PHOTO: Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky stands out as one of the most important photographers of his generation. His monumentally scaled works have redefined the medium in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, capturing the circumstances of modern-day life in condensed form. Interested in the workings of globalization, consumerism, and social phenomena as they relate to society, Gursky investigates the realities of our changing planet.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Archive
Andreas Gursky presents four photographs in Paris: two new, one recent, and one from the beginning of his career in 1980. Gursky’s photographs evoke the global flow of information, the chaos of contemporary life competing with the classical desire for order. He portrays the visual extremes of the present with objectivity, capturing built and natural environments on a grand scale in richly detailed images comparable to early nineteenth-century landscape paintings. Many have been digitally manipulated, and reveal a sensitivity to the damaging effects of human systems on the natural world. At the center of the exhibition is “Paris, Montparnasse II” (2025). Here, Gursky reengages with one of his most significant photographic investigations more than three decades after its original iteration. Produced in 1993, “Paris, Montparnasse” remains one of Gursky’s most recognizable works, detailing a contemporary structure with a precision that reshaped photography. “In Paris, Montparnasse I”I, Gursky reexamines this image, tracing the changes time has inscribed on the architecture and its occupants. He has altered the composition digitally, integrating subtle shifts in habitation, usage, and character. As with “Rhein II” (1999) and “Rhein III” (2018), or “Aletschgletscher” (1993) and “Aletschgletscher II: (2024), the project presents a critical continuation of a past subject, emphasizing the passage of time and the transformation of the landscape. “Paris, Montparnasse II” is juxtaposed with “Gasherd” (1980); a new work, “Elektroherd” (2025); and one other recent picture, “Malediven” (2023). The selection of works offers an opportunity to trace Gursky’s influence on photography’s relationship to time, space, and human experience while underscoring the historical character of the exhibition and its central image. “Gasherd”, one of the artist’s first official photographs, depicts a basic gas stove in the Düsseldorf apartment he shared as a student. The shot of a familiar appliance directs the viewer’s attention to everyday details, suggesting the influence of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gursky’s teachers at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. “Elektroherd” functions as a contemporary extension of and counterpart to this historical image, picturing an electric induction stove in the artist’s current kitchen—a knowing update that also offers a glimpse into his private life. “Malediven”, by contrast, is highly atmospheric. Another bold composition, but one focused instead on an aspect of the natural world, it depicts a cloudy night sky illuminated dramatically by a bright central moon. The work recalls a prevalent theme in German Romanticism and reflects on the interdependence of the environment and human society, a key motif in Gursky’s oeuvre.
Photo: Andreas Gursky, Paris, Montparnasse II, 2025 (four details), Inkjet print, Diasec, framed: 85 ⅞ × 199 ⅝ × 2 ⅝ inches (218 × 507 × 6.7 cm), edition of 6, © Andreas Gursky/ADAGP, Paris, 2025, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Info: Gagosian, 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris, France, Duration: 5/6-30/8/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:30-18:30, https://gagosian.com/
