Fine Art Photography
Series
Andreas Gursky
Biography of Art Photographer, Dusseldorf
School (under Bernd Becher).
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Fine Art Photography
Series
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Andreas Gursky (b.1955)Contents • Andreas Gursky's
Photography See also: the History of Photography (c.1800-1900). |
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PHOTO GLOSSARY
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One of the greatest photographers of the postmodern age, the German camera artist Andreas Gursky specializes in large-format panoramic urban landscape and architectural compositions, often digitally manipulated, featuring apartment blocks, skyscrapers, sports grounds, streets, squares, and the like. Working exclusively in colour, the viewpoint used is always at a distance and slightly elevated from the front. The viewer's gaze is not directed, so that various viewpoints are possible. His fine art photography is typically characterized by careful structuring and composition, together with a carefully balanced use of colour, perspective and light. As a result his images have an explicit painting-like quality: indeed, some have all the aura of monumental 19th-century landscape paintings. (This patient pictorialist approach distinguishes his work from the instantism of street photography.) Since the mid-1990s, Gursky has enhanced his image-making with the use of computer art, as in his famous picture Rhein II (1999) - an original photograph of the Rhine River, which was blown up to a huge size and then digitally altered to remove all buildings and people. In November 2011, this work of postmodernist pictorialism was sold at Christie's New York for $4,338,500, making it the world's most expensive photograph, and one of the highest priced works of postmodernist art in the 21st century. Another example of digital alteration is his six-part series Ocean I-VI (2009-2010), in which he used hi-definition satellite imagery augmented by other internet pictures. A more obvious masterpiece is Gursky's photograph entitled Paris, Montparnasse (1993, chromogenic colour print, Tate Collection, London). A wonderful shot of an apartment block, designed in the spirit of the French modernist Le Corbusier, it presents an abstract, dispassionate view of modern existence - notably the relationship between the individual, his community and his surroundings. 1978-1981, studies at the Folkwangschule (GHS) in Essen, under Michael Schmidt and Otto Steinert, among others. 1981-1987, studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dusseldorf. 1985, master's degree under Bernd/Hilla Becher (1931-2007/ b.1934). First solo exhibition 1987. Out of Candida Hofer (b.1944), Axel Hutte (b.1951), Thomas Ruff (b.1958) and Thomas Struth (b.1954), Gursky is the internationally best-known graduate of the Becher class, and arguably the closest follower of Becher's dispassionate presentation of industrial machinery and architecture. In addition to Becher, Gursky is influenced by the British landscape photographer John Davies, whose detailed high vantage point photos have a noticeable impact on the ground-level photos Gursky is making. (For a brief guide to the aesthetics and artistic nature of lens-based art, please see: Is Photography Art?) 1991-1992, participates in Siemens Fotoprojekt. 1993, in the important group exhibition Die Photographie in der deutschen Gegenwartskunst (Museum Ludwig); 1997, in the much admired stock-taking Positionen kunsterischer Photographie in Deutschland seit 1945 (Berlinische Galerie, Martin-Gropius-Bau). Awards include: 1st Deutcher Photopreis (1989), RENTA Preis (1991), Citibank Photography Prize (1998), Wilhelm-Loth-Preis/Kunstpreis from the city of Darmstadt (2003), Lead Award (2008), Kaiserring Kunstpreis from the city of Goslar (2008). 2008, La photographie a Dusseldorf, major review of the Dusseldorf school of lens-based contemporary art in the Musee d'art modern de la Ville de Paris. Unless stated all shows are one-man events. 1987 Dusseldorf (Flughafen) Most Expensive Photographs by Andreas Gursky As stated above, the most expensive photo taken by Gursky, is Rhein II (1999), which sold for $4,338,500 at Christie's New York, in late 2011, confirming his status as one of the most successful postmodernist artists of the 21st century. Four years earlier, in February 2007, his image 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001) was auctioned for $3,346,456 at Sotheby's London. Art photographs by Andreas Gursky are held in the public collections of some of the world's best galleries of contemporary art, including: the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Modern, London; the Pompidou Centre, Paris; and the Kunsthaus Zurich. |
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Other Famous 20th Century Photographers In addition to the great 19th-Century Photographers, as well as those artists mentioned above, here is a short list of the best known photographers of the 20th century. • John
Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) (1891-1968) Dada photomontages |
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• For more about the architectural
photography of the Dusseldorf School, see: Homepage.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ART |
