Andreas Gursky - Heidelberg Ost
Andreas Gursky
Heidelberg Ost
1993
Chromogenic print on plexiglass. 130.5 x 165.4 cm (169 x 204.5 cm frame). Framed under glass. Signed, dated, titled and editioned in ballpoint pen on an artist's label affixed to the reverse of the mount. A.P. 1/2 aside from an edition of 4 (+ 2 A.P.).
In contrast to the regular edition this artist proof is mirrored and therefore unique.
“Without exception, all of Andreas Gursky's photographs convey a sense of happiness. As if the artist has foreseen all positions that were then occupied by people, things, structures, colours. This simultaneity of conditions, progressions of time, states of consciousness in a space has a utopian character because it illustrates the possibility of social synthesis. What speaks in opposition to the suspicion of the pure joy of discovery is the consistency with which these things occur in Gursky's photography. And therein lies the deferred and also the viewer's moving moment in the works: that the convergence of art and reality has so far succeeded, and that art has taken on a loosening, leading role.
This two-track movement defines Andreas Gursky's working method: He travels after the pictures and brings them to concession, to meet his vision. A photograph like the one of the starry skies over a nocturnal Heidelberg ('Heidelberg Ost', 1993) seems to be taken from exotic surroundings and the arsenal of Romanticism, but is a spectacle of abstract clarity. Parts of the happy finding are undoubtedly there, but what is more important is the capacity for formal anticipation, the “fictive construction” as Andreas Gursky calls it. To make use of these elements of the fictive in reality, without disclosing the feedback to the real, and to achieve aesthetically independent results in the process - this characterizes Gursky's formal capacity and artistic morality.” (quoted from Rudolf Schmitz: Weder Mordfall noch Taufe. Andreas Gurskys angstfreier Blick aufs Ganze, in: Zdenek Felix (ed.), ibid., p. 13).
Provenance
German corporate collection
Literature
Zdenek Felix (ed.), Andreas Gursky. Fotografien 1984-1993, exhib.cat. Deichtorhallen Hamburg i.a., Munich i.a. 1994, ill. p. 72 (mirrored)
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Andreas Gursky
Heidelberg Ost
1993
Chromogenic print on plexiglass. 130.5 x 165.4 cm (169 x 204.5 cm frame). Framed under glass. Signed, dated, titled and editioned in ballpoint pen on an artist's label affixed to the reverse of the mount. A.P. 1/2 aside from an edition of 4 (+ 2 A.P.).
In contrast to the regular edition this artist proof is mirrored and therefore unique.
“Without exception, all of Andreas Gursky's photographs convey a sense of happiness. As if the artist has foreseen all positions that were then occupied by people, things, structures, colours. This simultaneity of conditions, progressions of time, states of consciousness in a space has a utopian character because it illustrates the possibility of social synthesis. What speaks in opposition to the suspicion of the pure joy of discovery is the consistency with which these things occur in Gursky's photography. And therein lies the deferred and also the viewer's moving moment in the works: that the convergence of art and reality has so far succeeded, and that art has taken on a loosening, leading role.
This two-track movement defines Andreas Gursky's working method: He travels after the pictures and brings them to concession, to meet his vision. A photograph like the one of the starry skies over a nocturnal Heidelberg ('Heidelberg Ost', 1993) seems to be taken from exotic surroundings and the arsenal of Romanticism, but is a spectacle of abstract clarity. Parts of the happy finding are undoubtedly there, but what is more important is the capacity for formal anticipation, the “fictive construction” as Andreas Gursky calls it. To make use of these elements of the fictive in reality, without disclosing the feedback to the real, and to achieve aesthetically independent results in the process - this characterizes Gursky's formal capacity and artistic morality.” (quoted from Rudolf Schmitz: Weder Mordfall noch Taufe. Andreas Gurskys angstfreier Blick aufs Ganze, in: Zdenek Felix (ed.), ibid., p. 13).
Provenance
German corporate collection
Literature
Zdenek Felix (ed.), Andreas Gursky. Fotografien 1984-1993, exhib.cat. Deichtorhallen Hamburg i.a., Munich i.a. 1994, ill. p. 72 (mirrored)
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