Andreas Gursky Photographer 1 /4

12:35 to 12:50
The existing changing rooms provided not the proper material for Andreas Gursky. 10
months before the exhibition opening, he runs into another mine.
At Hamm (name of a town).

12:02 to 12:30
One can think of romance, one can think of Caspar David Friedrich (Seascape with
Capuchin). A picture that was also important for Jackson Pollock. Being in the image.
Drowning in the picture. There are many pictures of Gursky, where one has the feeling that
one while watching the picture almost drowning in what is presented.

11:30 to 12:02
One can think of a certain serial austerity and severity. Which he discovered by Bernd
Becher in Dsseldorf. It's an absurd image. It is an image without objects, no products and
no people. Although he - on the other side - a great human performer is. The effect is so
immense, because Gursky uses the big format.

10:43 to 11:30
A very taciturn image. Compared with the tumult that we see in other pictures by Andreas
Gursky. And yet, in this picture - one might say - brings together all the basic elements that
determine its imagery. The color. The light. The architecture. And structure (in a word).
What structure is it? Finally, a structure that is aligned to an abstract, geometric art. One
can think of Minimal Art, you can think of Dan Flavin.

9:45 to 10:10
And what is interesting you so special? What is the attraction?
I often come across images that way. I saw a picture of such a locker room and that made
me just interested. It has something to do with people. It has a lot to do with space, with
three dimensionalty. These are themes of my work.

9:14 to 9:45
I come from the employee magazine of the mine. I have a few short questions for an
article. What exactly are you doing here? We have not done anything, but first visited the
location, the various dressing rooms. My assistant has researched and photographed the
sites here already digital, so that I could imagine me something. If I had seen at first
something of which I would say, we do that, I would going to unpack the camera, but I
prefer to look in all locations first.

8:04 to 8:30
So, I think this space better here. ... I find this very homogeneous ... I mean the ordinary,
as this things are hanging here ...

7:30 to 8:04
They come in their private dresses in the "Weikaue", undress and get naked in here in
the" Schwarzkaue" and move to the work clothes. After the shift, they come back here
again, undress, go into the shower and pull back to their home clothes.
How long this will take? When the first to come out and when to go the last?
This happens 24 hours a day.

6:28 to 7:30
Here hang no boots. Do they go barefoot in the tunnel? That can not be. Absolutely not!
But over there, there are also boots. They store them differently here. Here it may be that
people are coming from the showers.
How is that when people come to the shift change? Then the clothes pulled down. They
have numbers. Every miner has a number. So they can get their clothes. Every miner has
a personal key.

5:58 to 6:17
What is your impression?
I think it is hanging very low.
Yes. This is also what bothers me right now.
I think the "Schwarzkaue" is more interesting than the "Weikaue".

5:40 to 5:58
So these are now the clothes worn downhole? Yes, this is the "Schwarzkaue" for pit
clothes. There is the "Weikaue" for street clothes.
But why hang clothes here now. Are not all miners working?
Yes, they have several shifts.

4:17 bis 4:19

What ist this?
This is the "Weikaue" (for the street clothes). Over there is the "Schwarzkaue" (for the pit
clothes).

3:50 to 4:10
One year before the opening of a major retrospective of his work, Andreas Grusky begins
with the research for a new photo that will be shown in this exhibition.
He looks at the changing rooms, the so-called "Wei- und Schwarzkaue" in the few mines
in the Ruhr area which are still in operation.

3:00 to 3:40
At the beginning of this work, we always had east wind and the wind direction while sliding
towards the river and the water is very smooth. But I wanted a roughened surface. For that
I needed a very specific wind from the opposite direction.
That is what is at taking pictures so beautiful that you creep into something. That one is
really so busy working and not on hopes that something will happen by the way
accidentally.

2:24 to 3:00
No. That's not all.
And here at the front and there?
The foreground, the road and the entrance to the water is completely untreated.
That's crazy!
Yes! What is not to say that I went there and just did a photo. This is my jogging track and I
know the place very well. When I had decided to take the photo and I looked at the first
contact sheets, my initial impression was not at all recognize. And this initial impression I
had laboriously restore.

1:37 to 2:24
You said that you feel somehow that something has changed. Can you describe more
specific?
I would imagine here on the site, something is missing. Do you have something put right?
It has become so suspiciously smooth, as if drawn with a ruler and I am not quite buying
that.
The fact is that in this image the cleanup has took place really economical. So at the point
it was pretty much what it is, but here is actually the coal power plant.
And that's all?

