Thomas Struth: View Finder

German photographer Thomas Struth has interpreted the gaze in myriad ways throughout his 30-plus-year career, from a neo-religious depiction of Yosemite’s El Capitan to the reflected awe of Michelangelo’s “David” on the faces of admirers. The full spectrum of sublimity is celebrated in Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978–2010, a new survey at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. “Thomas sees his photos as working more as a family than a series; they all comment on our individual place in the world,” says co-curator Achim Borchardt-Hume. The artist is best known for his collection of Museum Photographs, which dwell on the viewer's reception to great artwork, but the Deutsche Börse Prize-nominee has recently taken to examining technology from an architectural standpoint, with meticulously composed portraits of research facilities including Florida’s Cape Canaveral. “The images are what you would normally see, only with a heightened focus,” says Borchardt-Hume. “They give a sense of history, but also a sense of what it is like to live in the present moment, constantly re-imagining the human endeavor.”