interesting Gursky article

[lynnb]

Stefan Beyst has written an interesting essay on Andreas Gursky over on AmericansuburbX - you can read it here http://www.americansuburbx.com/2011/08/andreas-gursky-from-worlds-spirits-eye.html

(Andreas Gursky recently achieved a sale price of $4.3m for his photograph Rhein II)

 

[Neare]

From what I gathered from the article, it seems as if Stefan has gone to great lengths to undermine Gursky's work in general. People have this need to justify why a single work sold for that price even though the sale itself has no direct or barely any indirect influence to themselves. It's time to live and let live.

 

[x-ray]

A friend and I recently went to Atlanta and met Struth and the director of MOMA. The High Museum hosted a talk and exhibit of a half dozen of his images. After listening to both for an hour and viewing his prints and then personally talking with both I have to say both of us were totally unimpressed with Struth as a person and his images. My statements are personal opinion so they're worth what you payed for them but I dont think I have ever hears or seen such a load of BS in my life. The images were ordinary at best, amateur in execution and totally uninspiring. If he had given me a gift of one of his prints I would not hang it on my wall.

It has crossed my mind whether someone like Gurskys is a joke some curator has played on the art world. Is this a joke to see how much BS the public will take before they realize they've been conned. Is it a contest to see who can con more museum directors and wealthy buyers, Gurskys or Struth?

From what I've seen Gurskys work is no better. Again it's just one opinion.

 

[Turtle]

Despite being a tough read, I agree with most of what he says. I think he makes some solid points and explains them quite well all things considered. In fact, I think some of his points are so solid that it would be rather difficult to know how to respond to them.

 

[Richard G]

Thanks for posting this Lynn. I think Gursky is remarkable, and I am allergic to most modern art, chiefly because it is mostly rubbish. This piece by Beyst attends more to market price and status and implies that Gursky set out to conquer the world in just the way he has. This is to deny his artistic integrity. This looks like social analysis with a nasty ad hominem streak, the give away being the fatuous last paragraph.

 

[Pablito]

I am allergic to most modern art, chiefly because it is mostly rubbish.

Well now, THAT is enlightening!

 

[Out to Lunch]

Challenging and controversial... and very much worth reading! Many thanks for posting. For those who have not noted: inside the article, just underneath the Dubai photo, "Stefan Beyst" is click able and leads you to his own photographic work.

 

[250swb]

Here we go again, there's nothing like a good lynching.

I wonder how many times he can be lynched though, because sooner or later somebody is bound to ask the guy with the rope 'if you can do better than Gursky, lets see it'. Wouldn't that put a plug in the BS hole.

Steve

 

[paulfish4570]

i like the essay, understand it, and agree with much of what the author has to say. he could have used a good editor, though; the piece is about twice as long as it needs to be. 🙂

 

[paulfish4570]

thanks to you guys, i looked up some struth. his photos look banal to me, but i think that is the point. so, if you see art in the snapshot aesthetic, then struth might interest you.

 

[Turtle]

I think this is being unfair. Strong opinions are not the same thing as a lynching. Would you prefer that people did not express their views if they are critical?

There is a clear discussion here with points being made, rather than 'this is BS.. 'effing rubbish etc.'

Here we go again, there's nothing like a good lynching.

I wonder how many times he can be lynched though, because sooner or later somebody is bound to ask the guy with the rope 'if you can do better than Gursky, lets see it'. Wouldn't that put a plug in the BS hole.

Steve

 

[paulfish4570]

a struthian landscape:

 

[jsrockit]

Here we go again, there's nothing like a good lynching.

I wonder how many times he can be lynched though, because sooner or later somebody is bound to ask the guy with the rope 'if you can do better than Gursky, lets see it'. Wouldn't that put a plug in the BS hole.

Steve

Agreed. You don't have to like it, but you can still respect it on certain levels. So much hate for contemporary non-journalist photographers on this site. However, it is each individual's right to use the internet to do so.

 

[shadowfox]

"World Spirit" ???

After reading that, I have more respect on Mr. Gursky's works.
Sometimes a critique can backfire into a wealth of insight about the subject.

 

[I.G.I.]

Interesting essay, thanks for having pointed out at it.

 

[tunalegs]

Old thread. I still fail to see anything particularly interesting about Gursky's photo snaps, at least nothing I haven't seen in other photographers work. Maybe it's the sort of work you have to see in person to appreciate.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Old thread. I still fail to see anything particularly interesting about Gursky's photo snaps, at least nothing I haven't seen in other photographers work. Maybe it's the sort of work you have to see in person to appreciate.

It is.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Charlie Lemay]

When I began making seamless Photoshop collages in 1995, the criticism I kept encountering from curators was that being seamless was a problem They wanted to see the artifice of collage, more like what the Starn twins were doing in their analog work. Funny how things come around and the top curators and collectors in the world now see the "seamless" aspect as wonderful. As to content, my digital collages are political, and challenge the patriarchal status quo, so it is unlikely to gain acceptance in the art world any time soon. Given the supperficial content of the this highly regareded collage work, Photoshop's content aware tool is sure to spawn a legion of imitators.

 

[mfogiel]

I am not a fan of the so called conceptual photography in almost any form. Perhaps the maximum I could consider artistic would be an unfocused image, or a fork on a plate.
However, I think the more important element of the Gursky story, is the so called "Anchor effect".
When you step into a rug shop in an oriental bazaar and ask for a price, the seller will invariably begin with a price which seems far too high. However, he has planted his anchor... If he says 1000$, it is unlikely, you would try to bid with 50 cents - more likely with a few hundred $, even though the rug could actually be worth 5 or 10. It has been observed, that people could be influenced by an anchor number, if they have thought of one, even if unrelated to the value of the object they bid for.
This has been used many times in various stock price and art price manipulations. After all, if a stock XYZ was once bid 100$, at 50$ it starts looking like a bargain...
Therefore, if a banal photo by an uninspiring photographer has sold for 4.3 million USD, and someone offered you another one for 10.000 USD, it would seem a steal...

I have nothing against people using their freedom as they please, as long as this does not take my freedom away, hence, I am totally indifferent to this particular photo sale.

In a situation where my sense of value is attributing a price to an object, which is lower than what it sells for, I simply make no bid and live happy all the same.

 

[Peter_wrote:]

a struthian landscape:

i understand, when someone, looking at photographs of gursky, struth, becher, shore and many others, at first finds them banal.
i always appreciate it then, when someone posts a photo made by himself, of which he thinks it has the same substance.
nothing illustrates better the quality of gursky's or struth's photographs as the direct comparison with such a real snapshot.