Afterimage Vol.31.3, November/December 2003

     My heart goes out to Thomas Struth having waded into a convoluted and contradictory realm with only his intellect to guide him. Since its discovery, photography has been a haven for everyone and everything. Skilled or not, the inspired and the exploitative. The purists and the posers. They litter the history as well as the galleries. And like the universe in which we float, photography continues to expand. For an artist to stay true to some inexplicable, internal compass requires knowledge of the past and faith in the future. Mr. Struth instead focuses on a mental province, pictures from which he uses like an argument.
     In Tian An Men, Beijing 1997, people stand against a pale rose pagoda. An out-of-focus young woman waits to be photographed. A father and son walk together. A picture of Mao hangs on the back wall. This large, color print suggests that this is really the way it is or was: Mundane. In Broadway/22nd Street, Crosby Street, 6th Avenue, and Water Street (all 1978), essentially the same view, all devoid of movement or gesture: Bare. In Shinju-ku (Skyscrapers) 1986, vertical grids with one curve: Frozen. In Vico dei Monti, Naples 1988, overcast, no shadows: Lifeless. In Padong, Shanghai 1999, tall isolated skyscrapers like missiles: Analytical. In Garden on the Lindberg, Winterthus, 1991, a one-car-wide, curving dirt road with large flowers on both sides and trees behind where nothing happens: Vacant. In Paradise 9, Yunnan Province/China 1999, a jungle scene without life. In Jeanghan Lu, Wukar 1995, a woman has both her hands in her mouth: Awkward. In Steze di Raffaello 2, Rome 1990, a throng of about 76 blurry gallery goers, one clear young man’s face with an inconsequential expression: Banal. In National Gallery 2, London 2001, an out-of-focus Vermeer occupying 1/4 of the photograph, the rest blank, similar to Drammen 1, Drammen/Oslo 2001, a shadow self- portrait at night with 1/3 of the photograph blank: Affected. The close-ups of flowers are indistinct, the tones unconvincing. All these pictures come from the mind. They are descriptions. They illustrate a frightened philosophy looking for certainty in a world where none exists. Previously it was photography’s ability to reveal the unique in the everyday that drew people in. Now photography is used to prove a point, which is a little like using electricity to make heat. Producing friction instead of light.
     But I must be completely wrong. After all, the Dallas Museum, where this show originates, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York, three great museums, champion Mr. Struth’s work. Great artists show in great museums. What Stieglitz, Evans, Weegee and Frank revealed about their times, Thomas Struth must reveal about ours. Struth mixes the mundane with the analytical. The lifeless and the objective. He shows us the meaninglessness of contemporary life. Our muses are gone. Nihilism is all we have left. And only photography can prove that life itself is losing its vitality, as we all must. Art used to be specific, a man, a moment, a choice. But the new art, like Struth’s, embraces the grand, like sociology. It predicts. With the exception of a young boy in Go and Ayaka Okutsa, Yamaguchi, 1996, all the faces in all Struth’s portraits are guarded, wary. So must we all be. The old art inspired. It got you pumped. But this new art says: “What’s the point?”