Year: 2011
Medium: inkjet print, in artist's frame
Dimensions: 307 x 221 cm (120 7/8 x 87 in.)
Edition: No. 1 of 6
Acquired from Sotheby's, 2023
Gursky visited Bangkok in the spring of 2011 and photographed the Chao Phraya River. Flowing calmly amidst the bustling metropolis, this river has historically and geopolitically been a part of Thailand’s bloodline. Unlike the picturesque beauty of the Rhine River which he had previously photographed, the Chao Phraya River is also an important river transport route dotted with Fuel oil and waste, presenting a landscape that fascinated Gursky so much. Without knowing the background of the work, one’s attention would be drawn to the strong verticality of the black and white before recognizing the figurative nature that this is “a photograph of a river.” It is reminiscent of Barnett Newman’s “The Stations of the Cross” and “Zip.” The work regains its figurativeness when the viewer gets closer to the work and sees the drifting objects and the river surface in detail. However, there are no traces of people or streets of Bangkok, only trash which could be found in any river, with dull sky reflected on the water surface. On the large picture plane which extends beyond the viewer’s sight, the black shadows extending straight in parallel strip away the sense of distance, a view one would never encounter in reality. It appears as if a small portion of the river surface captured from a transcendental and wide perspective has been magnified. Gursky manipulates photographs and “creates” intentional images by erasing or altering things that are supposed to be present. Thus, this work is also a constructed image. If Gursky is aiming for “abstraction” in this work, part of his thinking must have been to abstract a more universal concept of “river” and its “problem” from the strong specificity of “Chao Phraya River in Bangkok”. Pollution of rivers is not unique to Bangkok. By sublimating the uneven ugliness into universal beauty as an image, the viewer is prompted to contemplate the abstracted elements. In Gursky’s works, while the images may not always reveal the correct reality, they tell beyond the truth by overlapping reality and fiction.
