It is one of the most famous images in contemporary photography: a monumental print, 2m high and more than 4m across, depicting Paris\u2019s largest block of flats, in Montparnasse, on the Left Bank of the Seine. Seemingly, the panoramic composition presents a single fa\u00e7ade of this striking Modernist building, which was constructed between 1959 and 1964.<\/p>\n
Read more like this:<\/p>\n
– Striking images of America’s dark side<\/p>\n
– Heartstopping photos of beauty, joy and loss<\/p>\n
– Striking photos of Tokyo commuters<\/p>\n
From afar, the overriding impression is of a grid-like geometric pattern, created by the block\u2019s austere architecture. This is offset by rippling chromatic accents, provided by the many curtains and blinds visible in the windows of some of its 750 apartments. The effect is beguiling: a stunning mosaic of colour.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andreas Gursky\u2019s photograph of a Montparnasse tower block is a stunning mosaic of colour (Credit: Andreas Gursky)<\/p>\n
Up close, though, we lose any sense of the photograph\u2019s underlying structure, and become involved, instead, in the individual human dramas, and signs of life, being played out in each flat.<\/p>\n
This push and pull, between macro and micro views, animates the image, since it is impossible fully to appreciate both perspectives at the same time.<\/p>\n
In fact, to make Paris, Montparnasse (1993), which exists in an edition of five plus two artists\u2019 proofs, Andreas Gursky, the celebrated German photographer, digitally stitched together a couple of separate shots. Four years ago, in 2013, one of the artists\u2019 proofs sold at auction for nearly \u00a31.5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is one of the most famous images in contemporary photography: a monumental print, 2m high and more than 4m across, depicting Paris’s largest block of flats, in Montparnasse, on the Left Bank of the Seine. Seemingly, the panoramic composition presents a single façade of this striking Modernist building, which was constructed between 1959 and 1964. Read more like this: – Striking images of America’s dark side – Heartstopping photos of beauty, joy and loss – Striking photos of Tokyo commuters From afar, the overriding impression is of a grid-like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9407,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405\/revisions\/9407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}