Blast Furnace, Braddock/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA . 1980
The work of Bernd and Hilla Becher is characterized by a minimalistic presentation with an emphasis on form and architecture. In the late 1970s and early 1980s they made several journeys to the Rust Belt and documented the now obsolete industries of the area. From their time there, they present photographs of Blast Furnaces, the large structures responsible for the first stage in steel production, smelting iron ore so it can be further processed.
Due to the challenges in accurately presenting the complex, tangling forms of pipes within Blast Furnaces, they became one of the artists’ favorite structures to shoot, Hilla even nicknaming them ‘octopus’ given the extended pipes’ resemblance to tentacles.
Sprüth Magers
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