Art review: Andreas Gursky at Gagosian Gallery
April 2, 2010 | 7:30
pm
Gursky's most recent work inaugurates the newly expanded Gagosian Gallery with predictable pomposity. Each of the five huge (up to 13 feet per side) photographs in the "Ocean" series (2010) is predominantly deep, dark blue, edged with land masses –small islands, ice-encrusted capes, ridged shorelines. The pictures are composites made from multiple satellite images, manipulated so that scale is skewed and geographic location becomes abstracted. Crystalline detail coexists with generalized expanse. Detachment is common to Gursky's work, but even more extreme in these prints, which feel entirely divested of emotional heft. In spite of their stunning size and the amazing technical engineering that produced them, they feel bland.
–Leah Ollman
Gagosian Gallery, 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 271-9400, through May 1. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.gagosian.com
Images: Ocean I (2010), top, and Beelitz (2007). Courtesy of the Gagosian Gallery.