Bernd Becher Quotes

This is about objects, not motifs. The photo is only a substitute for an object; it is unsuitable as a picture in its customary sense.

The question if this is a work of art or not is not very interesting for us. Probably it is situated in between the established categories. Anyway the audience which is interested in art would be the most open-minded and willing to think about it.

All we did was to turn back the time to a photography of precision which is superior to the human eye.

Our camera does not produce pretty pictures, but exact duplications that, through our renunciation of photographic effects, turn out to be relatively objective. The photo can optically replace its object to a certain degree. This takes on special meaning if the object cannot be preserved.

As time went by we developed a sort of ideology without ever formulating it as such. I've always said that we are documenting the sacred buildings of Calvinism. Calvinism rejects all forms of art and therefore never developed its own architecture. The buildings we photograph originate directly from this purely economical thinking.

We simply thought that we would be considerably poorer in Europe if we didn't have the sacred buildings of earlier epochs. It's still possible to experience the Gothic period, not to mention the Romantic. Only nothing remains of the industrial age. So we thought that our photos would give the viewer the chance to go back to a time that is gone forever.

When someone discovers something in their lives that really interests them, then they should be content with doing that - without having to go and lie on a beach once a year.

We don't agree with the depiction of buildings in the '20s and 1930s. Things were seen either from above or below which tended to monumentalize the object. This was exploited in terms of a socialistic view - a fresh view of the world, a new man, a new beginning.