Johann Besse

Switzerland (1977)
Biennale Images Vevey
2014
Pans

Johann Besse photographed facades of buildings typical of the Soviet architecture in Berlin, showing the solutions urban engineers devised to alter their austere features. The uniformly frontal compositions in the Pans series evoke German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher’s typologies by purposely decontextualizing constructions from their urban setting. The Cardinal Points project displayed one of the images below the elevated tracks of the Berlin subway, returning it to its original environment.