Gebert's photography IMHO is following the tracks of artists like Bernd and Hilla Becher and their followers. The Bechers - as you might know - developed a certain style of conceptual architectural photography and have many followers in Germany, such as e.g. Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky et al.
The unprepared viewer of their photographs is often confronted with a certain closedness, or difficulty of interpretation. How, for example, could you decipher a series of photographs just of trees (as in the case of Gebert)?
As with any new direction in arts, these pictures at first appear enigmatic, and their aesthetics seem inaccessible. But again, as with many areas of new art, this is a question of semiotics, i.e. of understanding or deciphering the artist's set of self-imposed rules, symbols and allusions.
So, when a viewer is first confronted with pictures like these, he might feel that he is looking at a piece of art that has come directly from the ivory tower and that seemingly might only be readable by the chosen few who know the intellectual world of the artist in greater detail. I feel that this is a little short-sighted:
If you compare these kinds of notions with those that the art public might recall from first seeing photographs by the Bechers, by Andreas Gurstky or Thomas Ruff, it quickly becomes obvious that the work of these artists - while at first perceived as inaccessible and enigmatic - have their own aesthetics and beauty which unfolds itself to the viewer as he has seen more of this type of work.
Saying this, I am very well aware that I am only describing a path to understanding these pictures, not necessarily of appreciating them as beautiful. Beauty - as always - is in the eye of the beholder.