0:50 to 1:37
I liked the picture very very much. But Bernd did not like it and we have fought us. He has
argued it would be too abstract for him, so that it no longer works. I think it is of course
very abstract. One can clearly see that something is gone, what was there in reality. But I
really like this over-abstraction, where the Rhine runs through the area like a slime or a
pudding. The picture shows something that really is the Rhine.

0:39 to 0:50
Hilla Becher visits Andreas Gursky in the photo-depot of his studio. In the early 80s he
studied by her husband Bernd Becher at the Dusseldorf Art Academy.

Andreas Gursky Photographer 2 / 4

11:15 to 14:05
Would you give me the Polaroid cassette? Yes. ... So the color temperature is identical.

Now we go down a little. Half a stop, I would still dim.

Then we do 11 and 1 / 3 and 16.
Well, next setting!....
Oschi? Sync cable? Synchro!

10:45 to 11:10
The neon lights were turned off. That's better. You can see it here. If one goes up here, we
must have definitely a lower angle shot. We can actually do it with the others. So we
should first go to that situation here. Then I adjust the light.

9:27 to 10:18
I tell you just now, what we do, yes? So here we were last time. It's now much more empty.
Now it's almost better here. So you could set up the camera here before. That is one thing.
Now we go through again. This is not so bad. Then we are with the light a little more
flexible. And then we can in the front entrance ... look, here it is a bit higher ...

8:15 to 8:30
Seven months before the opening of the exhibition, Gursky and his assistant go for the
second time to the mine Hamm. For the background of the proposed photo they still need
shoots of single clothes.

7:00 to 7:50
I would say that we also load 40 pieces, if we have 40 ... 30 ... fits ... 40! Where's the
brush? I do not know how many times I've done it. My father in his whole life - in all
seriousness - did not allow to insert the cassettes by someone else. Really? He has
always made it himself. He enjoyed it, probably. No, he was suspicious. He only trusted to
himself.

6:03 to 6:50
In Andreas Gursky's Dsseldorf studio, a former power station, Gursky and his assistant
prepare the next shoots before.
Where did you get the 150's? They're here? 180's, 90's, 115's ... ?.. For the 90's ... Exactly,
exactly ... and then we take the Balkan (?) flash unit ... exactly ... and you have the multiflash ... exactly ... We have a lot more light than the last time, actually, which are
synchronized with each other? So we can trigger the Balkan (?) and yours flashes
together!

4:42 to 5:55
Now we have to search ... around now ... well ... Siemens, Karlsruhe. This is a very early
picture. In the mid-80s I was interested in manufacturing enterprises. In Germany. There
are design considerations to these columns, whereby a photo is only like an image of

architecture. The separation of the ceiling and the floor in this image is eliminated, by a
fortunate circumstance. These electric devices are powered from the top, and thus there is
no separation between top and bottom.

4:20 to 4:40
In my early industrial photographs I have noticed, for example, Siemens in Karlsruhe,
where this is achieved with a simple shoot without digital intervention.
But here I will of course intervene.

3:28 to 4:16
The destination now is to increase the space - at least in the picture. In fact the space is so
much greater. One can not shoot this with the camera in one picture. If you would do that,
it would be a lapidary architecture photo. My concern was only about the clothes. The
destination now is to reconstruct the clothes of 1500 people below the ceiling. Without any
intermediate support ... exactly ... and ultimately to remove me from the authentic place.

2:40 to 3:22
It is always the decision whether working digitally or analog. This time we did both. I have
now decided to work analog, based on the material that we already have, then to scan the
slides and from this to produce the image. It was only just one setting with different
exposures. The light is actually very good.

2:27 to 2:35
"That's not right!" In this respect, this is not pure photography, what I do.

1:37 to 2:27
My pictures are almost always interpretations of places. I work with real, authentic stuff,
but compose entirely free. It's almost like a memory of the place. Yes, exactly. You could
see a place ... as one for example would describe a place verbally. The description is valid,
even if certain details shown exaggerated or poetized. Literature is perceived as truthful,
even if details are not really. In photography that is often criticized.

1:20 to 1:30
Are the flashes set up? What's down there for a blooming? Is it the neon light? Maybe we
need to turn off.

