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Lot Essay
Another work from this edition is in Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.
'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see'
(A.Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).
'Andreas Gursky's best pictures of the past decade knock your socks off, and they're meant to. They're big, bold, full of color, and full of surprises. As each delivers its punch, the viewer is already wondering where it came from - and will continue to enjoy the seduction of surprise long after scrutinizing the picture in detail'
(P. Galassi, Andreas Gursky, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 9)
The first of Andreas Gursky's celebrated rave works, Union Rave, 1995, is a vast and awe-inspiring photograph, spanning over two metres in width. Capturing a moment of collective fever pitch, the rave works demonstrate the organizing capacity of our social environment. Perhaps more than any other works from the 1990s, Gursky's rave images have come to symbolize the abundant, expansive moment, when technology was the unifying structure of the world. Gursky's world view at this time is emblematic of a time when globalization as a term came to mean something concrete and universally agreed upon. An observation into the subversive rave scene which came into prominence in the early 1990s, the anti-establishment 'house party' became the alternative entertainment for youths in the wake of the major economic recession. From this point, Gursky would go on to create a number of rave works including his celebrated May Day series begun in 1997, and the Cocoon series in the 2000s. A key early work, Union Rave conceptually informs his entire practice, which he continues to create to this day.
In Union Rave Gursky offers a staggering aerial panorama of a sea of revellers, dancing to the sound of some inaudible beat. Gursky condenses the human experience of the rave in a perfectly stage-like picture plane, eliminating any discernible eye or point of view of the photographer. A split-second captured, forever frozen in time, Union Rave fluctuates between intoxicating detail and abstraction: the outstretched arms and beaded brows of the festival goers proliferating across the composition until they melt away into a morass of undulating shapes and colours. Further iterations of this photograph are in the collection of Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.
Executed with striking clarity, the intricate details of the epic panorama with its captivating monumentality induce a sublime effect: the densely crystallised details cohere when seen through Gursky's omniscient vantage-point. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on the spectacular debauchery, magnified in breath-taking scale. The fluid ordering of discord reveals an underlying formal regularity, stemming from the artist's deep appreciation of art historical narratives and photographic reference. This joyous explosion of structured colour and energy distinguishes Union Rave as the artist's most arresting rave work.
An exploration which began in the 1990s, Gursky has articulated his vision by magnifying large crowds in contained spaces. A spectacle of the everyday, Union Rave encapsulates the pace and mood of the German underground at this time. Frozen in a state of ecstasy, the revellers here seem impervious to the capitalist system crumbling around them. Just as Hieronymous Bosch depicted the revelries in the 15th Century in The Garden of Earthly Delights, here the spectacular debauchery is transformed, magnified in breath-taking scale. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on a very private feast, the enhanced pixilation of the image inviting close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allowing multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined figures.
Through this compositional arrangement of colour and form, Gursky, the technical puppet master, brilliantly creates order from chaos and imparts a harmony to this otherwise hectic situation. Enhanced by his compositional structure, the camera's high vantage point creates a sense of separation and alienation, what has been referred to as Gursky's 'God-like view'. As Gursky once explained, 'the camera's enormous distance from these figures means they become de-individualized so I am never interested in the individual but in the human species and its environment' (A. Gursky, quoted in V. Gomer, 'I generally let things develop slowly', partially reproduced at [www.postmedia.net], accessed 12th September 2013). Orchestrating this composition, Gursky transforms the documentary nature of the photograph into a beautifully curated ceremony. Intentionally cropping the focal point, Gursky elevates the masses to the point of attention; transforming the figures into a unified whole framed within a transcendent vision. The dancers hold their hands outstretched in unison, as if in contemporary prayer to a higher being in the new cathedrals of modern day religion. Transforming the chaotic into the sublime, Gursky unifies the mass; enraptured by the music they appear synchronized, impart a rhythmic quality and a magnificent sense of movement onto an otherwise detached crowd. The heightened grain structure on the surface of the photograph enhances the vibrant colours of the figures, creating chromatic links across the expansive horizon. The refinement of chaos here through the compositional arrangement of colour and form recalls the rhythmic atmosphere and meditation of Jackson Pollock's action paintings. Speaking of this effect, Gursky stated, 'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see' (A. Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).
Originally taught by Bernd Becher at the Künstakademie in Dusseldorf, Gursky has often been associated with a documentary style of photography. However his work makes a fundamental departure with its brilliant use of colour and large-format imagery. Indeed, faced with what he considered to be the fundamental inadequacies of the documentary practice, Gursky was persuaded in 1992 to begin using digital technology as a means of manipulation. The enhanced pixilation of the image invites close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allows multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined scene. In doing so, the artist skillfully generated an 'illusion of a fictitious reality', throwing into question the veracity of the image as it fluctuates between reality and an artificial reframing of the world (R. Pfab, 'Perception and Communication: Thoughts on New Motifs by Andreas Gursky', M.L. Syring (ed.), Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf 1998, p. 9).
