May Day I

In 'May Day', Andreas Gursky depicts, more than anything else, the interior space of a building. The photograph captures an instantaneous moment insuring that even the mundane appears unusual or spectacular. The artist has intentionally not revealed the architectural structure of the building and has removed any personal identity from the ravers. Substituting this information with an image of one cultural identity, an image of unity, Gursky employs the decoration of the internal space to demonstrate political solidarity. It implies a population consciously manipulated as a mass collective within a mass-produced environment.
In the photograph, the internal decoration of the venue appears elevated from an architectural motif to that of a cultural monument or place of worship. The function of the image is then to document the activity of a cultural generation that has inherited a particular history at a particular time in history. It reviews the method of entertainment within a technical age that is capable of harnessing mass communication to mould the attitude of a generation.
"People in Gursky's pictures are poor creatures. Viewed from afar, their individuality is lost and they seem to struggle insignificantly against the weight of floor, sky or ceiling. These tiny figures reflect Gursky's interest in the human species rather than the individual." (J. Stallabrass, 'The Iron Cage of Boredom', in: 'Art Monthly', no. 189, Sept. 1995, p.19.)