Colombian Churches facades sculptures' images arranged in a grid “à la Becher”

 

Most Colombian artisans, some of them remain anonymous, sell their creations in plazas (public square in a city or town). Most clay sculptures are made and painted by hand. The clay sculptures, photographed for this project, portray Colombian Christian (Catholic) Churches' facades from different Colombian cities. 

These sculptures were bought at the Plaza Santander in Bogotá, Colombia, South America. The sculptures sizes are from 3-4 ½ inches wide to 3-5½ inches high to ½-1 inch deep. the sculpture images (16 in total) were set, one at a time, in a similar stage, lighting and taken with an iPhone camera at the same distance and eye level. 

The images were transferred from the iPhone to the computer and then were edited by Adobe Photoshop. Each image underwent the process of cropping and reducing the image size to 875 x 875 pixels. The resolution of the images are 72 pixels according to the iPhone camera.

The canvas size was set as 4000 pixels x 4000 pixels (72 ppi). The grid was set as 4 columns and 4 rows, the gutters (for columns and rows), and all margins (top, left, bottom and right) were set at 100 pixels. In this grid each image was moved in its corresponding space.

The presentation of the collection of Colombian Churches’ façade images follows the typology that the artists Becher’s preconized since the 1950s. Hilla Wobeser (1934-2015) and Bernd Becher (1931-2007), both Germans, were a married couple who were photographers. They worked together and called their subjects as “anonymous sculptures.” They produced a photobook with the title “Anonymous Sculptures” in 1970. They stated that “photographs are portraits of our history.”

The identification of the Churches’ façade (starting in the first row/top left corner) are:

1. Belén, Popayán
2. San Diego, Bogotá
3. Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, Bogotá
4. Fontibón, Bogotá
5. Torre del Reloj, Cartagena (this image is not of a Church)
6. Honda, Tolima
7. Catedral Pasoa/Iglesia Divino Salvador, Cundinamarca
8. Divino Niño, Bogotá
9. El Rosario, Cundinamarca
10. Renovación, Chiquinquirá
11. Gambita, Santander
12. Tocancipá, Cundinamarca
13. Catedral San Gil, Santander
14. Basílica Chiquinquirá, Boyacá
15. Catedral de Girón, Santander
16. 7 de Agosto, Bogotá

Artworks, arranged in a grid fashion, from the Toledo Museum of Art's (TMA) permanent collection:

Dominick Labino (American, 1910-1987) "Vitrana" 1969. TMA# 1970.449

http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/54418/vitrana?ctx=0312c832-4a7d-4cb1-ade4-0c1f8d9555ed&idx=0

David Hockney (British, 1937) "Woldgate Woods, Winter 2010," 2010. TMA# 2017.14

http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/78074/woldgate-woods-winter-2010?ctx=5d82a6c1-bf8b-41db-b573-eb3e4773007e&idx=2