THOMAS STRUTH
2014-02-10For his current exhibition Struth presents a new series of pictures in which he again penetrates key places of human imagination in order to scrutinize the landscape of enterprise, invention and digital engineering as well as the complex hidden structures of advanced technology–image makers and industry–in relation to culture and history. Taking an archetypal site for the creation of cultural dreams and imagination, one group of pictures depicts panoramic views of Disney’s theme parks in Los Angeles–an iconic place of imagination and one which has globally shaped human fantasy. A second compelling and dynamic group of works investigates new sites of technology, and provides a continuum into the charged backdrops of science and industry and our shared contemporary reality.
Struth writes, “With the previous body of work my interest was initially stimulated by a strong and painful discrepancy. It is clear that the contemporary human imagination is more easily fired by the pyrotechnics of science and technology rather than by the difficult, and perhaps now historically discredited, negotiation of political ideals. I wanted to open the doors to some of these unseen places in order to scrutinize what our contemporary world—what we—create, depicting plasmaphysics and chemistry, ship- and oil rig-building, space shuttle repair, architecture, etc., as what our minds have materialized and transformed into sculpture. Most of these machines, tools, and objects are the results of closed-group activity, yet they affect us strongly without us ever being able to really see them.”
Opposite – Hot Rolling Mill, ThyssenKrupp Steel, Duisburg, 2010
Exhibition runs through to February 22nd, 2014
Marian Goodman Gallery
24 West 57th Street
10019 New York
USA
