typologies

Lecture on March 20, 2026

What distinguishes us, what makes us the same? What can actually be read or recognized from the exterior? Do the differences describe something individual, or rather a type, a species, an origin or a class? What can an image testify to that a word conceals? Only juxtaposition makes it possible to determine, through direct comparison, what is individual, what is universal, normative, or real. The differences bear witness to the abundance of nature and the imagination of humankind: the fern, the cow, the human, the ear; the bus stop, the water tower, the stereo system, the museum. Typological comparison brings differences and similarities to light and allows us to grasp the specific. What was previously unknown or unnoticed—about nature, animals, or objects, about place and time—becomes visible and recognizable.

Photographs by Karl Blossfeldt, August and Erich Sander, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Gerhard Richter, and Andreas Gursky, which—through the systematic recording of plants, people, architecture, and everyday objects—make both differences and similarities visible and thereby raise questions of order, individuality, and universality, employ typologies.

Our seeing and thinking are sharpened by this systematization, allowing us to perceive new details and recognize broader connections. Yet systematic recording was also the foundation of systematic annihilation. The National Socialists used photographic typologies to create racist genealogies and thus attempted to justify their reign of terror—the torture and murder of millions—under the guise of science.