Hilla

David Johnson, former chairman of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and his wife, Suzanne, began collecting art 25 years ago, amassing a range of pieces from Lucio Fontana to Jenny Holzer, to Bernd and Hilla Becher.

“I just felt like I had to do something — I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t have some part in this,” said Hilla Shtein, 49, of Tel Aviv, a human resources manager who goes to the plaza several times a week to work a stand where visitors can make a donation and pick up hats, sweatshirts and buttons that say “Bring them home NOW.”

These and something like another 450 images fill “Bernd & Hilla Becher,” a fascinating, frankly gorgeous show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Max filmed Bernd and Hilla unloading their heavy-duty equipment, still much as it was in Victorian times, from a classic Volkswagen camper of the 1960s.

"We could be millions strong today," said Riyadh Husseini, 42, a manual labourer from the southern town of Hilla who travelled to Baghdad and slept on the street overnight in front of the podium where he hoped Sadr would appear.