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Andreas Gursky Cocoon II 2008 Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin / London © Andreas Gursky / SODRAC 2009 |
His description of this existential condition is what he calls an “aggregate state,” a term used in the social sciences for a whole made up of smaller units. It is important to him, then, that his pictures, which combine reality and fiction, remain firmly tied to reality. “Even if a picture is completely invented or built, it’s necessary that you could imagine that it’s a realistic location or place. I am not happy if the picture looks completely surreal. Even if I am working with montage, I want that you don’t see it.”
The desert racecar track in Bahrain I is concrete on which a new course is painted for a different race every weekend. “This is why there are so many streets and it looks so bizarre,” Gursky says. “So it’s not, and this is very important, an invention of mine, it’s an invention of reality.” At the same time, the big picture, which Gursky shot from a helicopter, is a montage. “I fly in the helicopter for maybe two hours over the racetrack and shoot from different perspectives, so the middle of the picture is one shot, and then because of questions of composition, I make some changes and it makes a picture.”
Gursky has a large archive to draw upon for imagery, which he has culled from sources like newspapers, magazines and the Internet. “I collect images which surround us and, from time to time, I check all the images and then, because it is difficult to make a decision—because I don’t have the time or energy to follow everything that seems interesting—it’s a gamble to say okay, this project, I think we should start doing research on it.” He took a large-format camera with him to Vancouver, in case he saw something interesting, but said he probably would not use it because he no longer works this way when he travels.
“Normally, the way I work is that I’m doing research in the media, I find my location, do further research and then I’m asking for permissions. Then I travel to this place and I’m doing my work. I think I’m a very slow worker, so I focus on one picture and the background of the original idea for why I choose this location or this space is always a reference to a picture that I did before, but then I change the content a bit.”
The most recent big pictures in the exhibition are complete constructions made of many photographs taken in one or more locales, in some cases to create a narrative. Hamm, Bergwerk, Ost represents the “black room” at a coal mine near Düsseldorf where miners hoist their soiled work clothes and gear up to the ceiling on pulleys before going into the “white room,” where they put on their street clothes. The black room recalls the interior of a huge bat cave. It is a habitat that appears more animal than human. Gursky built the image from several photographs to present a close-up view of the suspended clothing that is true to the situation. “The whole picture is built,” he says, “but in a way that if you enter the space, it looks very similar.”
Hamm, Bergwerk, Ost and Frankfurt, a big picture of Frankfurt airport that shows migrants headed to the gates under a whole day’s worth of arrivals and departures on a huge board, indicates a new approach in Gursky’s work to social and geopolitical issues. These pictures, even in the representation of absent miners, take a closer look at people who can be recognized as individuals, as does the remarkable Cocoon II, in which there are a thousand people dancing. Gursky has an interest in electronic music and has photographed concerts and raves for more than a decade. The Cocoon Club, located in Frankfurt, is a famous nightclub designed by his friend, DJ Sven Väth. The Cocoon photographs, of which there are five, mark an unusual emphasis on one subject and the entry of personal references into Gursky’s work.
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