Andreas Gursky
[Photographer, b. 1955, Leipzig, Germany, lives in Dusseldorf.]
[M]y pictures really are becoming increasingly formal and abstract. A visual structure appears to dominate the real events shown in my pictures. I subjugate the real situation to my artistic concept of the picture.
(1998) 
We are alone on this planet. It’s not a choice. Here we are. This is what everyone has to deal with.
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.
