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Lot Essay
An isolated pool of light and movement stranded in the midst of its dark surroundings, the National Assembly of Brazil appears reminiscent of a gladiator ring or an operating theatre. With his customary, almost scientific detachment, Gursky reveals the Brasilia Plenarsaal II within its black confines in the same way that lifting a rock can reveal a horde of milling creatures beneath it. This is an effect, a contrast between the wider world of mass human existence and the teeming world that we view through the microscope, that Gursky deliberately cultivates, and since 1992 he has edited, augmented and concentrated it through digital manipulation of his sources: "You never notice arbitrary details in my work. On a formal level, countless interrelated micro and macrostructures are woven together, determined by an overall organizational principle. A closed microcosm which, thanks to my distanced attitude towards my subject, allows the viewer to recognize the hinges that hold the system together" (Andreas Gursky, quoted in Lynne Cooke, 'Andreas Gursky: Visionary (Per)Versions', pp. 13-16, Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, ed. M.L. Syring, exh. cat., Munich 1998, p. 14).
The choice of subject matter here, with this isolated view of the National Assembly, implies a more human angle to its commentary, with the great and the good, the decision makers, of the vast nation of Brazil shown as a tiny and detached body, faintly ridiculous. At the sametime, the elliptical form of the building itself imposes a geometry on the scene, a sense of order, control and confinement that adds a grand yet strange revelatory power to the picture. Through his deft combination of super-crisp focus, cool detachment and formal composition, Gursky instructs us about man's place on the planet, lending a sense of the absurdity of our travails.
The choice of subject matter here, with this isolated view of the National Assembly, implies a more human angle to its commentary, with the great and the good, the decision makers, of the vast nation of Brazil shown as a tiny and detached body, faintly ridiculous. At the sametime, the elliptical form of the building itself imposes a geometry on the scene, a sense of order, control and confinement that adds a grand yet strange revelatory power to the picture. Through his deft combination of super-crisp focus, cool detachment and formal composition, Gursky instructs us about man's place on the planet, lending a sense of the absurdity of our travails.