Gursky photograph sets new record

Gursky photograph sets new record NEWS

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A photograph of the Rhine by German artist Andreas Gursky has set an auction record for a photograph, selling for $4.3m (£2.7m) at Christie's in New York.

Panoramic colour print, Rhein II, was created in 1999 and beat its pre-sale estimate of $2.5m - $3.5m, set by Christie's.

Rhein II is part of an edition of six works and is the largest at three metres wide. Other photographs of the collection are on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art and London's Tate Modern.

Christie's said the viewer was 'not invited to consider a specific place along the river, but rather an almost 'platonic' ideal of the body of water as it navigates the landscape'.

Gursky has spoken in the past of 'a particular place with a view over the Rhine which has somehow always fascinated me, but it didn't suffice for a picture as it basically constituted only part of a picture'.

Carrying around this idea for a picture around with him for a year-and-a-half, he said he decided to 'digitalise the pictures' and leave out the elements that bothered him.