Andreas Gursky (B. 1955)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE SWISS COLLECTION
Andreas Gursky (B. 1955)

Union Rave

Details
Andreas Gursky (B. 1955)
Union Rave
signed, titled, numbered and dated 'Union Rave 6/6 '95 A. Gursky' (on the reverse)
chromogenic colour print face-mounted to Plexiglas in artist's frame
image: 50 x 94in. (127 x 239cm.)
overall: 66½ x 110¼in. (169 x 280cm.)
Executed in 1995, this work is number six from an edition of six
Provenance
Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1996.
Literature
R. Rugoff, 'World Perfect. Ralph Rugoff on Andreas Gursky', in Frieze, Issue 43, November-December 1998, p. 57 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, pp. 54-55).
M. Krajewski, 'Kollektive Sehnsuchtsbilder. Andreas Gursky im Gespräch', in Kunst-Bulletin, May 1999, p. 11.
Exhibited
London, The Saatchi Gallery, Young German Artists 2 at the Saatchi Gallery, 1997 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, unpaged).
Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Andreas Gursky - Photograph from 1984 to the Present, 1998, p. 18 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, pp. 38-39).
Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1994-1998, 1998, pp. IX and XVIII (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, p. 67, and illustrated, p. XII). This exhibition later travelled to Winterthur, Fotomuseum Winterthur; London, Serpentine Gallery; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Turin, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and Lisbon, Centro Cultural de Belém.
Donaueschingen, Fürstenberg Sammlungen, Ahead of the 21st Century: The Pisces Collection, 2002-2004, p. 201, no. 58 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, p. 82).
Karlsruhe, Städtische Galerie, Coolhunters: Jugendkulturen zwischen Medien und Markt Youth Cultures between Media and the Market, 2005 (another from the edition exhibited, installation view illustrated in colour, unpaged). This exhibition later travelled to Budapest, Kunsthalle Budapest.
Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Through the Looking Brain: A Swiss Collection of Conceptual Photography, 2011-2012, p. 214 (illustrated in colour, pp. 98-99). This exhibition later travelled to St. Gallen, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen.
San Francisco, De Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection, 2012, p. 132, no. 54 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, unpaged).
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.
Sale room notice
Please note that the correct medium for this work is chromogenic colour print back-mounted to Plexiglas in artist's frame

Brought to you by

Alexandra Werner
Alexandra Werner

Lot Essay

Another work from this edition is in Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.



'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see'
(A.Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).

'Andreas Gursky's best pictures of the past decade knock your socks off, and they're meant to. They're big, bold, full of color, and full of surprises. As each delivers its punch, the viewer is already wondering where it came from - and will continue to enjoy the seduction of surprise long after scrutinizing the picture in detail'
(P. Galassi, Andreas Gursky, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 9)



The first of Andreas Gursky's celebrated rave works, Union Rave, 1995, is a vast and awe-inspiring photograph, spanning over two metres in width. Capturing a moment of collective fever pitch, the rave works demonstrate the organizing capacity of our social environment. Perhaps more than any other works from the 1990s, Gursky's rave images have come to symbolize the abundant, expansive moment, when technology was the unifying structure of the world. Gursky's world view at this time is emblematic of a time when globalization as a term came to mean something concrete and universally agreed upon. An observation into the subversive rave scene which came into prominence in the early 1990s, the anti-establishment 'house party' became the alternative entertainment for youths in the wake of the major economic recession. From this point, Gursky would go on to create a number of rave works including his celebrated May Day series begun in 1997, and the Cocoon series in the 2000s. A key early work, Union Rave conceptually informs his entire practice, which he continues to create to this day.

In Union Rave Gursky offers a staggering aerial panorama of a sea of revellers, dancing to the sound of some inaudible beat. Gursky condenses the human experience of the rave in a perfectly stage-like picture plane, eliminating any discernible eye or point of view of the photographer. A split-second captured, forever frozen in time, Union Rave fluctuates between intoxicating detail and abstraction: the outstretched arms and beaded brows of the festival goers proliferating across the composition until they melt away into a morass of undulating shapes and colours. Further iterations of this photograph are in the collection of Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.

Executed with striking clarity, the intricate details of the epic panorama with its captivating monumentality induce a sublime effect: the densely crystallised details cohere when seen through Gursky's omniscient vantage-point. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on the spectacular debauchery, magnified in breath-taking scale. The fluid ordering of discord reveals an underlying formal regularity, stemming from the artist's deep appreciation of art historical narratives and photographic reference. This joyous explosion of structured colour and energy distinguishes Union Rave as the artist's most arresting rave work.

An exploration which began in the 1990s, Gursky has articulated his vision by magnifying large crowds in contained spaces. A spectacle of the everyday, Union Rave encapsulates the pace and mood of the German underground at this time. Frozen in a state of ecstasy, the revellers here seem impervious to the capitalist system crumbling around them. Just as Hieronymous Bosch depicted the revelries in the 15th Century in The Garden of Earthly Delights, here the spectacular debauchery is transformed, magnified in breath-taking scale. Gursky's viewpoint immediately makes us aware that we are the outsiders looking in on a very private feast, the enhanced pixilation of the image inviting close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allowing multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined figures.

Through this compositional arrangement of colour and form, Gursky, the technical puppet master, brilliantly creates order from chaos and imparts a harmony to this otherwise hectic situation. Enhanced by his compositional structure, the camera's high vantage point creates a sense of separation and alienation, what has been referred to as Gursky's 'God-like view'. As Gursky once explained, 'the camera's enormous distance from these figures means they become de-individualized so I am never interested in the individual but in the human species and its environment' (A. Gursky, quoted in V. Gomer, 'I generally let things develop slowly', partially reproduced at [www.postmedia.net], accessed 12th September 2013). Orchestrating this composition, Gursky transforms the documentary nature of the photograph into a beautifully curated ceremony. Intentionally cropping the focal point, Gursky elevates the masses to the point of attention; transforming the figures into a unified whole framed within a transcendent vision. The dancers hold their hands outstretched in unison, as if in contemporary prayer to a higher being in the new cathedrals of modern day religion. Transforming the chaotic into the sublime, Gursky unifies the mass; enraptured by the music they appear synchronized, impart a rhythmic quality and a magnificent sense of movement onto an otherwise detached crowd. The heightened grain structure on the surface of the photograph enhances the vibrant colours of the figures, creating chromatic links across the expansive horizon. The refinement of chaos here through the compositional arrangement of colour and form recalls the rhythmic atmosphere and meditation of Jackson Pollock's action paintings. Speaking of this effect, Gursky stated, 'I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world. I just record what I see' (A. Gursky, quoted in interview with C. Squiers, 'Concrete Reality', Ruhr Works, September 1988, p. 29).

Originally taught by Bernd Becher at the Künstakademie in Dusseldorf, Gursky has often been associated with a documentary style of photography. However his work makes a fundamental departure with its brilliant use of colour and large-format imagery. Indeed, faced with what he considered to be the fundamental inadequacies of the documentary practice, Gursky was persuaded in 1992 to begin using digital technology as a means of manipulation. The enhanced pixilation of the image invites close examination of each figure regardless of their distance, and allows multiple narratives to evolve from the crisply defined scene. In doing so, the artist skillfully generated an 'illusion of a fictitious reality', throwing into question the veracity of the image as it fluctuates between reality and an artificial reframing of the world (R. Pfab, 'Perception and Communication: Thoughts on New Motifs by Andreas Gursky', M.L. Syring (ed.), Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf 1998, p. 9).

More from Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction

View All
View All