Musée Magazine Issue No. 19 - Power | Page 10

aisles filled with shelves of stuff. The objectivity and commodity of Gursky’s imagery has always been
as significant as the implication of the planet. Humanity’s consumption is possessed in the desire to
touch all of these brilliant different colors and forms; vacuums and irons, clocks and coffee machines,
pillars of packages and all sorts of odds and ends—so wonderfully placed—frozen in pose begging for
thoughtful inspection. It’s interesting how scale plays on time, waiting and looking is so pivotal when
trying to see the bigger picture.
Perception is variant and personal, but it is inescapably only one part of reality. Off in the distance
of Gursky’s image El Ejido, 2017 there’s a whole unseen world of lives living, working, breathing,
feeding, and growing. The foreground cluttered with garbage suggests so many inquires about what
this place is and how the families and farmers who inhabit this Spanish municipality interact with
the land. Can the bigness of these works invite the welcoming comfort of humanism? Perhaps the
litter isn’t from the people who live there at all. What looks like plastic bags blowing in the wind are
just passersby, moving down the road—same as the dots of birds breezing through the sky off in the
distance. The small elements are important signifiers to the bigness of the sky and the long white roofs
of the El Ejido greenhouses. These ideals of bigger picture and parts that could go easily missed are
echoed in the image Pyongyang VII, 2017 (2007). Here a huge lit globe sits on top of a dotted floral pat-
tern; each stick like looking dot is a person, the conglomerate of so many working together in perfect
choreography. Who are these people? What could they possibly be thinking at that exact moment? It
takes a good amount of measurement and sequence to build a thing, and so much patience and joy
to capture it, to look at it, to wonder and read about it. The space of that time is rich and desirable; it
leaves room for eyes to seek out answers, or to rest. The subjects and focus of Gursky’s photographs
dictate their bigness.
In the world of photography everyone wants a big photograph, a huge print with the most exquisite
details. There is an endless onslaught for artists to be printing BIGGER! If this push is in some way
with the hope of a response, or competition, with the scale of painting, Gursky puts this debate to bed.
The necessity of size in art is like the necessity of how much food one puts on their plate. How hungry
am I? Is that much necessary? Does it make sense to consume so much? Considerable proportions can pack
in loads of information; the nature of Gursky is about establishing expansive networks of knowledge.
It makes absolute sense that the size and representation of his objects would reflect the magnitude of
the things he’s photographing. Scale has got to be about making sense; otherwise it’s just decadence.
Gursky holds true to the nature of things; that’s not to say that photography, especially not his, is hon-
est. True in the way that the objects Gursky makes mimic the way he sees things he photographs out in
the world. Maybe they’re windows; maybe they’re more removed and less specific, edging on abstract.
That play of intention is left open to viewers to fill in the gaps. There is the promise of the personal in
these works. Standing in front of one of these photographs you address it the same way you would
another person in everyday conversation.
I remember the second Gursky photograph I ever saw, Rhine II, 1999. I wrote a paper about it in col-
lege. This was long before I knew anything about art history or minimalism or the digital manipula-
tion of photographs. It was my sophomore year and I just knew that I liked it. There’s something
to be said for such intoxication from a piece of art. The reactive connectivity of that feeling presents
itself as if it were the size of a surprise box tied with string. It comes in small waves. It struck me
just as hard as that first Gursky I saw because I could tell there was something based in reality, but
somehow something in the frame of the image was missing or removed. It may be worth noting for
some that a lot of Gursky’s images are highly digitally manipulated; that’s just a fact and viewers
can judge that as they like. Point being that even without having been told my eye knew that there
was more going on than simply what was in front of me. The answers are always in the image. The
scale and play on reality translates visually in Gursky’s work. It often can feel like a whisper. The
picture is bigger than the sound and it always has a way of letting you know the answers you need.
Letting yourself take the time is important. The inertia of such monumental subject matter and work
can be alienating; it can feel like it is out to swallow you, but it’s not meant to be out of control. The
consuming sensation can envelop. In this way two things become one, a part of each other. A Gursky
is a kind of doorway—a momentous temple—walk in, dance around. It allows viewers to realize that
there is so much inside.
Andreas Gursky, Pyongyang VII 2007/2017 © Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017.
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