The here shown photography of Thomas Struth shows a street of the megacity Shanghai and at the same time it also reflects the society. The photographer succeeded in combining as many aspects as possible in one photograph – without hardly editing it. Thus, the artwork seems simple, fascinating and complex at the same moment. Struth has a special affection for China and therefore he worked on a lot of photo series of China: the photograph “Shanghai” is a wonderful example.

Shanxi Nan Lu, Shanghai is part of Thomas Struth’s ongoing investigation in street photography, begun in the 1970s. Struth visited China four times between 1995 and 2002, travelling extensively throughout the country to Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, as well as to famous landscapes such as the Yangtze River, the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia, capturing factories, farms and pilgrimage sites along the way. The photographs Struth took in China depict the diversity of the country’s historic landscapes and busy city streets.

The frenetic experience of the urban environment in China stimulated a significant change in Struth’s approach to taking pictures of city streets. Many of the street photographs made in the major cities capture crowds of people, cars and bicycles in addition to the chaotic urban environment.