Thomas Struth at Whitechapel Gallery

As the third in a series of photography exhibitions at the Whitechapel, Thomas Struth's exhibition impresses straight away. Two huge prints welcome the visitor - Audience 06 and Audience 01 are both scenes from an unnamed Florence museum. It is a comment on the art lover that greets the art lover here as they arrive. It shows people gazing in a large space at an artwork out of the photographic frame. It is typical of a large body of Struths work showing people in large spaces, against large manmade backdrops often with  religious backdrops. There is a wow factor here in the size of the print, the scale of the building and astonishment on some faces.. Is there more to it?

Audience 01, Florence 2004

Curiously some of his early work in black and white showing mostly deserted streetscenes holds more meaning and mystery. Maybe the historical context adds weight and interest as most of the photographs are from the early 1980s. They are much smaller but have a quiet impact that implies a living breathing fabric to the architecture of the city.

Crosby Strret, New York/Soho, 1978

Struth chooses to make singular statements with his photographs. There is a sense that each is a singular comment and this probably has come from his clear objectivity that he has always used. To show scenes “as they are” and without embellishment is an approach straight from the German school of Bernd and Hilla Becher which found favour in other artists such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Candida Hoffer. There are critics of this approach including Paul Graham (whose exhibit preceded this one coincidentally) who is more of a fan of a different approach by the German Michael Schmidt. Graham prefers bodies of work where images build to make a more coherent statement than the powerful shot delivered to impress.

Struths family portraits retain a powerful understatement that is sometimes missing in the large scale single statement photographs. One feels different characters within a group, who cling to individuality but whose identity and connectivity cannot be ignored. A sense of the unmentioned pervades, the family secret not yet told. I was surprised how this series grabbed me.

The Ma Family, Shanghai. 1996.

Overall a strangely uneven show, but nevertheless with many points of interest for viewers with different tastes in the subtleties of photography.