What do you think?
Rate this book
Andreas Gursky
A new book from sensational artist Andreas Gursky is always a publishing event. This stunning, large-format exhibition catalog from Gursky's recent solo show in Munich is made up of works mostly created since his Museum of Modern Art show in 2001.
Gursky's photos exploit the visual codes of a globalized world. They combine collective memories into rhythmic images that appear familiar and intelligible to viewers because the situations have been stored in their subconscious. But the photographer's slightly elevated vantage point gives these situations an unfamiliar feeling. Viewers float above the objects, observing from an idealized perspective they are usually denied. Patterns and repetition become obvious, details once overlooked become prominent, and situations usually considered banal take on the air of a medieval miniature, an Old Master, or an abstract painting.
Since the early 1990s, Gursky has photographed his motifs using both analog and digital methods, and then composed his final image using digital technology. Gursky's works, therefore, are not classical documentary photographs, but are hyper-realistic fictions based on facts. Reality can only be portrayed when one constructs it, says the photographer. With their paradoxical character and idealized composition, Gursky's works simultaneously express reality and observe it.
Includes a critical essay by curator Thomas Weski and a contribution titled In Yankee Stadium by American novelist Don DeLillo.
An unexpected feature is five separate cover designs made available for this publication; each cover takes a detail from one of the noted Korean Stadium works,
Gursky's photos exploit the visual codes of a globalized world. They combine collective memories into rhythmic images that appear familiar and intelligible to viewers because the situations have been stored in their subconscious. But the photographer's slightly elevated vantage point gives these situations an unfamiliar feeling. Viewers float above the objects, observing from an idealized perspective they are usually denied. Patterns and repetition become obvious, details once overlooked become prominent, and situations usually considered banal take on the air of a medieval miniature, an Old Master, or an abstract painting.
Since the early 1990s, Gursky has photographed his motifs using both analog and digital methods, and then composed his final image using digital technology. Gursky's works, therefore, are not classical documentary photographs, but are hyper-realistic fictions based on facts. Reality can only be portrayed when one constructs it, says the photographer. With their paradoxical character and idealized composition, Gursky's works simultaneously express reality and observe it.
Includes a critical essay by curator Thomas Weski and a contribution titled In Yankee Stadium by American novelist Don DeLillo.
An unexpected feature is five separate cover designs made available for this publication; each cover takes a detail from one of the noted Korean Stadium works,
158 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2007
About the author
Andreas Gursky
39 books2 followersAndreas 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.