Collection of Martin Z. Margulies, Miami
Lot 17
Andreas Gursky(B. 1955)Centre Pompidou, 1995
15 February 2020, 12:00 PST
Los AngelesUS$100,000 - US$150,000
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Andreas Gursky (B. 1955)
Centre Pompidou, 1995
signed, inscribed, titled, numbered and dated 'A. Gursky Paris, Centre Pompidou 1/2 1995' (on the reverse)
chromogenic print in artist's frame
40 x 76 3/8 in.
101.6 x 194 cm.
This work is number one from the edition of two.
signed, inscribed, titled, numbered and dated 'A. Gursky Paris, Centre Pompidou 1/2 1995' (on the reverse)
chromogenic print in artist's frame
40 x 76 3/8 in.
101.6 x 194 cm.
This work is number one from the edition of two.
Footnotes
Provenance
London Projects, London
Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris
Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne
Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Literature
Andreas Gursky and Uta Grosenick, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1994-1998, Wolfsburg 1998, p. 51
Ralf Beil and Sonja Fessel, Andreas Gursky's Architecture, Ostfildern 2008, p. 6
Andreas Gursky, Andreas Gursky: Images, London 1995, p. 13
Andreas Gursky and Martin Hentschel, Andreas Gursky: Works 80-08, Ostfildern 2011, p. 141
Andreas Gursky studied photography under Bernd and Hilla Becher in the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1981-1986, alongside Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer. While the Bechers used a standardized, documentary style to underscore the commonality inherent in variation, Gursky's practice has expanded the idea of the photographic document by using digital manipulation and montage to record specific scenes, moments, and events. Gursky's works fall within several broad themes, including work, leisure, landscape and architecture. His works from the early 1990s depict factories, stock exchanges, airports, golf courses, highways, and buildings, often from aerial viewpoints that reveal the patterns of crowds and infrastructure.
Centre Pompidou mimics a series of photographs of factories that Gursky produced in the 1990s that highlighted the unique beauty of the forms and patterns of industrial machinery. The industrial architecture of the Centre Pompidou, Paris with its exposed fittings recalls a factory interior. Depicted is the mezzanine exhibition hall of the museum during an exhibition of the work of architects Herzog & de Meuron, the architects of Tate Modern, in 1995. The Herzog & de Meuron exhibition, designed by Swiss artist Remy Zaugg, is composed of simple, utilitarian forms reminiscent of a production line. The exhibition visitors peer over the long display table, like the workers in Gursky's factory photographs on an assembly line. The people looking at the material are, as is usual in Gursky's work, not engaged with the viewer. The horizontal grid of the trestle tables and strip lighting above in Centre Pompidou, reflects the structures of modern life back to the viewer.
Although Centre Pompidou was produced on a much smaller scale, in an edition of sixty for Parkett, the present lot is one of only two works produced in this larger size, 40 x 76 3/8 in. This image also relates to other photographs by Gursky taken in museums and galleries, including Untitled VI, 1997, a photograph of One (Number 31, 1950), 1950 by Jackson Pollock at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Centre Pompidou is unique in Gursky's depiction of art museums in that it includes visitors in a gallery space. In this respect it resembles photographs of museum-goers by his contemporary Thomas Struth.