0:37 to 0:54
... so we shoot that from here, as deep as possible ... taking the ceiling with ... it is the
inside ... and goes down but only up here ... so before these chains ...

Andreas Gursky 3 / 4

9:30 to 10:15
Although it is not ready yet but I like it quite well. Color is good. Contrast is good. We might
make it even a tiny light. Down at the chains, it is still not resolved. Has the image still its
spatial alignment? So here was in reality an alignment. Here was a corner and then ...
recognize it? No, that's been lost. So, below it is not yet o.k. ... above it is very good ...
even the nice transition into the Black ...

8:20 to 9:00
Well, for starters very good, right? Do we want to keep the print from noon today once next
to it? This is not the print by noon today. This is the print from last week. Maybe we should
hang left of it, then we have a good comparison. The correction has worked beautifully.

7:27 to 7:40
The Photo Studio Krieger in Dusseldorf prints large-format images for many photographic
artists. After he made several test prints, Gursky shall determine the final exposure of his
photo.

6:50 to 7:27
It is the view from the top, that tells for distances, for fear of contact. That certainly says
something about the nature of Gursky, in addition to all the friendship and confidence,
always pulls back on himself. It has something reserved. These reservations about the
world he represents, is visible in all his pictures.

6:15 to 6:50
In general, Gursky loves the view from the top. It is a kind of "Google Earth view" with
which he looks at the world. He works, I think, very pleased by the helicopter. Used to be
called "Rider's Perspective" as the artist did not have any helicopters, in the Renaissance,
but then were like riding in top of the level of their motives.

5:30 to 6:15
The biggest spectacle in the world. Nothing in this image is imagined. Everything is reality.
All 20,000 or 30.000 characters and actors who appear here are real in the stadium in
Pjng Jang gathered and perform synchronous gymnastics and ballet exercises. This is all
done for only one pair of eyes for the leader of North Korea. For him, this picture is made.

4:55 to 5:25
Thomas! The Portuguese men who move the terrazzo floor, but tomorrow they are still
there? Ah yes! I need for a shoot some people. I think they would be suitable. Yeah, just

announce that and maybe ask if they can. They would appear in a background of a photo.
They are not really visible. It's very dark. It's just that one will suspect people there. They
will be photographed only from behind.

4:10 to 4:53
The man then disappears, of course. Yes, we have to ... But I also think the color great.
We must again make a little back. The man I would leave it as it was, I liked that. Since
such a magical space created in the background. Perhaps we should have a whole group
back there. These are accidents that were not planned, but we then discovered details, get
a great importance at a time and then we discussed this.
The water drop effect, we have now! Yes!

3:20 to 4:03
What is important in this composing that the items are photographed from the right
perspective because perspective is of course no longer manipulable.
Then we have up there, everything darkened. That was before a lot softer. See that? Yes,
yes. Important is that the chains do not at first perceived as chains, but the first thought is,
are that pearls, does it rains?

2:05 to 2:29
That looks much softer. You can see it clearly on the chains. The clothes still missing some
contrast. More contrast. The lights you had already darkened. Yes.
Not brighter! Only a little more contrast in the details.

1:55 to 2:05
3 months before the opening of the exhibition ,Andreas Gursky and the image processor
Reinhard Ottenlinger, add the single image elements to one photo.

1:01 to 1:51
If they were going to shoot from one angle, the building would have a distortion on the
sides, and not these frontal access to the interior. And that's why I chose for two angles of
vision. There is, strictly speaking, two escape points in the image, which would bother me
normally, but there is no spatial depth, it works. The advantage is that each room is
supposedly head looks from the front. And that you can really clean look to the building
and that's the important thing.

0:07 to 1:01
Yes, here we are again. He has the big and the very small. He has the macro-cosmos and
micro cosmos. This combination, you can create only with photography and not with the
eye. Impossible. Just as a building or a street in New York you can not really see how it is,

you can compose it only partially. And here's the great thing about that is the very big and
very small. This little hint of intimacy in the little ones who put in there.
Andreas Gursky 4 / 4

12:55 to 13:30
I grew up in a very industrial city and have also worked in such a work place. There I had
the same work clothes, which was also stored similarly. It was neither particularly beautiful
or ugly. It was the normal dress of a miner. That is why I have such things very near and
familiar and remind me of my past.

