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193

ANDREAS GURSKY (German, b. 1955) PARIS, CENTRE POMPIDOU editioned, dated and signed

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ANDREAS GURSKY (German, b. 1955) PARIS, CENTRE POMPIDOU editioned, dated and signed
ANDREAS GURSKY (German, b. 1955) PARIS, CENTRE POMPIDOU editioned, dated and signed "XII/XXV, 10/'95, A. Gursky" in pencil on verso chromogenic color print 19 11/16 x 24 7/16 in. (50 x 62 cm) October 1995 this print is the 12th artist's proof from a group of 25 (plus an edition of 60) PROVENANCE Private Collection, GERMANY LITERATURE Greg Hilty and Lewis Biggs, ANDREAS GURSKY: IMAGES, LONDON, 1995, p. 13 (illustrated) "Where Gursky's portrayals of the outside of buildings seem to accentuate their surface, and to contain their three-dimensional presence within the confines of the picture plane, his views of interiors, by contrast, tend to allow a recession into deep space" (Hilty, p. 40). Greg Hilty is commenting on the classic conditions of perspective that this image seems to address, as the rows of fluorescent lights recede deep into the photograph. But the entirety of the image is shot with equal focus, diminishing this grand sense of space and asserting a flat picture plane. It is the interchange of the stratified horizontals and verticals that disperses our eye throughout the image. While the Centre Pompidou is identified in the title, there is little indication that we are observing a major cultural center. The art lays flat, but the viewpoint only hints that there is something on the table and the figures are not bending over, inspecting only white tabletops. This hint pulls you in even closer to scrutinize the image in a similar fashion as the people depicted, and we realize these are architectural drawings, making sense of those oddly placed modernist models dispersed throughout the space. The environment seems almost sterile and extremely institutional, far from a representation of a building meant to celebrate culture and humanity. Gursky's father was a commercial photographer, so the artist was well-acquainted with the super-saturated palettes of the commercial photograph. He studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs are tightly controlled and all elements of humanity seem to disappear. It is with the use of these bold colors and a reductive, rationalist clarity that Gursky creates this puzzling and amazing environment.
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