Works by Tal R and Thomas Struth are included in a group exhibition which traces the significance of the sunflower in art. Few plants are as prolific in art history as the sunflower. Over the years, its diverse symbolism has also given this blossom a strong presence far beyond the domain of flower painting. The sunflower has taken on many guides and meanings since the 17th century, attaining iconic status with Vincent van Gogh’s still life from 1888–1889. Featuring around one hundred works, I Follow the Sun approaches this rich art-historical tradition with curiosity, exploring the affinities and connections that arise from the evolution of the sunflower as a motif.

Artipelag

Photographs by Rineke Dijkstra and Thomas Struth are included in Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection. Showcasing over 300 rare prints from 140 photographers, Fragile Beauty is a major presentation of 20th- and 21st-century photography on loan from the private collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish. The photographs – many of which are on public display for the first time – are era-defining images which explore the connection between strength and vulnerability inherent in the human condition.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Works by Thomas Struth are on view in the group exhibition In Abwesenheit at Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf. Spanning a period of almost a century, In Abwesenheit starts from the beginnings of surrealist photography in the 1920s and moves forward by way of the black and white photographs of the 1960s and 1970s through to contemporary photography. The presented works are united in their engagement with questions of absence and void. They pose a wide range of questions, interrogating the physical qualities of photography and its technical requirements, as well as broader aspects such as speculative fiction, belonging, nostalgia and ambiguity.

Sammlung Philara

Works by Rineke Dijkstra, Richard Prince and Thomas Struth will be on view at Museum Brandhorst as part of a major presentation of international photographs, generously donated to the museum’s holdings by Eva Felten. Amassed since the late 1980s, Felten’s collection primarily focuses on depictions of people, comprising over 1050 works by 134 artists. Highlights from the collection will be presented in the exhibition, curated by Monika Bayer-Wermuth.

Museum Brandhorst

Thomas Struth’s photograph Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, will be on view as part of the exhibition Inspiring People. Transforming the National Portrait Gallery, the Inspiring People project comprises a complete re-presentation of the Collection, combined with a significant refurbishment of the building, the creation of public spaces, a more welcoming visitor entrance and public forecourt, and a new Learning centre. The Gallery reopens to the public on 22 June 2023.

National Portrait Gallery

Thomas Struth’s early album of photographs of New York will be included in an exhibition at the CCA, Montreal. As part of a series of exhibitions investigating photography as an artistic and documentative medium, The Lives of Documents will invite visitors to consider photography’s relationship to architecture.

Canadian Centre for Architecture

Archive Matrix Assembly: The Photography of Thomas Struth 1978–2018 presents the first comprehensive, systematic theory of Thomas Struth’s main body of photographic work from its beginnings in the late 1970s until his most recent work in 2018. The book presents a unique, evolutionary understanding of the work, proposing that it has established three stages of production: archive, matrix, and assembly. Together the three stages form a developmental system that characterizes the individual photographs, their relation to their subject matter, and how they form larger, significant collections of images. The book project accomplishes three main goals: it develops a comprehensive critical reading of the work, it serves as a monograph of the artist, and it provides an extensive analysis of the photographs at all stages, including the less discussed, more recent photography, which is placed on par with the earlier work for which Struth first became internationally renowned.

Order a copy here.