Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky is one of my all time favorite photographers right next to Edward Burtysnsky.  Gursky is a German artist known for visual large format landscape and architectural color photographs.  His images usually take on a higher point of view, often feeling like a bird's eye view.  He deals with the reality of living as a human being in today's world often expressing the over abundance and dealing with multiples whether it's created in nature or man himself has built it.  His images have a nice flow and are very much like landscape photography, using a horizontal point of view.  The bottom image showing a river and grass with a cloudy grey sky is entitled, "Rhein II" and this image was sold for  over $4.3 Million dollars at Christies in New York in November of 2011, becoming the most expensive photograph ever sold. Gursky trained with Hilla and Bernd Becher who took images of industrial machinery which also included water towers and they had a huge influence on Gursky.  He demonstrates a methodical approach to his large scale photographs.  Before the 1990's Gursky never used digital means for enhancing his photographs but since he admits to using the computer to help finish his images.  The MoMA in New York did a retrospective in 2001 and said about his work, "a sophisticated art of embellished observation. It is thanks to the artfulness of Gursky's fictions that we recognize his world as our own." This simple sentence really express the essence of Gurky's work is very straightforward.  He has been showing work in Museum's and Galleries around the world since 1985 till today. Gurky's works are part of worldwide collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Tate Modern in London, the SFMoMA in San Francisco, The Centre Pompidou in Paris and many many more.  I would suggest checking out Edward Burtynsky's work if you like Gursky. Gursky shows the everyday and Burtynsky show you behind the scenes. 


Check it out: http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/