August 10, 2003
Wolfgang Tillmans in London
Wolfgang Tillmans: if one thing matters, everything matters
Tate Britain, London
The lowercase exhibition title is appropriate for a mid-career survey of the Turner Prize-winning Tillmans. His photographs—mostly unframed and alternately taped to the wall or held up by clips—present an omnivorous eye that flattens all hierarchies in its attempt to imbibe all that life has to offer. Subject matter careens back and forth from images of fruit to street construction to portraits of friends to abstract photos (made without a camera) to cityscapes to nightclubs to skies to piles of clothes. Presented roughly chronologically, the exhibition does less to trace a measured interest in any given genre or subject than to retrospectively outline the arc of Tillmans’ life.
Like anyone whose output is so prodigious, Tillmans’ shutter clicks can occasionally be misfires, resulting in pictures devoid of the intimacy that suffuses his best work. Unfortunately for those passing through the exhibition in prescribed order, many of these pictures are placed at the end, such as when his lens was trained on recent anti-war protests. There is also too much of a disconnect between the sweaty dance floor evoked by Lights (Body), 2002, a video created especially for the exhibition that focuses on the endlessly gyrating lighting equipment at a nightclub, and the largely empty room in which it is presented.
Most pictures, however, have a dynamic tension despite the seeming haphazardness of the installation. Tillmans’ sense of composition, the lush color of his prints, and the studied repetition of images all lead the viewer down paths of association. Three pink abstract photographs reach out to a close-up view of armpit hair; pictures of lightning lead the way into the aforementioned video; a tangle of keys (also used on the catalogue’s cover) pairs up with a spray of water. A pile of change on a windowsill finds it match in the gallery itself, situated between two rooms connected by a glass-paned door. Whether or not someone is pictured in the frame, there is almost always evidence of human presence. That many of these connections also reach out into the lives of the viewers, reminding us of photographs we’ve stored on film or simply in our minds, attests to the beauty of Tillmans’ accumulation.
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The laptop is back at the Apple store, being repaired yet again. I'm about to embark upon a writing frenzy, as I process all that I saw and experienced in Europe and begin a freelance assignment later this week.