Andreas Gursky

Went to see photographer Andreas Gursky at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art last week. I'm in awe of his work; photographs, highly manipulated, so subtle.


His often huge photos seem, by first impression documentary; like snapshots of a situation, a landscape or an everyday scene, but on closer look, the images dissolve—what I am looking at can't be true, the perspectives messes with my understanding of space, I can see something has been altered, but can't tell exactly what, and it leaves me questioning everything in the image (»If this isn't what I thought it was—what I was sure of was true!—what else isn't?«

In one grip, he challenged my visual perception, embraced my aesthetic (some of his works are beautiful beyond words), commented on society and made me laugh.

In awe indeed!


Louisiana writes: »With their visual mastery, the works of the German photographer Andreas Gursky insist on the vast, fascinating power of the image and stand as a modern proposal for what beauty may be. Andreas Gursky’s photographs are the answer of art to ‘extreme sports’. His works grow out of hours of effort interweaving hundreds of pictures taken with the most sophisticated equipment, often from extreme positions, into one image.«You can read more about the exhibition here.

YouTube video on Andreas Gursky (in English).


On YouTube, this is a film on the making of one of his works: Hamm, Bergwerk Ost (I think it is the bathing facilities by a mine. The film is in German, but you get a view into his process nonetheless. The last bit in particular, when seeing him working on the computer).

Setting up the exhibition on Louisiana (Louisiana video).