Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978-2010, Whitechapel Gallery, review

Thomas Struth's subject matter is diverse, but the photographer seems to be searching for the source of the sublime in a contemporary godless world in this exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery.

Opening today at the Whitechapel Gallery is a retrospective of more than 70 photographs taken by the brilliant German artist Thomas Struth.

Struth started out in the late Seventies, making black-and-white photographs on the streets of Düsseldorf and New York. As time wore on, he began taking colour photographs, and the scale of his prints grew. He photographed awestruck visitors to museums, and created a series of pictures of places of worship around the world, from Milan Cathedral and Notre Dame to Times Square in New York and the El Capitan rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park . More recently, he has documented sites of heavy industry and cutting-edge technology, such as the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

His subject matter may be diverse, but his approach is consistent: Struth’s images are monumental and imposing – like his colossal picture of a semi-submersible drilling rig in a Korean shipyard, in which a taut chain in the foreground plunges us into the depths of the image, heading for the red behemoth of the rig in the distance.

What is Struth up to? I think that he’s interrogating different systems of belief, questioning our faith in art, religion and technology. He seems to be searching for the source of the sublime in a contemporary godless world.


'Thomas Struth’ until Sept 16; information 020 7522 7888
THE TELEGRAPH