Emulation

Andreas Gursky was born in Leipzig, Germany in January 1955. He was the only child of Willy and Rosemarie Gursky. Both his father and grandfather were commercial photographers. The three moved from East Germany to the West in Essen the same year Andreas was born. He graduated from high school in 1975. After graduating, he avoided military service instead working for 18 months as a health-care assistant. In 1977 he applied with a friend to the Folkwangschule, a great school for photography. In either 1979 or 1980 he created a portfolio and went to Hamburg to seek work as a photojournalist. After failing at this, his friend suggested that he apply to the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. He began attending school there in the Fall of 1980. He studied for six years under Bernd Becher until he was awarded the title of meisterschuler (Master student) in 1987. That same year, Gursky held his first exhibition at the Dusseldorf airport.

Gursky’s first exhibition was approved in 1987, to be held at the Dusseldorf airport. He displayed a series of photos involving security personnel on the job at corporate office buildings. In Germany, these security employees work in pairs to allow them to look out for one another. Gursky found it humorous that these guards were guarding each other, which added to the appeal of his work. On the look out for something new, Gursky was interested in people as they partook in leisurely activities such as playing sports, taking a walk, sunbathing, bike riding, etc. These new photographs would be called Sonntagsbilder (Sunday pictures). It was around this time that artists were starting to use color photographs, as Gursky did.

When vacationing in Switzerland in 1984, Gursky photographed Klausenpass mountain range. He didn’t suspect it at the time, but this photo would be considered his first mature work. It was not until six months later that he noticed several small figures of hikers scattered among the base of the mountain. This random compilation of antlike figures made the photograph the great piece of work that it is. He got the feeling of an omnipresent eye watching over clueless people at leisure. His next series would consist of pictures of unsuspecting people taken from a detached location.

In the late 1980s, the most significant change was reducing the groups of tiny looking people to just one person or a few. This created a more personal relationship between the viewer and the picture subjects. These new photos had a romantic aura about them. One great example of this is his picture of a large open area that has a large bridge running across the top of the picture. Under the bridge, there is just one man who proportionally looks very small.

In 1990 a newspaper photograph of the Tokyo stock exchange influenced his new pattern of work. He decided to emulate what he saw. He liked getting inspiration from the media as opposed to what he sees in real life. One year later, he altered his first picture using the computer with the retouching tool. It was called “Restaurant, St. Moritz.” In 1993 he developed a new series of photos. They were pictures that contained little more than one large building spanning most of the frame. One example of such photos displays a big apartment building in Paris, which was his largest so far. That same year he created “Autobahn”, which had a horizontal and vertical structure close to the camera, and much more beyond it. A similar photo called “Happy Valley I” was made in 1995.

Finally, in 1994 he made a truly beautiful photograph called “Sha Tin.” This picture appears to have many different sections, separated in horizontal layers. As it moves further toward the background, horizontal sections include masses of people, the road, and the mountain range. Each section has its own unique color and beauty. Some might even wonder if he used a computer to clean up certain parts or improve the picture in any way.

These are my five emulation photos: