Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present

by Andreas Gursky (Photographer), Lynne Cooke, Marie Luise Syring (Editor)

The first substantial monograph of Andreas Gursky's work since 1984 this series of large-format color photographs depicts vast panoramic scenes: entire cityscapes, endless horizons, multi-floored office buildings, huge factory corridors and crowded public spaces. Taken from a distance, often with a bird's eye view, they represent more than a set of photographs of various locations -- rather Gursky's work reflects both the art forms and the everyday aesthetics of 20th-century society. Many photographs are allegories, offering a cultural critique of man's role in nature, technology, art and society. Other resemble abstract paintings, in which Gursky applies a number of formal elements, such as light, composition and form, to convey a mood or subtle message. In their size and scope, in their reflective mood and social commentary, and in their many layers of meaning and interpretation, these exquisitely reproduced portraits of interior and exterior spaces display the qualities that have made Andreas Gursky one of the most respected landscape photographers of his generation.

Genres: Photography

132 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2000

About the author

Andreas Gursky is a German artist known for his large-scale digitally manipulated images. Similar in scope to early 19th-century landscape paintings, Gursky’s photographs capture built and natural environments on a grand scale. Often taken from a lofted vantage point, the artist latter splices together multiple images of the same scene. This dizzying repetition of elements creates a surreal monumentality, as seen in his 99 Cent (1999). “In retrospect I can see that my desire to create abstractions has become more and more radical,” he mused. “Art should not be delivering a report on reality, but should be looking at what's behind something.”

Born January 15, 1955 in Leipzig, East Germany, he studied alongside fellow student Thomas Ruff under Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1980s. The Becher’s penchant for systematic documentation as a conceptual framework had a profound impact on Gursky’s photography. Emerging in the 1990s, the artist established himself as an important figure in contemporary German art, going on to be the subject of retrospectives at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1998 and in 2001 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. On November 8, 2011, his photograph Rhein II sold at Christie's New York for $4.3 million, making it the most expensive photograph ever sold. Today, Gursky’s works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern in London. He lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great pictures. Reproductions are smaller than in my catalogue of the 2002 Pompidou Centre exhibition (which is a shame, scale being obviously fundamental with Gursky), but on the plus side the colour reproduction is better.
As with the catalogue, I skipped the text. Life is too short to read art criticism.