Can anyone refer me to the little piece on gursky a few weeks back (not artforum)where they talked about his photographing the same museum piece as one of his young german contemporaries who was quite upset with him and gursky paid it no mind; i believe it was a one page piece in the New Yorker. Thanks for the help...
I saw a wonderful exhibit of Bernd & Hilla Becher/Andreas Gursky photographs at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, last year... I forgot the title of the exhibit and had no luck of finding it in search. Andreas Gursky's work is eye catching and brings us to see things in a more simplistic way. His eye isolates subjects that are complex or larger than life and grabs the viewer's attention to the simpleness of the subject matter.. It is this viewpoint- seeing things that one sees every day- but with such a different perspective, that draws the viewer into the photograph. Superbly done. Being able to achieve that perspective makes the photographer unique. Other photographers that have achieved this, IMHO, are Uta Barth, Thomas Ruff, and Mario Cravo Neto each in their own style. I urge everyone that has a chance to see any of these artist's works to do so.
Very interesting is the newest piece in the Modern's Gursky Retrospective, "Stockholder's Meeting, 2001," which is the most explicit work of Gursky's in terms of both digital manipulation and political comment. A constantly implicit (though not clumsily suggested) thematic in Gursky is, of course, the displacement of human narrative, human subject (both in and in front of the photograph), in the face of massive environments (whether they be expressly architectural, commercial, corporate, or natural): in "Stockholder's Meeting" corporate logos line the blank tops of both halves of a diptych. Beneath them is a mountainside, with rows of corporation boardmembers superimposed upon it and worked into its surface. Below this is another superimposition, of what looks like a packed cinema audience: we see none of their faces, they are hardly more than silhouettes, etc. Aside from the silliness of the illusion (esp so in the context of other, infinitely more subtle, Gursky images) there seems to be an especially trite political comment being made. The piece does not throw all of Gursky into question for me, but it certainly makes me wonder about what his new directions may be.
Has anyone seen this print or other new Gursky work, or have any other ideas about this print itself? Thanks
Hey, I just happened to stop by the MoMA yesterday with a photographer friend who needed to see the exhibit for a class. There seems to be a great deal of scorn for gursky's patterning/color use as being overly commercial but what I got out of the pictures was that he was using this method as a means to COMMENT on that sort of advertising-esque photogrpahy. One that particularily stuck out in my head was "99 cents" which was a photo of the interior of one of those ubiquitous 99? stores. Lots of color, lots of pattern, lots of "99?" written all over the place. I literally laughed out loud at the photo. It was so obnoxiously commercial that it was humorous: the title of the piece was "99 cents" as i said, on the walls of the store it said, "EVERYTHING 99?!" and yet, on every single item was marked the price in big blue letters; next to colorful rows of candy bars, juice, etc. etc. This was clearly over-emphasized in the photo - it was this repetition and blatant advertising that seemed to be the social commentary that Gursky was trying to achieve.
Blah blah blah, my point is that if you're in the NY area or will be going to NY, you sohuld really go see the exhibit, it was pretty good.
Gurskys photographs are amazing and lose almost all of their appeal when reproduced in books. Does anyone know where I could obtain poster size reproductions of some of his works. More specifically - May Day IV. Thanks.
MoMA in NY is selling a very big print of the 99 cents piece.
Does anyonw know where you can get reporductions of Gursky's photos (other than 99 cents)?
I just saw 'May Day IV 2000' in Liverpool and I thought it was amazing, not simply because of its size but because of the sheer amount of souls captured in the picture. Photography for me is about a moment in time (Well Duh!) but Gursky has captured this extremely well. The focus of the crowd is away from the picture but for Gursky the crowd is the the focus. Awesome shot that spoke to me instantly.
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