12:08 to 12:49
Contains the work, the essence of our time?
Yes. Exactly! I did it in a better way to understand modern trends. It is one of the best
illustrations.
Can we talk about the work you have recently purchased?
Yes, of course! For this work I have a special relationship. It is a very "Ukrainian" work,
because Ukraine - like Germany - is a very industrial country. We have a lot of heavy
industry and mining. Therefore, the work reminds me of my home.

11:25 to 12:05
Right in the swan palace, which took place in 1945, the Yalta conference with Stalin,
Churchill and Roosevelt, I have hanged up "Kuwait Stock Exchange. This work
demonstrates how the Western economy and civilization, the financial center gradually
shifted to Asia, to the East, to China and India. This is one of the strengths of Andreas
Gursky. Contrary to the politicians he reflects the situation of the world.

10:35 to 11:25
I love very much Andreas Gursky's work. His aesthetic is very close to me. We already
have some of his works in our collection, iconic works of which I very happy and proud.
For example the work "Kuwait Stock Exchange". I recently held an international
conference in Yalta, which dealt with the future of Ukraine in Europe and the world after
the crisis.

10:05 to 10:32
The steel-and media-business man from Kiev Victor Pinchuk is one of the biggest
collectors of contemporary art in the former Soviet Union. He has many works by Damien
Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, one of the largest Gursky collections in the world. In
the "Pinchuk Art Center" he presents exhibitions of contemporary art, and he alternates
with exhibitions of young Ukrainian art.

8:42 to 9:25
The first image he has shown in public, is the "gas stove" from 1980 and the very latest

image you'll see there in the other house "Hamm Mine East". So a big arc, from his first
job until his latest, which was previously never shown publicly. It is the exhibition by
Andreas Gursky with most works of him ever had. An encyclopedia of his previous work,
an encyclopedia of life - he once said - from the "gas stove" to "Hamm Mine East".

8:08 to 8:42
Ladies and gentlemen, such an abundance of visitors we did not had in a long time in a
museum in Krefeld. However, it is no wonder, an exhibition of Andreas Gursky now attracts
the masses. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not exaggerating when I declare the exhibition
"Andreas Gursky 80-08" as the most important art event of the year organized in Germany.
It is a retrospective, a summation of his work. A reunion with Andreas Gursky, after 19
years.

6:10 to 6:20
Now it's right on place. I will then darken it so that it looks exactly like the man in the
original photo.

5:02 to 5:41
This is one ... the mask ... Okay, Andreas has given me this picture later, and has chosen
two men who still should be mounted in this picture. Click the image to the chains without
additional people, and in this way I have to mount the men of the later-made image.

4:50 to 5:00
The photograph "99 Cent" from 1999 was auctioned for 3.3 million dollars at Sotheby's.

4:25 to 4:50
He does not use dramatic perspectives, or dynamic image creation, but he is as straight as
simple and primitive as possible to the picture. So Gursky achieved such an elementary
result.

4:00 to 4:25
Actually, that is - although it is only a very specific 99 Cent-store - the symbol of the
supermarket itself, this image stands for "supermarket" anywhere in the world. Gursky is
getting to the point. All you could do because of tricks and nonsense, he has omitted.
Gursky is focused on the thing itself, he does not see things through a certain frame.

3:30 to 3:50
These prints are printed ourselves. Then they will be framed and then displayed.

2:43 to 3:30
Yes. This is the photo, I just spoke of. Have you seen anything like this before? This is the
clothing of miners working underground. And what I wanted, so I've asked you ... here you
can still see faint a person who belongs to the original image. Which is still somewhat
enlarged and clarified. You will then appear in the background of the image. Okay.
And here - if you are interested - small images that we print just for the exhibition.

1:39 to 2:30
Please be more look up towards the ceiling, exactly. A bit to go in and spin around. More.
Even more. More around. Yes. Now please be turn away from the camera. So, yes. Okay.
And changing a bit your posture, holding hands differently. Yes. Very good.

0:15 to 1:33
Sorry! I may pass. Well, the situation is this: I took a picture in the locker room of a mine.
This is the area where the miners change their clothes. Now I need a group of people just
standing and seen from behind or the side. That is all. After I'll show you the image so that
you can project that. So, then you placed here once. I'm here with the camera. Now please
do not stare into the camera, but just look up or down. It is important that you are not
moving during the shoots.