“What are they afraid of?”
We went to see German star photographer Thomas Struth in his Berlin studio and met a man both concerned and enraged about the ongoing attacks on our liberal values and democracies.
“Culture, concerts, theatre, dance, music, and museums bring people together to have a shared experience about something that is not clearly defined. It is free-floating, and that is a democratic quality.”
“It’s an acknowledgment of a community to try to understand life by seeing other interpretations of life. Interpretations that are not yours.”
Struth witnesses attacks on cultural institutions all over the world and sees both art, artists, and cultural institutions like museums as prime defenders of democratic rights and values:
“Right-wing institutions try to control culture because of its free-floating opinions. They want to control arts and culture. Often I think: What the f… are they afraid of? But this is what they are afraid of. They are afraid of the freedom of mind.”
Thomas Struth was born in 1954 in Geldern, Germany, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was part of the first generation of artists to study photography with Bernd and Hilla Becher. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Struth’s work have been presented at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the Museum Folkwang in Essen and Haus der Kunst in Munich. Between 1993-1996 Struth was the first Professor of Photography at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe. Struth was awarded the Spectrum International Prize for Photography by Kulturstiftung Lower Saxony.
小笹泉+奥村直子 / IN STUDIOが設計した、東京・小金井市の住宅「スケールの家」です。
都市計画と税制で“標準化”した住宅地に計画されました。建築家は、施主の経験を起点に“均質なスケール”の逸脱を求め、都市的サイズで“尺度を抽象化”した居住空間を考案しました。そして、“都市に浮遊”し自由をもたらす建築を作る事も意図されました。