Pit-stop Snaps Two Years In The Making

The Age

Friday November 21, 2008

ROBIN USHER

A PIT stop in a formula one grand prix race is a scene of frantic activity that is usually over in less than 10 seconds. It took German photographer Andreas Gursky nearly two years to complete his huge images of the scene.

"It is probably the most competitive sport in the world, but it took me a long time to get permission to get access," he said, speaking at a preview of Australia's first major exhibition of his work at the National Gallery of Victoria.

"Millions of photographs are taken of the races every year but they are all the same. No one talks about them at all. One of the arguments I used was that it would be good for formula one if images are on display in museums."

He still had to rely on his friend, former champion driver Michael Schumacher, to convince the sport's boss, Bernie Ecclestone, to grant him permission.

There are three huge images of pit-stop scenes in the exhibition of 21 of Gursky's major works. All contain the pin-sharp details that are typical of his work.

The show's curator, Thomas Weski, from Munich's Haus der Kunst Museum, said the images turned the rules of traditional photography upside down.

"They are not a representation of a scene but new images of the world using digital technology - fictions based on fact," he said.

The cinematic scale of the works encourage visitors to spend a long time studying them. The images are regarded by some critics as the contemporary equivalent of grand history paintings.

"They cannot be consumed rapidly because they are all about an experience of the world based on a new way of seeing," Weski said.

The exhibition, which runs until February 22, includes the world's most expensive photograph, a diptych called 99 Cent Store that sold for $US3.5 million ($A5.4million).

NGV director Gerard Vaughan said the work was a comment on consumerism.

"We do not have a Gursky piece in our collection, but it is a long-term hope that interest in this exhibition might result in our acquiring one," he said.

"But they are certainly not cheap."

© 2008 The Age

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