Andreas Gursky: ‘I pursue one goal — the encyclopaedia of life’

As the first UK retrospective of the record-breaking German photographer’s work appears at the Hayward Gallery in London, the gallery’s director, Ralph Rugoff, explains why he considers Gursky to be among the foremost artists of our time

Andreas Gursky is to my mind one of the great artists of our generation,’ remarks Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery at London’s Southbank Centre, where around 60 of the photographer’s works are on view until 22 April. The Hayward Gallery’s exhibition is the first major UK retrospective of the German artist, who has said, ‘I only pursue one goal — the encyclopaedia of life.’

Gursky’s monumental, digitally enhanced works depict massive man-made structures and huge gatherings of people in nightclubs, factories, arenas and other social landscapes. They draw attention to our changing relationship with the natural world, and chronicle the effects of globalisation on everyday life. On 8 November 2011, Rhein II, a three-metre wide print by Gursky (b. 1955) realised $4,338,500 at Christie’s in New York, making it the most expensive photograph sold at auction to date.  

Andreas Gursky (b. 1955), Rhein II, 1999. Image: 73 x 143 in (185.4 x 363.5 cm). Sold for $4,338,500 on 8 November 2011 at Christie’s in New York © Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017 Courtesy: Sprüth Magers

‘[Gursky] really grew out of an interest in an expanded, documentary-type of photography in the 1980s, which quickly developed into something where the photograph is more of a kind of metaphor for a cultural attitude,’ explains Rugoff. ‘He said he was interested in how the world is put together, and a lot of his pictures show you this with a detail and a clarity that I don’t think any other photographer has approached.’

In our film, Rugoff examines the 63-year-old photographer’s oeuvre as he talks through several of the works on display. Gursky, he explains, ‘started out using film cameras, and then began to use digital post-production. He uses it to get a different kind of production that never really existed before.’

Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent II, Diptych, 2001. C-Print each: 206 x 341 x 6.2 cm. © Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017 Courtesy: Sprüth Magers

In a famous picture from 1993 called Paris Montparnasse, the artist put his camera across the street at two different locations in order to get an image of an apartment block where every window is the same size. The resulting image is ‘true to the spirit of the building, rather than being distorted by optics.’

In Review (2015), German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her three predecessors sit in what looks like a glass-enclosed sound booth, gazing at Barnett Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis  (1950-51). ‘It’s a situation that never happened in real life,’ Rugoff explains. ‘This is a fiction that Andreas has created. He’s reached a point where he’s decided he will construct photographs completely.’

Andreas Gursky, Amazon, 2016. Inkjet-Print 207 x 407 x 6.2 cm. © Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017 Courtesy: Sprüth Magers

Amazon (2016), another huge work that is two metres high and four metres wide, depicts a book warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona. ‘Gursky takes several different photographs of horizontal bands in order to make each area completely in focus, resulting in an image that the human eye wouldn’t register if you were just standing there,’ notes Rugoff. ‘There’s a super-natural clarity to it, but at the same time he’s just showing you what’s actually there. He’s not tweaking the image to make something false. He’s tweaking it to make something that’s closer to the truth.’

Over the course of his career, Gursky has trained his lens on everything from solar panels and supermarket shelves to frenetic trading floors and litter-filled wastelands. ‘Andreas has a knack for picking subjects that relate to key issues of our time,’ says Rugoff. ‘Ultimately, though, questions of interpretation and meaning are left to the viewer. The images have a complexity and beauty to them that makes them a very different kind of experience.’

Christie’s is proud to support this first major Andreas Gursky retrospective in the UK. ‘In 30 years of following Gursky’s work in museums and galleries around the world, this is the finest exhibition I’ve seen,’ says Christie’s Chairman Francis Outred. ‘The marriage of the reinvigorated architecture at the Hayward, together with Gursky’s truly unique vision of the big themes of 21st-century life, make this the ideal celebration of the Hayward’s 50th anniversary.’


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