Wolfgang Tillmans

"In 2000 Wolfgang Tillmans received the Turner Prize, Britain's most prestigious contemporary art award. The continual presence of the thirty-three-year-old London resident in exhibitions and the media does not, however, date merely from that year. Tillmans's new abstract pictures bear witness to the fact that he is much more than simply a chronicler of his own age. This publication presents the first overview of these works, landscapes and cityscapes that have been reworked by using unsettling light effects. It also includes Tillmans's Blushes and Mental Pictures, seemingly fragile compositions that he created without negatives, simply by exposing the photographic paper to light. These recent works shed considerable light on Tillmans's figurative photographs - his images of drapery, the still lifes, the Eclipse and Concorde series - in which the abstract quality of his motifs and compositions had already begun to take centre stage. Most of the images reproduced in the present volume - in particular the photographs and ink-jet prints of the past four years - mark a new phase in the artists work, whose latest developments he discusses in a riveting interview."--Jacket.

Wiser than a god Miss Witherwell's mistake A shameful affair Doctor Chevalier's lie Boulôt and Boulotte Old Aunt Peggy Miss McEnders A visit to Avoyelles Ma'ame Pélagie [Désirée's Baby]Madame Célestin's divorce A lady of Bayou St. John La belle Zoraïde In Sabine A respctable woman [The Story of an Hour]Lilacs Regret The kiss Athénaïse Two summers and two souls Two portraits Fedora [A Pair of Silk Stockings]Aunt Lympy's interference A family affair At the 'Cadian ball The storm : a sequel to "At the 'Cadian ball" Charlie :

Since winning the Turner Prize in 2000 for his 1990s oeuvre of portraits and snapshots, German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has increasingly gravitated towards the abstract and material-specific properties of his medium. Following Blushes, the Freischwimmer series and the monochromatic Silver series, his most recent abstract works--of which the creased and folded Lighter series is perhaps the most significant--treat the photograph, and especially photographic paper itself, no longer as a reproductive medium, but as a material object. In Tillmans' "paper drop" photographs, the paper's physical folds and curves are photographed to produce geometric, tactile compositions. Other works oscillate more elusively between photograph and object, always thriving in the interplay. "For me, the abstract picture is already objective because it's a concrete object and represents itself," Tillmans observes; "the paper on which the picture is printed is for me an object, there is no separating the picture from that which carries it. That's why I like to show photographs sometimes framed and sometimes not, just taped to the wall." These most recent works are gathered for the first time in this book. Lighter also includes an extensive section of installation views--taken by Tillmans himself--that offers the reader a direct experience of the artist's visual cosmos as presented in recent exhibitions, including his last retrospective, which was seen at various major venues in the United States.

"Over the period of more than two decades, Wolfgang Tillmans has explored the medium of photo-imaging with greater range than any other artist of his generation. From snapshots of his friends to abstract images made in a darkroom without a camera or works made with a photocopier, he has pushed the photographic process to its outer limits in myriad ways. For this collection of photos, his fourth book with TASCHEN, Tillmans turned away from the self-reflexive exploration of the photography medium that had occupied him for several years by focusing his lens on the outside world - from London and Nottingham to Tierra del Fuego, Tasmania, Saudi Arabia, and Papua New Guinea. He describes this new phase simply as 'trying out what the camera can do for me, what I can do for it.' The result is a powerful and singular view of life today in diverse parts of the world, seen from many angles. Says Tillmans, 'My travels are aimless as such, not looking for predetermined results, but hoping to find subject matter that in some way or other speaks about the time I'm in.' The book features a fascinating conversation between the artist and Beatrix Ruf, director of Kunsthalle Zürich."--Publisher's description.

This new publication, accompanying an exhibition at Tate Modern, examines Tillmans's evolving practice showcasing his photography but also his video, digital slide projections, publications and recorded music. Mark Godfrey gives an overarching view of Tillmans's practice, from the physical materiality of the work, to space and installation, to his use of abstraction. Tom Holert focuses on Tillmans's relationship with politics and society, with particular emphasis on events of the last 15 years and the way Tillmans uses images and methods of distribution to examine global concerns such as migration and identity politics. Wolfgang Tillmans is the first photographer to win the Turner Prize (in 2000), his practice is characterised by constant investigation into the boundaries of the photographic medium and a preoccupation with the process of photography itself.