Andreas Gursky
dal 3/3/2010 al 30/4/2010
Segnalato da
3/3/2010
Andreas Gursky
Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills
Solo show
Space is very important for me but in a more abstract way. Maybe to try to understand not just that
we are living in a certain building or in a certain location, but to become aware that we are living on
a planet that is going at enormous speed through the universe. I read a picture not for what’s really
going on there, I read it more for what is going on in our world generally. (Andreas Gursky)
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Andreas Gursky to inaugurate the newly
expanded Beverly Hills gallery, designed by Richard Meier & Partners.
In the two adjacent main galleries, Gursky will present a new series of large-scale works as well as
a grouping of subjects that he has selected from the last twenty years, from the landscape Műlheim
an der Ruhr, Anglers (1989) to the empty scene of Untitled XV (2008).
Gursky has demonstrated that a photographer can make or construct—rather than simply take—
photographs about modern life and produce them on the scale of epic painting. Just as history
painters of previous centuries found their subjects in the realities of everyday life, he seeks
inspiration in his observations of the human species in the world, whether firsthand or via reports of
global phenomena in the daily media.
The resulting pictures have a formal congruence deriving from a bold and edgy dialogue between
photography and painting, empirical observation and artfulness, conceptual rigor and spontaneity,
representation and abstraction. In pursuit of his aim to create “an encyclopedia of life” Gursky’s
world view fuses the flux of reality with the stillness of metaphysical reflection.
From initially using the computer as a retouching tool, he began exploring its transformative
potential, sometimes combining elements of multiple shots of the same subject into an intricate yet
seamless whole, at other times barely altering the image at all. Over time his subjects have
expanded to map and distill the emergent patterns and symmetries of a globalized world with its
consensual flows and grids of data and people, architecture, and mass spectacle.
In the new Ocean series, Gursky has for the first time relinquished his position behind the camera to
work with satellite images of the world as his raw material, creating contemporary mappe del
mondo on a scale befitting the cosmic grandeur of the subject. In their darkly nuanced surfaces, he
has worked to reconcile the division between the machine eye and the human eye, continuing the
debates and practices begun in the nineteenth century regarding photography and the issue of
artistic expression versus objective science.
Andreas Gursky: Long Shot Close Up (2009), a documentary directed by Jan Schmidt-Garre
(German with English subtitles), will be screened continuously in the rear gallery for the duration of
the exhibition.
A catalogue in two volumes, with an essay by art historian Norman Bryson, is forthcoming.
Andreas Gursky was born in 1955 in Leipzig, former East Germany. He attended Folkwangschule,
Essen (1978-1981) and Staatliche Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf (1981-1987). Recent major museum
exhibitions include “Werke-Works 80-08”, Kunstmuseen Krefeld (2008, touring to Moderna Museet,
Stockholm and Vancouver Art Gallery in 2009); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2007); Haus der
Kunst, Munich (2007, touring to Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Sharjah Art Museum, National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow in 2007-2008); The Museum of
Modern Art, New York (2001, touring to Reina Sofia, Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Museum
of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2001-2002). His work is included in important public and private
collections throughout the world.
Gursky lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.
For further press inquiries, reproduction permission and hi-res images, please contact Melissa
Passman at mpassman@gagosian.com or at +1.212.741.1111.
Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, March 4th, from 6 to 8 pm
Gagosian Gallery
456 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills USA
hours Tues - Sat 10am - 5.30pm
free admission