Andreas Gursky - Schwimmbad/Teneriffa - image-1

Lot 663 D

Andreas Gursky - Schwimmbad/Teneriffa

Auction 1060 - overview Cologne
28.11.2015, 11:00 - Contemporary Art
Estimate: 16.000 € - 18.000 €
Result: 39.680 € (incl. premium)

Andreas Gursky

Schwimmbad/Teneriffa
1987

Chromogenic print on Kodak paper. 39.5 x 49.8 cm (40.4 x 50.7 cm). Matted and framed. Signed, dated, titled and editioned in pencil on the verso. Print 7 from an edition of 10.

In this early, still small-scale work by Andreas Gursky­- the artist only started making large-scale prints of his works when he began working with large format cameras and digital image processing at the end of the 1980s - the photographer's affinity for geometrically divided image structure and detailed structures paired with painterly colour scheme and a “romantic” view on sceneries already becomes apparent. This preference for distance to the picture's object typical to the artist is shown in the choice of a standpoint that is far away and high up. Bathing guests - in small groups or individuals - are crowded around the angular-shaped, turquoise blue pool on deck chairs in the low evening sun, minute, as if arisen from a world of toys. The chairs form a detailed structure reminiscent of a scattered flower décor on a light surface. The architectonically structured order of the spectacular hotel complex build-into the rocky slopes contrasts with the wild spray of the roaring sea portrayed in the upper third of the image, the people seemingly unaware of its threatening proximity.

Provenance

Galerie Ascan Crone, Hamburg; private collection, Northern Germany

Literature

Zdenek Felix (ed.), Andreas Gursky. Fotografien 1984-1993, exhib.cat. Deichtorhallen Hamburg et al., Munich et al. 1994, ill. p. 51