Andreas Gursky

Exhibition Catalogue, Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1984 bis heute, 1998, p. 73, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum; Winterthur, Fotomuseum; London, Serpentine Gallery; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Turin, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea; Lisbon, Centro Cultural de Belém, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1994-1998, 1998-2000, pp. 72-73, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Andreas Gursky, 2001, p. 120, no. 32, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Donaueschingen, Fürstenberg Sammlungen, Ahead of the 21st Century: The Pisces Collection, 2002-2003, p. 83, no. 59, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, Haus der Kunst, Andreas Gursky, 2007, p. 109, illustration of another example in colour

"Behind Gursky's taste for the imposing clarity of unbroken parallel forms spanning a slender rectangle lies a rich inheritance of reductive aesthetics, from Friedrich to Newman to Richter to Donald Judd." Peter Galassi, 'Gursky's World' in Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Andreas Gursky, 2001, p. 35

One of only a handful of works from the 1990s selected by the artist for his recent museum show at the Munich Haus der Kunst, Hong Kong, Shanghai Bank is a major work bearing all the hallmarks of Andreas Gursky's mature style. One of Bernd and Hilla Becker's most celebrated students and the leading light of a new generation that has come to define the lexis and praxis of contemporary photography, Gursky here continues his mentors' practice of portraying quotidian industrial buildings. However, whereas the Beckers without exception used strictly frontal and ground-based vantage points in their typologies of pre-Nazi industrial buildings, Gursky reaches back into art history, presenting his motif from an elevated viewpoint that offers glimpses of the cityscape behind it. His traditional large format camera provides a rich tapestry of detail, a present day equivalent to the broad Venetian cityscapes of Canaletto.

In this gigantic photograph of Norman Foster's HSBC building in Hong Kong, Gursky has departed from the conventional modes of architectural photography, such as the upwards perspective that would emphasise its monumentality, or the raking daylight that would crisply delineate every detail of the building's impressive façade. Instead, by cropping his image at the top and bottom and photographing it at night, Gursky tells a very different story about this architectural landmark. While the towering scale of Gursky's image still conveys the totemic grandeur of the original, by photographing it at night, the normally reflective mirrored-glass windows are now illuminated from within, betraying the busy inner life of the building and the myriad employees industriously working through the night.

Shadowed in darkness, the complex details of the façade and Foster's legendary exoskeleton recede from view and a stricter architectural regularity emerges. Resembling the minimalist aesthetic purity of a Donald Judd 'stack', the building is vertically organised by equally sized sections of illuminated bands of light. Each section is punctuated by the copper-red glow that emanates from three atria at regular intervals, creating a sense of progression throughout the composition. By cropping the top of the edifice, Gursky gives the impression that the structure could reiterate ad infinitum, a towering monument to human engineering and the success of big business.

The scale and incredible detail of Gursky's images invite the viewer to closely scrutinise their surfaces. Assuming a godlike vantage point, Gursky's candid eye forces us to look on our own world from an entirely new perspective. The closer we look at Hong Kong, Shanghai Bank, the more we see the minute workers in this anthill of human life, as if we are looking at them through a microscopic lens with the dispassionate empiricism of science. Each compartmentalised, these individuals are dehumanised and regimented into identical cells. In Gursky's vision, familiar scenes of office workers in open plan environments are rendered strangely foreign, forcing a critical reappraisal of the spatial organisation of our everyday lives. As we peer into this microcosm of society, we are increasingly aware of the chaos concealed within the ostensibly ordered exterior. The blurred movement of the building's inhabitants as they go about their mundane tasks destabilises the stoic architectural might and grandeur of the elegant skyscraper. Moreover, when we really look closely, the occasional untidy desks, strewn with paper and files, and row upon row of illegible computer screens conjure allusions not to a totem of industry but to a Tower of Babel.

Exploring in such striking clarity and detail many of the themes that continue to resurface in Gursky's most recent body of work, Hong Kong, Shanghai Bank compels the viewer to reflect upon the frequently overlooked patterns imposed upon our lives by the shackles of the architectural spaces that we construct and choose to inhabit.