PHOTO: Andreas Gursky-Visual Spaces of Today

Andreas Gursky is an observer of our time. He finds his subjects all over the. The artist favours themes of global relevance, such as mass consumption and international stock exchange trading. Only with the arrival of digital photography was the artist able to compose his photographs like a painter, right down to the last detail. While the works always retain their documentary character, the artist’s interventions transform them into a memory of subjectively perceived reality.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fondazione MAST Archive

“Visual Spaces of Today” is the first large-scale anthology in Italy, covering more than four decades of Andreas Gursky’s oeuvre, marks the opening of the celebrations for a double anniversary: 100 years of the G.D Company and 10 years of Fondazione MAST.  Drawing inspiration from the acronym MAST (Manifattura di Arti, Sperimentazione, Tecnologia) the visual spaces in the works selected for the exhibition by Urs Stahel and Andreas Gursky mirror these thematic worlds. The artist’s powerful images disclose new views on work, the economy, and globalization. They reveal concrete visions of production plants, goods handling centres, temples of consumption, transport hubs, energy and food industries, and financial centres across the world. Included in the exhibition are 40 images by the artist dating from his early works (Krefeld, Hühner, 1989) to his more recent production (V&R II and V&R III, 2022), travelling great lengths, from Salerno (1990) to Hong Kong (2020), and combining modern tourism industry (Rimini, 2003) with age-old production processes (Salinas, 2021). Gursky’s striking visual compositions show the artist’s keen eye in finely dissecting the present, his precision in setting the focus on a subject, as he goes deeper into things while, at the same time, presenting a vivid general picture. The large format that Andreas Gursky chose very soon in his career is in itself a statement of the artist’s visual and content­-related stance, and one that challenges the viewer. In addition to his commitment to color photography, Gursky’s typical forms of expression are to be found in digital processing and extremely large-scale formats. In the process, his works always bear visual testimony to his decades of travel around the globe. His images always reflect on both the inward and outward appearance of the world. The apparent beauty and perfection of his pictures is deceptive, it is not until after the first glance that it becomes obvious that they conceal the wealth of thought in the depicted. Gursky’s images seduce through that which is portrayed but at the same time, they insist that the viewer think about the reasons behind them. From ancient sites through contemporary scenes and political debates to fictitiously arranged fantasy worlds: Andreas Gursky’s pictures also turn out to be subtle observations of the state of our globalised world. Cairo and the Cheops pyramids, Prada shops, production facilities and garbage dumps, mass spectacles in Pyongyang, or at national church conferences, the subversive demonstration of power structures and global world orders, internationally active stock markets, museums as places of supposed reflection and comic heroes used to portray future worlds.

Photo: Andreas Gursky, Salerno, 1990, © Andreas Gursky, by SIAE 2023 Courtesy: Sprüth Magers

Info: Curators: Urs Stahel and Andreas Gursky, FONDAZIONE MAST, via Speranza 42, Bologna, Italy, Duration: 25/5/2023-7/1/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-19:00, www.mast.org