Andreas Gursky

Sprüth Magers, Cologne
Private Collection, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner 

Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Andreas Gursky, February - April 2002, pp. 56-57, illustrated in color (another example illustrated)
Kunstmuseen Krefeld; Stockholm, Moderna Museet; Vancouver Art Gallery, Andreas Gursky. Werke - Works 80 - 08, October 2008 - January 2009, pp. 188-189, illustrated in color (another example illustrated)

This work is in excellent condition overall. Upon close inspection and under certain raking light, there is evidence of faint smudges and scattered faint surface scratches throughout the surface of the Plexiglas. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Avenue of the Americas In Avenue of the Americas (2001), Gursky straddles between Modernist and Minimalist geometry. By pushing the boundaries of photography, Gursky articulates his message through the language of painting and sculpture. What was once an illuminated high-rise building in Manhattan is instead transformed into a post-cubist minimalist grid, in which the photograph no longer resembles the location. Instead, Gursky presents a self-contained grid by manipulating the photograph’s field of depth and cropping the planar image, such that the coordinates of the building dissolve into a uniform image of brilliant lights. In the process, Gursky crops the image into a rhythmic pattern of illuminated windows, presenting a splendidly illuminated painted through light.

“I am never interested in the individual, but in the human species and its environment,” Gurksy once declared. The work exemplifies the artist’s desire to alienate his work from the sensibilities of the individual, instead forcing them into a macrocosmic observation of reality. His interest thus ultimately lies in the symbolic aspect of structures, and of society itself; such that, in this case, what was once a skyscraper in Manhattan, is now a physical representation of the industrialising world. The individual instead dissolves silently and unnoticed in his panoramic vision of urban sprawl, still behind the vitrines of the artist’s erected superstructures of global capitalism, infrastructure and industrialisation.

Largely influenced by the works of conceptual artists such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, who recorded architectural relics in the industrial age, Gursky applies the same systematic approach to his work, instead recording the capitalistic advances of our time through images of consumption, finance, material production, infrastructure and entertainment. He manipulates his images in order emphasise the emblematic structures of society, and presents them in such a monumental scale that the images themselves become a democratic perspective.

An important oeuvre for Gursky, an edition of Avenue of the Americas was featured in his solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2002, in the travelling retrospective Andreas Gursky. Werke - Works 80 – 08 at the Kunstmuseum Krefeld, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and in the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2009.