Bernd and Hilla BecherGermanPitheads–Perspective Views
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Pitheads–Perspective Views” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
For over 50 years, Bernd and Hilla Becher collaboratively photographed industrial structures throughout Europe and the United States. The artists came to consider the buildings “anonymous sculptures,” and they grouped them according to type or function—in this case, pithead towers above mine shafts. The images are presented in a grid, to emphasize both formal differences and overall sameness. Although the Bechers were greatly influenced by the reductive, serial formats common in Minimalist and Conceptual Art of the 1960s, Hilla once explained, “Our idea of showing the material has much more to do with the 19th century, with the encyclopedic approach used in botany or zoology, where . . . species are compared with one another on the individual pages of the lexicon.”
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1983.220a-o
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
