top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureBelinda Keyte

Artist Research - Andreas Gursky

Updated: Aug 22, 2020

German photographer Andreas Gursky (b. 1955) uses colour, light, repetition, pattern and probably some more visual aids to invite the sublime in an effort to talk about mass consumerism, capitalism, environmental degradation and the problems inherent in Globalisation. He either crowds a frame to a fantastic level until it is an absolute overload on our senses, or removes all from it, to make his point. Gursky uses artistic liability to make his point through digital manipulation. Gursky’s images are utterly contrived. He uses technological innovation: size, scale, digital manipulation, and high resolution, to make a point about the nature of visual experience and to to create representations that are in some sense, or depict, an abstract idea.


Gursky brings the earlier philosophers concepts of the sublime back into contemporary art discussions. Mainly by the utter size of his images, although his subject matter and the sheer number of elements he adds also contribute. Although Gursky’s sublime is supposed to be different from Kant’s and Burke’s ideas about the greatness of dimension, the infinite and dynamic in nature, because he primarily depicts the human-made world instead.


Gursky’s photographs need to be seen from two different perspectives, both close up and from far away. A two fold experience, that actually requires physically moving, by its sheer size. You cannot grasp it fully in either view, and this is how he incites the sublime.


He is fascinated by the “very spectacles of supermodernity”. Using digital manipulation, his work simultaneously shifts between the particular and the homogenous, the ordinary and the extraordinary, a definitive sense of place or an unreal one. He does this by the amount of information and detail he adds, creating a simultaneous micro and macro level to work.

Andreas Gursky, Chicago, Board of Trade II, 1999, 157.4×284 cm, Chromogenic colour print.


This interaction between real and unreal, macro and micro can be seen in Chicago, Board of Trade II which depicts the trading floor of the artworks title. By absolutely crowding the frame with detail, Gursky emphasises the fantastic, hyperreal experience of this space. The amount of information appears to grow and grow, saturating the photographs surface. The blocks of saturated colour have a symmetry, like a spiral around the central axis. All digitally manipulated to emphasise the pace of the action on the floor.


Clumped in groups, the multicoloured blurred frenzy of traders both lead and are led by globally exchanged capital coursing through the space. The frenzied market activity emphasised by Gursky’s slow shutter speed blur. Gursky saturates the colours of the brokers’ jackets, which further emphasizes the pace of the action. The notable use of primary colours amongst desaturated tones suggests a regular order latent in the scene.


Gursky is trying to represent the importance of this trading amongst an economy that is becoming more and more globalised. The photograph can be understood as representing “the abstraction from material reality that is associated with global exchange”. The action is cropped, or extends outside the frame, suggesting there’s more beyond the scene we are seeing. This is done in an effort to signify the inability to depict the scope of the late capitalist financial network within one image. Only implying them, instead of depicting all of these links.


The overall composition of his pictures is something Gursky spends a lot of time on. Always balanced, mostly symmetrically and often arranged around a rectangle, or other shape in the centre of the image, by digital manipulation. In 99 Cent, he saturates the colours so much, they are hyperreal vertical bands of oranges, yellows and blues against a desaturated toned background, resembling an abstract composition. The saturated colours also signify the seduction of consumption, so much so that image seems to radiate with the packaging and branding of the goods on offer.

Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent, 1999, 207×336 cm, chromogenic colour print.


The repetition and detail of the seemingly endless amount of goods available for our use in this discount store overwhelms us, which is the point Gursky is trying to make about consumption in a Capitalist society. Their reflection in the ceiling doubles the amount of goods available to us, but also seems an inconsequential symptom of the ample assurances made by consumerism. Again, with his horizontal bands of shelves extending outside the frame, he implies a sense of no limit to the surfeit of consumer products, and our consumer society, in general. The mass of goods take over the frame, and the store, as the commodity has overtaken the world.

Andreas Gursky, Rhein II, 1999, 156.4x 308.3cm, Tate Collection.


What we see in Rhein II, is thin horizontal bands of dark grey pavement within bright green bands of grass and grey and pale blue, thick bands of water and sky. Gursky’s image is a photograph of the river of the same name, but an utterly composed one. The artist has digitally composited the landscape he wants, washing away and erasing the elements of the now overdeveloped river he loved, giving the landscape’s peace, serenity and loneliness back to what he desires it to have, or that it could, still have.


Knowingly structured to be seen from a distance as an abstract image, Gursky’s intention was to eliminate unnecessary detail so that nothing distracts us from the macroscopic view of the image. In some instances, Gursky eliminates all hues except for one or two. This is done for the same reason as saturating the colours, for our appreciation of the macroscopic.


As depictions of capitalism and it’s effects, Gursky’s work offers some derivative understanding of the affairs and state of that world. His digital manipulation confuses us. On one hand, the compositing separates the image from the real scene. Although this mix of real and unreal, what was there and what was added and eliminated permeates the creation process of the work with the trade-worth of that he is referencing, paradoxically distancing the image from this world while absorbing its reasoning. As both depictions and fabrications, Gursky’s works highlight the contradictions of photography in the world of the subject matter he is referencing, thus turning his argument around to allow the opportunity for us to see a world that could be otherwise. It is this transformative, aesthetically significant experience, that transcends the limits of our actual grasp and how Gursky incites the sublime as a tool to engage and wake us up.

1 view0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page