Author Description

Fondazione MAST presents the catalogue accompanying the first large-scale anthology in Italy covering more than four decades of Andreas Gursky's oeuvre. Together with the artist, the curator Urs Stahel has devised a concept that takes in fact the acronym of the Fondazione and develops it further. MAST stands for Manifattura di Arti, Sperimentazione e Tecnologia (Art, Experience and Technology), and accordingly the visual spaces that Gursky creates in the photographs selected for the exhibition echo these thematic worlds. They open up peculiar perspectives on the world of work, the economy and globalisation, they reveal striking views of production sites, goods handling centres, temples of consumption, transport hubs, energy and food production, and the financial industry. Challenging our thinking as well as our eyes, his large-scale images help us frame the contemporary landscape and define our experience of the world. The volume--published on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Fondazione MAST in Bologna and of the undredth anniversary of the G.D company--includes 41 spectacular large-format photographs and a critical essay by Urs Stahel, shedding light on the research and practice of a leading international artist whose work has significantly pushed the boundaries of photography for four decades.