Andreas Gursky

 Leipzig, Germany – 1955

            Andreas Gursky's large-scale panoramic urban landscapes are his trademark in photography. His approach to color and perspective, always from a distance and slightly elevated from the front, makes his work instantly recognizable. His images are both monumental and provocative, a way of showcasing the transformation of a contemporary world dominated by the speed of technology, globalization of information and consumption, and massive migratory movements.

            Gursky was born in the former East Germany, in the city of Leipzig, but when he was only two years old, his family moved to West Germany. His parents owned a commercial photography studio. However, far from following a family mandate, his interest in pursuing a professional career as a photographer followed a more winding path. Between 1978 and 1979, he attended the Folkwangschule school in Essen, a training ground for professionals in advertising, illustration, and especially graphic journalism. During that time, he worked as a taxi driver, and there is a myth that he always carried a Leica camera in the car to capture landscapes or curious situations during his rides. After completing his studies, he moved to Hamburg in search of a job as a graphic journalist. Unable to find one and encouraged by a friend, photographer and artist Thomas Struth, in 1980, he started studying again. This time, he chose the prestigious Kunstakademie, an academy dedicated to the visual arts.

            The digital expansion of the early 21st century had a significant influence on Gursky's work. It was during this time that he began using digital technology to retouch and modify his images. "Rhein II" (1999), an original shot of the Rhine River, digitally enlarged and modified to unite different segments of the river, allowed him to create a completely new landscape by removing all buildings and people. This work established him as one of the photographers who best captures the contradictions of the present. The attention to detail in each section of the composition inaugurated a style. In his "Pyongyang" series, developed in North Korea, he documented the Arirang Festival. Gursky photographed the celebrations from a great distance, at an angle that allowed him to capture the 80,000 gymnasts performing meticulously choreographed routines in honor of the late North Korean founder, Kim Il Sung. The image transforms a mobile spectacle into a colorful tapestry of frozen gestures.

            With his unabashed use of digital technologies, Gursky redefined photography for a new generation of artists. His unique strategies produce dramatic images that oscillate between representation and abstraction, an effect that places the viewer as a witness to a world that impacts while simultaneously paralyzing them.