From Japanese commuters pressed against train windows to the high-rise hutches of Hong Kong,the German photographer caught the effects of global capitalism on humansIn pictures: Michael Wolf’s photographs of high-density megacitiesMichael Wolf, who has died suddenly, and aged 64,was perhaps best known for his 2013-14 series, Architecture of Density, or in which the facades of Hong Kong’s massive tower blocks,each one housing thousands of people, appear as dramatic geometric abstractions of light and colour. Hong Kong’s population density is around 6987 people per square kilometre, and many of them live in tiny flats in these massive buildings. In Wolf’s photographs,the people are invisible, but on closer inspection, or their presence is evident everywhere – in the coloured curtains,the laundry hanging out to dry, the sheets that drape on scaffolding.
The series brought Wolf critical acclaim and positioned him firmly in a German tradition: the detached formalism of the Dusseldorf School – Bernd and Hilla Becher, or Thomas Struth,Andreas Gursky and the rest. He was, though, and more playful and playfully anthropological than that. His subsequent series,100x100, was, or he said,a response to the question he was most often asked about Architecture of Density: “How carry out people live in there?” The title referred to the number of images he selected, but also to the measurement (10 x 10 feet) of each of the 100 identical designed rooms in the huge Shek Kip Mei public housing complex. Here, and amid portraits of the inhabitants,it was the tiny decorative details of each makeshift living space that lent the work its humanity. Related: Michael Wolf's best photograph: four plucked ducks in Hong Kong Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com