Frank Thiel is widely renown for
photographing the architectural spaces of Berlin, reflecting a turbulent
social and political history. Thiel’s monumental works are not merely
documentation, but picture a city reborn after a tumultuous history.
Thiel refers to Berlin as “the youngest city in the world” and further
explains that “the city that suffers from an overdose of history… yet it
does not suffer from its sediments like other European cities, but from
the consequences of its eruptions.” The architectural spaces in these
photographs are not only reflections of a turbulent social and political
history, but of the emergence of new patterns of urban existence.
Previous bodies of work have focused on such topics as state
surveillance and the privatization of public space.
Thiel’s
commitment to the constant transformation and development of Berlin has
become an integral part of the unfolding history of the city and its
most important photographic record. Thiel’s photographs seem to refer to
a larger narrative context, yet they also explore the relationship of
photography to painting and sculpture. Thiel’s special ability to
inscribe the dialectic relationship between ideology and aesthetics in
his photographs also prevents any appearance of sentimentality.
Thiel
has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries worldwide; his works
are included in the collections of many major international museums
including the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain; Museu National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid,
Spain; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Fotomuseum
Winterthur, Switzerland; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and The Phillips
Collection, Washington, DC.
Frank Thiel (*1966 in Kleinmachnow,
former East Germany). He moved to West Berlin, Germany in 1985. Thiel
lives and works in Berlin.