Andreas Gursky
[Photographer, b. 1955, Leipzig, Germany, lives in Dusseldorf.]
Since the photographic medium has been digitized, a fixed definition of the term “photography” has become impossible.
In retrospect I can see that my desire to create abstractions has become more and more radical. Art should not be delivering a report on reality, but should be looking at what’s behind something.
A word is worth a thousand images.
I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world.
My preference for clear structures [within my photographic practice] is the result of my desire, perhaps illusory, to keep track of things and maintain my grip on the world.
I read a picture not for what’s really going on there, I read it more for what is going on in our world generally.
Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine cannot be obtained
in situ; a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river.
(On his photograph Rhein II
)
I believe that there’s also a certain form of abstraction in my early landscapes: for example, I often show human figures from behind and thus the landscape as observed “through” a second lens.
