured. The Gallery is a high profile place located on the most expensive street in the world, Struth is a high quality artist, taught by the Bechers, and before by the Über-Master, Gerhard Richter himself. Struth is now friends with the Richter/Moritz family and took some pictures of them as recently noted. Saying more would be too much. I can not even offer the link to the article which will come out tomorrow. (The Times actually wanted to charge me for the link you might have just clicked on, so I am putting the Struth picture in cold storage on my drive, just to make sure I can “fair-use” it once any link comes with a price tag attached.)