Trinkhalle, Duisburg-Wedau, Kalkweg 217, 1978

About the Work

Tata Ronkholz’s plain black-and-white photographs depict kiosks, retail shops, refreshment stands, and snack bars in Duisburg and Düsseldorf. The images bear witness to a strict documentary frontality, while at the same time revealing an attention to narrative detail. In the tradition of her teachers Bernd and Hilla Becher, her archive of a Rhenish institution presents sites that have been subjected to change over time. But whereas the Bechers were interested in the expansion of the photographic into the sculptural or the conceptual, Ronkholz focusses primarily on social contexts and the transitions between the realms of the public and the private.