Andreas Gursky, Hayward Gallery

It’s busy in the Gursky exhibition. We jostle for position in front of the art on display in the newly refurbished Hayward Gallery and play our part in creating the type of interactions that Gursky so likes to photograph. It’s all there – people pointing, taking selfies or standing still in total absorption with the images. The architecture of the Hayward is the perfect frame for such a scene.

Gursky is fascinated by people and their interplay with their environment. By using what he describes as his ‘God’s eye view’ he creates photographs that illustrate the patterns and complexities that occur as we move through life and how beautiful these arrangements can be.

When we enter the exhibition we are greeted with Gursky’s early works, many of which display his early fascination for observing and depicting people. In his Sunday Pictures of the 1980s we see people enjoying their leisure time at the Ratingen Swimming Pool, playing football, watching the planes at Dusseldorf Airport. However, in contrast, some of his early photography was minimalistic in form – for example his images of his gas cooker and grey carpet.

Salerno I, created in 1990 is where the trademark Gursky style begins to show. Gursky acknowledged that he had revealed a unique quality through the image and has since described it as “an important piece for me, a turning point”. We can see those trademark Gursky stylistic points in this photograph – the grand scale and the sharp level of detail. Although we can’t see people within the photograph we can see the way they have shaped and altered the environment, we can see their footprints everywhere. This is a key element in Gursky’s work. Even when people aren’t present we are still aware that what we are observing is still concerned with the human element.

As well as locations, a broad range of activities are depicted in Gursky’s art - from open air raves to the financial trading floors. The subject matter, however, remains the same - people and their interaction with their environments. We can see this played out through the ‘arms in the air’ euphoria of a music festival, and in the hectic, busy pace of the Chicargo Board of Trade. It is the scale and detail of the photographs that create such an overwhelming impression. Look at all the people dancing in May Day IV it looks like a never ending sea of people, all dancing with liberated freedom – but yet all expressing their freedom in exactly the same way. Look at the hive of activity of the trading floor, there is almost too much to see and process.

Seeing Gursky’s art displayed in magazines or online only provides us with a glimpse of the power and the impact of his photographs. The huge size (many images are well over 10 feet) can only really be appreciated by seeing the work on the scale intended. In addition, much of the detail included in the photographs can be lost when reproduced on smaller scales. Therefore this exhibition provides a valuable opportunity to really experience the art of Andreas Gursky.

This is a bold exhibition which illustrates the aesthetics created as we go about our daily lives. Gursky has created a collection of works that have rhythm and form to them, in the way that an abstract expressionist art does. But there amongst those flashes of colour and those grids and shapes is the human experience showed to us anew.