Featured Books at Satser

By Nana Last

The book “Archive, Matrix, Assembly: The Photographs of Thomas Struth 1978-2018” offers the first thorough and systematic theory of the main body of photographic work by contemporary German artist Thomas Struth, spanning from the late 1970s to his latest work in 2018.

It presents a distinctive, evolutionary perspective on Struth’s work, suggesting that it has evolved through three production stages: archive, matrix, and assembly. These stages collectively form a developmental system that defines the individual photographs, their relationship to their subjects, and how they create larger, meaningful collections of images. The book achieves three primary objectives: it provides a comprehensive critical analysis of the work, serves as a monograph of the artist, and offers an in-depth examination of the photographs at all stages, including the less-discussed recent photography, which is considered equal to the earlier work that first brought Struth international acclaim.