Andreas Gursky is well known for his large-scale, colour photographs which critically document the effects of globalisation and capitalism on contemporary life. Gursky’s studies under Bernd and Hilla Becher in the early 1980s at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, were an early influence in his approach to making photographs. They were particularly well known for their de-personalised images of industrial buildings often shot in sequence to emphasise the purely documentary approach. Also influential were the New Topographics movement photographers in the United States, who photographed in an anonymous 'style' often depicting the ordinary landscapes of suburban developments and industrial parks.
Read MoreGursky’s later work is characterised by its distinct clarity, attention to composition, and a scale that recalls historical landscape paintings. His photographs emphasise the relationships of global communities and a contemporary unitary existence. In doing so Gursky regularly employs a high point of view which allows him to capture large expanses of architecture, interiors, and vast landscapes. Gursky also uses digital manipulation to further enhance the striking nature of his images.
Andreas Gursky’s work is held in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has exhibited internationally including at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2004), the Shanghai Biennale (2002), and the Sydney Biennial (2000). Andreas Gursky holds the record for the highest price paid for a single photographic work at auction.
Andreas Gursky lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Gursky 's signature accomplishment as an artist is his ability to estrange his image from normal perception. Ocean III (2010) asks viewers to assume the nearly impossible position of comprehending the macrocosmic, while Untitled III (2002) immerses them in a microcosmic viewpoint. These distinctions can also be expressed in contrasting terms...
Shortly before entering Andreas Gursky's latest retrospective which is installed in the Hayward Gallery's renovated digs, my phone buzzes with news from the World Economic Forum in Davos. There, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has made an offhand comment. It was nothing much: 'The dollar is one of the most liquid markets,' he stated. 'A...
In Andreas Gursky's Mülheim, Anglers (1989), hobby fishermen gather on the banks of the river Ruhr. As verdant forest collapses into the curl of the water, the epic romance is broken by the emergence of the Autobahn in the distance. Part of Gursky's 68-work retrospective at the newly reopened Hayward Gallery in London's Southbank Centre, it is...
In 1959, photography was still struggling to be an art form. Bernd and Hilla Becher were a young couple living in Düsseldorf, making conceptual art together. Bernd had studied painting and typography, while Hilla had completed an apprenticeship as a photographer. They began to collaborate, systematically taking pictures on an 8 x 10 of things that...