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Lot Essay
The simple geometry and elegant purity of Andreas Gursky's Prada II is a testimony to the influence of Minimalism both on Gursky's aesthetic and on commercial culture. The rigorous, unbroken rectangles and the cool flatness of the color scheme show Gursky's inheritance and promulgation of ideas from Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt and Agnes Martin. This work, more than others from this series successfully melds the basic tenets of photography, sculpture and painting-the inspiration is sculptural, the image is painterly, the medium to achieve this is photographic.
The Prada design motif is so architectural that Gursky is able to photograph the empty display shelves with the same straightforward point of view he uses when capturing his masterful architectural images--Paris, Montparnasse, 1993, Atlanta, 1996, and Times Square, 1997. Deeply buried within the subtext of Prada II is the notion that the high priests of fashion have, without the product, created a temple of ravishing beauty and desire.
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1992 Art c Donald Judd Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
The Prada design motif is so architectural that Gursky is able to photograph the empty display shelves with the same straightforward point of view he uses when capturing his masterful architectural images--Paris, Montparnasse, 1993, Atlanta, 1996, and Times Square, 1997. Deeply buried within the subtext of Prada II is the notion that the high priests of fashion have, without the product, created a temple of ravishing beauty and desire.
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1992 Art c Donald Judd Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY