tableau

https://www.andreasgursky.com/en/works/2017/pyongyang-vi-vii/pyongyang-vii

Tableau is used to describe a painting or photograph in which characters are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect and appear absorbed and completely unaware of the existence of the viewer- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/t/tableau

photography as a way of highlighting the Weird or creating it. within Gursky’s work, this is often scenarios and everyday rituals we do not always notice (supermarkets, offices). the above image is from ‘Pyongyang Series’, 2007- this is a city in north korea where the arirang mass games are held each year. the 1000 people that participate rely on the group dynamic to make a ‘bigger picture’ and relay a narrative. gursky freezes this so what we see is an always-moving awesome event reduced to its colour and pattern; people become blobs of paint/lines/other shapes that are not human (evident in other works as well).

https://www.andreasgursky.com/en/works/2016/amazon

process of photography. gursky manipulates photographs to get the desired idea/response, placing control onto the work like you would a painting. this makes the above piece more realistic of the current times of consumerism but we could also locate a trust issue within photography as a medium and its manipulation of it.

Christies- Andreas Gursky- ‘i pursue one goal-the encyclopaedia of life’- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duJQMdSbsBw

this video addresses the manipulation of the above photograph as having a ‘supernatural clarity to it- but at the same time he is showing you whats really there’, this is because of ‘an image the human eye would register if you were standing there’. through taking close ups of the scene, gursky creates an impossible image that is being both tricking and truthful simultaneously. there is too much information within the image that we skim over quickly, trying to grasp at a centre, and cannot fully take it in at once.