In 99 Cent II Diptychon, how is the History and description discussed?
99 Cent II Diptychon is a new version of a photo made previously in 1999, while Gursky was in Los Angeles.On this work, we can see a supermarket with shelves and many very colorful products, which capture the viewers attention. Not only are the products colorful, but they also have all the same price. The image was taken in a store of an American retail chain which sells products at 99 cents. The photograph is constructed like an architectural drawing with the horizontal shelves of the supermarket perpendicular to its vertical columns.
On the question if the picture is meant as a critic of the consumer society, Claire Guillot, writing for the French newspaper Le Monde, states that "The artist, who first dreamed of being a painter, was always much more interested in the ordering of objects in space, in the internal organization of an image, than in the reality that it depicts. Hence the innumerable retouchings, which tip the works over into artifice. And to quote Andreas Gursky: “Social criticism is up to you to see. My main interest is making images."
Diptych 99 Cent Los Angeles Andreas Gursky