Photography: Andreas Gursky

Duesseldorf 1992. A photographic exhibition absolutely blows my mind: three students of the famous "Becher Class" (boring yet world-famous photographs of gas and water tanks) at the Kunstakademie show their prints in a cutting edge gallery. Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

This time not only marked a generation change amongst the bue chip names of the Duesseldorf art scene, but also a paradigm shift from painting towards photography.

Back then, this medium was considered highly speculative and I remember that the price for some 'smaller Gursky prints was around £1000-2000 in Deutschmark value back then. Damn I didn't have the money to get one - I could buy a little flat for it today. For investors (which I am not - I still collect only nitty gritty pieces of young or historically insignificant artist every now and then) Gursky might be the world's most expensive living photographic artist, but for me he is just a 'local' icon (I am from Duisburg originally, 20 miles north of Duesseldorf).

Since then I have always been exited to see Gursky prints in full scale across the world. To my total and utter delight, he currently has a double exposure in the West End displaying almost a squaremile of photographic sensation (ok, I am slightly exaggerating here) and I am sure I will go back for further contemplation. Try and locate the manipulated details in the Formula One Series at White Cube...

The most fascinating new work is the one taken in North Korea. What an insight into the last Stalinist Regime on the planet.
Looks shockingly familiar in a way...Leni Riefenstahl...Berlin 1936...Olympics...history.

In my point of view, Gursky is simply the best social anthropology photographer, only rivalled by Edward Burtynski, who in a way is his environmental anthropolohy pendant (shipwrecks, quarries, tyre cemetaries etc).

Gursky mostly captures the mundane, but in the most monumental way. You must spoil your eyes to this!

Andreas Gursky at White Cube Mason’s Yard and Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers London, from 22 March to 12 May 2007.

Art Show: Boo Ritson - Hotdogs & Heroes

This is an unusual one: The photograph of a painting of a portrait - by simply adding the very artificial looking acryllic colours (paint has never looked so disgustingly plastic; for me a biting take on artificial aspects of American society...) Boo Ritson creates in intricate web of layers and cross-references.

The whole series 'Hotdogs and Heroes' is very conceptual, visually narrating an average day of a professional killer, who comes down to smalltown Nevada to 'do a job' suspecting the air hostess to be the frivolous girl in the bar last night, popping up his collar in the hope to not be reckognised.

Somehow, I immediately thought about Hopper's Nighthawks, and that these characters in this series here could be the a kind of off-spring story behind the famous picture, as if Boo intended to fill the infamous void that iconic painting left behind - 60 years later, as if small town Midwest hasn't moved on, well, it often appears to not have changed that much after all.

Until 29th April, David Risley Gallery, Vyner Street, E2

Artists Anonymous: Alice Straight to Video

We entered a fury cave labyrinth, the kind of installation that reminds you of childhood days. We joked and played around. I took this photo of hers curiously exploring what is in store to feed her exitement around the next corner.

After a minute or so she started to feel uncomfortable, claustrophobic and anxious. She asked the gallery girl for a sort of short cut to get out, cop out. I started to look at the video screens nestled into the white acryllic fur. It dawned on me relatively quickly. This was disturbing stuff - well, not exactly shocking given the first show of artists anonymous in Vyner Street exploring the traumatic side of 'drugs'.


The installation stations were mainly about sex, punch in your face with errected penises or a more subtle, morbid looking aquarium with undefinable gadgets inside. When I cam out on the other side, Katherine and Meghan were already engaged in a discussion on child abuse - the topic of this show. A terrifying corner of society, with no exit door for the victim who often get lurked into sugar-candied rabbit holes layed out by the perpetrators.

Later that day I found the press release on the collective's website and now it gets more shocking, especially being German myself: "In Germany one cannot prosecute against childhood sexual abuse after the age of 28...an infant who can or does not defend itself cannot be the victim of rape, merely of sexual abuse, even when sexual intercourse has taken place...Sexual abuse and Rape are both defined by specific occurrences...The mere memory that it was on Sundays when the mother was at church, is not enough...Germany’s leading organisation for adult survivors of sexual abuse, advises victims against prosecution, as it claims this is too traumatic for the victims..."

Incredibly important stuff. Disturbing content, encouraging format, strong message. From the outside this installation looks like a deconstructed pile of rubble, just like the life of the survivors.

Until 22 April, E2 9DG