'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see'
(A.Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).
'Andreas Gursky's best pictures of the past decade knock your socks off, and they're meant to. They're big, bold, full of color, and full of surprises. As each delivers its punch, the viewer is already wondering where it came from - and will continue to enjoy the seduction of surprise long after scrutinizing the picture in detail'
(P. Galassi, Andreas Gursky, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 9)
The first of Andreas Gursky's celebrated rave works, Union Rave, 1995, is a vast and awe-inspiring photograph, spanning over two metres in width. Capturing a moment of collective fever pitch, the rave works demonstrate the organizing capacity of our social environment. Perhaps more than any other works from the 1990s, Gursky's rave images have come to symbolize the abundant, expansive moment, when technology was the unifying structure of the world. Gursky's world view at this time is emblematic of a time when globalization as a term came to mean something concrete and universally agreed upon. An observation into the subversive rave scene which came into prominence in the early 1990s, the anti-establishment 'house party' became the alternative entertainment for youths in the wake of the major economic recession. From this point, Gursky would go on to create a number of rave works including his celebrated May Day series begun in 1997, and the Cocoon series in the 2000s. A key early work, Union Rave conceptually informs his entire practice, which he continues to create to this day.
In Union Rave Gursky offers a staggering aerial panorama of a sea of revellers, dancing to the sound of some inaudible beat. Gursky condenses the human experience of the rave in a perfectly stage-like picture plane, eliminating any discernible eye or point of view of the photographer. A split-second captured, forever frozen in time, Union Rave fluctuates between intoxicating detail and abstraction: the outstretched arms and beaded brows of the festival goers proliferating across the composition until they melt away into a morass of undulating shapes and colours. Further iterations of this photograph are in the collection of Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.
Executed with striking clarity, the intricate details of the epic panorama with its captivating monumentality induce a sublime effect: the densely crystallised details cohere when seen through Gursky's omniscient vantage-point. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on the spectacular debauchery, magnified in breath-taking scale. The fluid ordering of discord reveals an underlying formal regularity, stemming from the artist's deep appreciation of art historical narratives and photographic reference. This joyous explosion of structured colour and energy distinguishes Union Rave as the artist's most arresting rave work.
An exploration which began in the 1990s, Gursky has articulated his vision by magnifying large crowds in contained spaces. A spectacle of the everyday, Union Rave encapsulates the pace and mood of the German underground at this time. Frozen in a state of ecstasy, the revellers here seem impervious to the capitalist system crumbling around them. Just as Hieronymous Bosch depicted the revelries in the 15th Century in The Garden of Earthly Delights, here the spectacular debauchery is transformed, magnified in breath-taking scale. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on a very private feast, the enhanced pixilation of the image inviting close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allowing multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined figures.
Through this compositional arrangement of colour and form, Gursky, the technical puppet master, brilliantly creates order from chaos and imparts a harmony to this otherwise hectic situation. Enhanced by his compositional structure, the camera's high vantage point creates a sense of separation and alienation, what has been referred to as Gursky's 'God-like view'. As Gursky once explained, 'the camera's enormous distance from these figures means they become de-individualized so I am never interested in the individual but in the human species and its environment' (A. Gursky, quoted in V. Gomer, 'I generally let things develop slowly', partially reproduced at [www.postmedia.net], accessed 12th September 2013). Orchestrating this composition, Gursky transforms the documentary nature of the photograph into a beautifully curated ceremony. Intentionally cropping the focal point, Gursky elevates the masses to the point of attention; transforming the figures into a unified whole framed within a transcendent vision. The dancers hold their hands outstretched in unison, as if in contemporary prayer to a higher being in the new cathedrals of modern day religion. Transforming the chaotic into the sublime, Gursky unifies the mass; enraptured by the music they appear synchronized, impart a rhythmic quality and a magnificent sense of movement onto an otherwise detached crowd. The heightened grain structure on the surface of the photograph enhances the vibrant colours of the figures, creating chromatic links across the expansive horizon. The refinement of chaos here through the compositional arrangement of colour and form recalls the rhythmic atmosphere and meditation of Jackson Pollock's action paintings. Speaking of this effect, Gursky stated, 'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see' (A. Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).
Originally taught by Bernd Becher at the Künstakademie in Dusseldorf, Gursky has often been associated with a documentary style of photography. However his work makes a fundamental departure with its brilliant use of colour and large-format imagery. Indeed, faced with what he considered to be the fundamental inadequacies of the documentary practice, Gursky was persuaded in 1992 to begin using digital technology as a means of manipulation. The enhanced pixilation of the image invites close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allows multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined scene. In doing so, the artist skillfully generated an 'illusion of a fictitious reality', throwing into question the veracity of the image as it fluctuates between reality and an artificial reframing of the world (R. Pfab, 'Perception and Communication: Thoughts on New Motifs by Andreas Gursky', M.L. Syring (ed.), Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf 1998, p. 9).