Beschreibung:

Thomas Struth Todai-Ji Interior, Nara 1999 chromogenic print 72 x 96 in. (182.9 x 243.8 cm) Signed "Th. Struth" on a label affixed to the reverse of the backing board; further number "4/10" on the reverse of the backing board. This work is number 4 from an edition of 10.
Provenance Marian Goodman Gallery, New York Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2000 Exhibited Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Contemporary Art and Photography: Spotlight on the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 30, 2001 - February 3, 2002 (another example exhibited) Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Acquisitions of the Last Five Years: Selections of Modern and Contemporary Art, July 15 - October 15, 2005 (another example exhibited) Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection, February 21 - May 9, 2010 (another example exhibited) Zurich, Kunsthaus Zurich; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen; Museu de Arte Contemporãnea Fundação de Serralves, Thomas Struth Photographs 1978 - 2010, June 11, 2011 - February 26, 2012) (another example exhibited), pp. 90, 204 (illustrated) Other examples from this edition are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and of the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Fort Worth. Literature Anette Kruszynski, Tobia Bezzola and James Lingwood (ed.s), THOMAS STRUTH Photographs 1978-2010, Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 2010, cat. no. 7481, p. 90, 205 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay "I hope that the photographs possess a symbolic power that the viewer can connect with. That they have a symbolic power is very important to me, even if it is often a quiet one." Thomas Struth Dedicated disciple and international star of the celebrated Dusseldorf School, Thomas Struth first captured people’s attention with the well-known cycle of Museum Photographs, exhibited internationally to much critical acclaim. Struth’s medium format photography lies in a deep-rooted tradition of conceptualism, but his approach to it combines a humanitarian expression of the viewer engaging with subjects. His work often depicts people visiting museums, churches and cultural institutions, and as such, explores the relationship between those works of art and the public, which comfortably circulates throughout those inhabited spaces – spaces that not only tell the story of time, but manifest the present within the photograph. Depicting the Daibutsuden, or Great Buddha Hall of the Todai-Ji temple in Nara, Japan, Todai-Ji Interior, Nara, 1999, is a superb example of Struth’s ability to cleverly compress time, space and spirituality in his photographs. The massive scale of the print imbues it with the monumental air of the Daibutsuden itself, housing the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. The result is a composition that softens the lines dividing past from present and subject from object. As the faithful in the Daibutsuden become objects of study under Struth’s lens, viewers of the photograph inadvertently echo the composition, becoming unwitting participants in the seemingly endless nature of the work. Todai-Ji Interior, Nara superbly manifests many of the conceptual and practical concerns Struth has grappled with throughout his celebrated career and does so in a fashion both revelatory and exclamatory. Read More