When Your Digital Images are Known To Be Creations of Imagination, Even the "Real" Elements Will Be Questioned...

[ic-racer]

Conversation between Hilla Becher and Andreas Gursky:

HB (Teacher): I liked this picture ['The Rhein II', Andreas Gursky, 1999] very much. But Bernd [Becher] didn't like it, we really argued. It was way too abstract for him, to the point that it would no longer 'work.' He always used this expression. I think it is of course very abstract. One can clearly sense that a few things are missing, things that were there in reality. But I quite like this over-abstraction, where the Rhine runs through the landscape like a slime or a pudding. It shows something that really is the Rhine.

AG (Student): You said that you can sense that something has been changed. Can you be more specific?

HB: I would imagine that here on this (top left) side, something is missing. Obviously you've put something right there? It's so suspiciously smooth, as if drawn with a ruler, and I am not quite buying into that.

AG: Fact is, that in this image the cleanup took place really economical. At this point (top left) it was pretty much as it is, but here (top right) was actually a power station.

HB: And here at the bottom?

AG: The foreground, the road, the entrance to the water, these are all completely untouched.

 

[Sirius Glass]

 

[bjorke]

Questioned all the way to the bank

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Questioned all the way to the bank

Well, someone was comfortable spending $4,300,000.00 on it. Sadly, I don't have that kind of disposable income.