Gursky at The Hayward

[LukeBanks]

I finally found time to visit the Gursky exhibition at The Hayward on Southbank last night, and it is a very well curated retrospective of his work. It was a nice surprise to see just how good a collection of his prints that they had managed to amass for the show. Considering the extreme rarity of his large scale works, and the prices that they can command from private collectors, I was almost expecting some of the more influential images to be missing. All credit to the curators and organisers of the show as they have clearly worked very hard to ensure that the most important works were present (including those such as Rhine, Pyongyang, Prada, 99cents etc).

There was one image missing from the show. A few years ago I worked for an art gallery who's owner and patron was an avid private collector. During my time working there he paid a considerable sum for a large Gursky print to be hung behind his desk in his office. Unfortunately the framed print was so big that it was impossible to get it in to the building through doors and windows. No problem he said. A few hours later and a team of builders had successfully knocked a large whole through the 2nd floor outside wall of his office. Soon after that the image was winched in, hung as intended, and the wall rebuilt. I guess removing the image again wasn't an option after the effort of getting it in in the first place..

I'd highly recommend the show to anybody in London who hasn't yet seen it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Certainly the only way to appreciate Gursky is to see originals: it's hard, verging on impossible, to appreciate them in reproduction or on a computer screen. I've only ever seen two or three but if I could I'd certainly make the effort to go to the Hayward.

Cheers,

R.

 

[LukeBanks]

I wholeheartedly agree.

His work simply cannot be appreciated unless seen in its intended large scale form. The 1960's Dusseldorf graduates (Gursky, Ruff, Struth etc) are of huge importance to my photographic practice so any chance to see their originals is a real pleasure and privilege. Unfortunately, for us, they were all acutely aware of the value of the single image and are therefore increasingly difficult to see in the flesh. This Gursky show is certainly on a par with Thomas Struth at Whitechapel Gallery a few years ago in terms of the depth of work collected in order to curate a detailed retrospective.

It's good to have you back Roger. All the best to yourself and Frances at this incredibly difficult time.