World's most expensive photographer gives solo exhibition

Large formats and meticulous digital post-editing are his trademarks. It was back in the late 1980s that Andreas Gursky developed a penchant for big pictures. Whether he's focused on architecture or landscapes, he uses color cautiously and deliberately.

In a 1998 interview, Gursky compared his photographs to paintings. "It would perhaps be interesting for an art historian to find out why an artist like me who doesn't know much about art history still has access to this vocabulary." Gursky's works have become testimonies of his world travels, and his images reflect not only the surface of what he sees, but also the societies they represent.

The exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda, which was developed in close cooperation with the artist, presents a fascinating collection of Gursky's works that connect the older, iconic pieces to his more current images.

Gursky's "Rhein II" from 1999 is the most expensives photograph ever sold. At a Christie's auction in 2011 in New York, it went for a record sum of $4.3 million.