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Lot Essay
Executed on a heroic scale, Andreas Gursky's Untitled VII is a sublime masterpiece. Standing almost two metres tall, it is a monumental, brilliantly executed image of a cloudy sky that envelops us in its brooding atmosphere. Gursky has shown Untitled VII on a scale that traditionally was only deemed appropriate for history painting - and has been the driving force transforming critical acceptance of photographic work as high art. He has used the medium in ways that would have previously seemed unimaginable. A master of striking the perfect balance, Gursky was persuaded in 1992 to begin using digital technology as a means of manipulation to skilfully generate an 'illusion of a fictitious reality' (R. Pfab, "Perception and Communication: Thoughts on New Motifs by Andreas Gursky," in M. L. Syring (ed.). Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Dsseldorf, 1998, p. 9). Like a painter, Gursky constructs his composition, adjusting the natural appearance of the sky to create a work of supreme calm and order.
With no landscape or anchoring elements included, Untitled VII is reminiscent of the cloud works of the other great master of German art, Gerhard Richter. As with Richter's Wolken, Gursky's image verges on the abstract, something he has recognized by stating that "my pictures are becoming increasingly formal and abstract. A visual structure appears to dominate the real events shown in my pictures. I subjugate the real situation to my artistic concept of the picture" (A. Gursky quoted by L. Cooke, "Andreas Gursky: Visionary (Per)Versions," in M. L. Syring (ed.), Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Dsseldorf, 1998, p. 14). Having studied at the prestigious Kunstakademie in Dsseldorf, Richter's own alma mater, Gursky was aware of the prestigious history of the German Landscape tradition in both Old Master and modern art, and Untitled VII can be seen as a form of response to this. Both Richter and Gursky produced works that directly reference the founding father of German Romantic painting, Caspar David Friedrich, revealing how his work influenced theirs. However, where man was central to Friedrich's work, there are no figures in Gursky or Richter's images of clouds, their own invocations of the sublime. This reflects our more secular age and a modern belief that nature is fundamentally outside the human purview and beyond any religious claims.
The grand, panoramic scale of Untitled VII and its art historical references makes it one of Gursky's most accomplished works. Whilst these references are important, Gursky has once stated 'I don't intentionally raise issues intrinsic to art in order to reformulate them in modern terms. In my opinion, a context-related procedure such as this leads to dull results, because the calculated approach denies the irrational laws of creating a picture the necessary freedom. Nonetheless, parallels with historical styles are apparent in many of my pictures... As I have already said in interviews, the history of art seems to possess a generally valid formal vocabulary which we use again and again. It would perhaps be interesting for you art historians to find out why an artist who is not versed in your subject such as myself still has access to this formal vocabulary' (Gursky, quoted in P. Galassi, Andreas Gursky, exh. cat., New York, 2001, p. 43n). As much as anything, for Gursky a cloudy sky represents first and foremost an opportunity: for an artist who is usually concerned with the intricacy of detail, this is an excellent example of his ability to use photography from the perspective of a painter, a rare viewpoint within his field and one which led to his creation of one of his most sublime, powerful and supremely beautiful works.
With no landscape or anchoring elements included, Untitled VII is reminiscent of the cloud works of the other great master of German art, Gerhard Richter. As with Richter's Wolken, Gursky's image verges on the abstract, something he has recognized by stating that "my pictures are becoming increasingly formal and abstract. A visual structure appears to dominate the real events shown in my pictures. I subjugate the real situation to my artistic concept of the picture" (A. Gursky quoted by L. Cooke, "Andreas Gursky: Visionary (Per)Versions," in M. L. Syring (ed.), Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Dsseldorf, 1998, p. 14). Having studied at the prestigious Kunstakademie in Dsseldorf, Richter's own alma mater, Gursky was aware of the prestigious history of the German Landscape tradition in both Old Master and modern art, and Untitled VII can be seen as a form of response to this. Both Richter and Gursky produced works that directly reference the founding father of German Romantic painting, Caspar David Friedrich, revealing how his work influenced theirs. However, where man was central to Friedrich's work, there are no figures in Gursky or Richter's images of clouds, their own invocations of the sublime. This reflects our more secular age and a modern belief that nature is fundamentally outside the human purview and beyond any religious claims.
The grand, panoramic scale of Untitled VII and its art historical references makes it one of Gursky's most accomplished works. Whilst these references are important, Gursky has once stated 'I don't intentionally raise issues intrinsic to art in order to reformulate them in modern terms. In my opinion, a context-related procedure such as this leads to dull results, because the calculated approach denies the irrational laws of creating a picture the necessary freedom. Nonetheless, parallels with historical styles are apparent in many of my pictures... As I have already said in interviews, the history of art seems to possess a generally valid formal vocabulary which we use again and again. It would perhaps be interesting for you art historians to find out why an artist who is not versed in your subject such as myself still has access to this formal vocabulary' (Gursky, quoted in P. Galassi, Andreas Gursky, exh. cat., New York, 2001, p. 43n). As much as anything, for Gursky a cloudy sky represents first and foremost an opportunity: for an artist who is usually concerned with the intricacy of detail, this is an excellent example of his ability to use photography from the perspective of a painter, a rare viewpoint within his field and one which led to his creation of one of his most sublime, powerful and supremely beautiful works.