Jürgen BECKER - New York 1972 (Zweifach SIGNIERT, vom Autor sowie vom Herausgeber, Boris BECKER)! - 2012

Take advantage of this great opportunity to acquire a SIGNED copy of the limited edition photobook 'New York 1972,' featuring street photography by the writer Jürgen BECKER, who passed away in November 2024!

As always, Café Lehmitz Photobooks from Cologne guarantees precise and reliable descriptions, 100% transport protection, 100% transport insurance, and combined shipping – worldwide.



Background information about the signed photo book 'Jürgen Becker. New York 1972'.

Jürgen BECKER (1932-2024) was a significant writer, a member of the important 'Gruppe47' for post-war Germany, and also a photographer. In the 1960s, he gained recognition for a highly experimental style of literature that primarily opposed traditional storytelling by embracing open form. In later texts, this impulse was toned down, while landscape continued to play an important role in his poetry. Besides his poems, which constitute his main body of work, he also wrote stories and radio plays. As a photographer, Jürgen BECKER is known to only a few. Only two photo books featuring his images have been published: 'A Time Without Words', Suhrkamp Pocket Book 1971, and 'New York 1972', Sprungturm 2012. In the first book, his photos are less about the objects themselves and more about the moments when objects evoke a visual experience. The second book, edited by his son, the photographer and filmmaker Boris BECKER, contains black-and-white images taken in 1972 on the streets of the US metropolis.

Boris Becker (* May 12, 1961, in Cologne) is a German photographer, filmmaker, and former publisher. The subjects of his work are mostly constructions and details from architectures and landscapes.
The son of the writer Jürgen Becker studied at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin with Wolfgang Ramsbott from 1982 to 1984 and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Bernd Becher from 1984 to 1990, ultimately as a master student there. Becker is considered part of the Düsseldorf Photo School. In 2019, he received the art prize of the artists 'Die Grosse.' Boris BECKER lives and works in Cologne.

Content of the photo book 'New York 1972'.

In 1972, Jürgen Becker traveled through the USA for several months as part of a scholarship from the Goethe-Institut and spent a few weeks at the end of the trip in New York. During this period, he photographed almost daily scenes of the metropolis along Broadway—anonymous faces, street crossings, cars, and passing pedestrians.

Unfortunately, it took forty years and the courage of his son, a photographer trained at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1984 to 1990 under Bernd Becher, and ultimately as a master student there, until these great shots were published. Look forward to snapshots from a long-gone era: lively yet spacious sidewalks, opulent street cruisers, city canyons, and dilapidated backyards. Street photography at its best, which can hold its own against the street photography of New York chronicler Bruce Davidson or Garry Winogrand.

Translate to English. Return only the translation:
Book review by Martin Oehlen ('The Hunter of the Moment'), created on 12.09.2012

Thanks to the insistence of his son, the renowned photographer Boris Becker (*1961), it is thanks to him that the Cologne literature prize winner Jürgen Becker has produced a remarkable photo book. He had long written off photography.

Beneath the pavement lies the beach – and beneath the roof, a treasure from old times. Jürgen Becker (1932-2024), a two-time literary prizewinner of the city of Cologne, set out to search for the past – and he found it. Under an attic slope, he discovered the old laundry basket, he writes, 'in which bag after bag was stored, dozens of bags filled with photos from New York in March '72.'

His son Boris Becker, himself a renowned photographer, had repeatedly inquired about the photographs until the father could think of no more excuses. Now, the images are presented in a refreshing black-and-white volume that shows how Jürgen Becker continued his poetics, which focus on detail and transience, through photography—back then. This is the true fortune of this edition: it is an act of salvation.

Interrupted career

Even 40 years ago, the recordings should have been released. But at that time, as Becker writes in the preface, his publisher Siegfried Unseld was not interested in photography at all. Becker's photo book published the previous year, 'A Time Without Words,' was also published by the Suhrkamp publisher—so the artist's perspective—lacking care.

Then came the abrupt rejection of the new offer. It had consequences: 'The discouragement that overtook me, and which I can no longer quite explain today, at least paralyzed me in such a way that I stopped taking photographs.' Thus, a path of artistic expression was blocked.
It is all the more regrettable when you look at the fine selection. The flâneur Jürgen Becker, then nearly 40 years old, documents the present – unlike in prose – 'without long reflection.' He shares this in the foreword, which is reproduced as a facsimile: not a computer printout, but four typewriter pages long – including Tipp-Ex corrections. The immediacy and resistance to technology expressed through this correspond to the photographs, which were not taken with large equipment but with a handy Rollei.
It is March in New York. Richard Nixon is preparing for his re-election, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of 'The Godfather' premieres, and Neil Young is at number one on the singles chart with 'Heart of Gold.' But neither current events nor skyscraper glamour are the focus, but rather everyday life.
Becker feels the power and the shine in the familiar: the woman in the white coat, strolling pensively across the intersection; the man on the bench, smiling at the photographer; or the children, giggling or gazing intently. These are scenes that could start a novel or conclude a feature film.

Cars are always worth a photo for Becker, especially those that are not in the best condition. They often stand by the roadside with the hood open, begging for help. And when the young poet and photographer spots a brand made in Germany in flowing traffic—a vintage Mercedes or a Käfer—the images still reveal the quick arm raise, just to catch the shot before it’s gone.

Funny scenes brighten the panorama. One shows a dog seemingly looking at its reflection in a glass door, but in reality, probably just searching for its owner. Another depicts a driver from a cleaning company ('Peter Pan Cleaners') busy cleaning graffiti off his vehicle.
A collection of moments is what celebrates the present, which has already passed. A 'visual diary' from a bubbling city that here appears fascinatingly still. These are exhibition spaces that invite discovery.



Sprungturm Verlag, Cologne. 2012. First and only edition (1,000 copies), only very few of which were SIGNED.

Bound with illustrated cardboard cover. 230 x 300 mm. 192 pages with 170 Duoton images. Text in German.

Condition: The book is in very good condition both inside and out, with a tiny nick on the top edge of the back cover, and it was signed twice — by Jürgen AND Boris BECKER!