Photo Analysis : R H E I N . I I

A N D R E A S . G U R S K Y ' S . R H E I N . I I

Currently the most expensive photograph in the world, Andreas Gursky's piece entitled 'Rhein II' was sold for a whopping $4,338,500.00 back in November of 2011 by an anonymous buyer (obviously). The 190x360cm print was listed the most expensive photograph when it was sold at Christie's New York, an auction house company, only 6 months after the record was set by Cindy Sherman's 'Untitled #97' for $3,890,500.00 by the same auction house.

If I had $4.5million to spend on a photography I guess my money would go to Gursky as well. The idea of how it cost suddenly makes the 2 dimensional photograph feels like a gateway to River Rhein, a Swiss river which flows through Germany and parts of Netherlands and France, making it only the 12th longest river in Europe.  It should be a gateway, or a portal, because I would like to believe that cool $4million plus price tag comes something more than it just being a photograph on the wall. Look at it and think of the price. Really think of it ($4,338,500.00). Wouldn't you start to go crazy wondering why it costs that much you start to lose your mind in the image? Your eye, well at least mine, keeps wondering around the 3 metre fram searching for extraordinary details that would actually make sense as to why it costs that much money. Maybe if I see a gif of an alien or a ghost or Houdini himself at either corners of the photo, I would probably spend my life savings on it too. 

I like the image. I really do. It is vibrant, surreal, almost dream-like in a sense it looks like to be endless and it looks like it has a hierarchy with the layers of green and the river along with the grey skies overlapping one another. Some say Gursky had to photoshopped some joggers and their dogs out of the photo but there is no substantial evidence to support that claim. I cannot imagine how good and technical was the famous software was back then. Perhaps if it was photoshopped, it could have added to the value of the painting as digital editing was almost unheard back then. That's my own only theory because I am still trying to make sense of the price tag as I am writing this analysis.   

Rhein II is a chromogenic colour print mounted on acrylic glass. Gursky photographed it with the famed German theme of romantic landscapes in mind. A showcase of the relationship between man and nature. The image is a bare statement of "dedication to its craft" where photographs were becoming more accepted into gallery spaces in the late 1980s as 'art'. It was during the time where that was considered "brave and new". It was considered as art as it was effective in creating atmospheric, hyper-real scenarios. Gursky pays attention to his colours and form of his photography to the point where it deliberately challenges the status of paintings as a higher art form. Gursky's image has extraordinary technical accomplishment which took "months to set up in advance and require a lot of digital doctoring to get just right."

A.B