Lights. Wolfgang Tillmans writes with lights, just as photography is literally supposed to be. The German born artist has the ability to lighten up the world we see. In a large framed work, in a small Polaroid size picture, be it a still-life shot or a simple red folded paper, he definitely draws the attention to it - couldn’t be clearer.

 

In this show however, Tillmans has made more. He managed to give the public the comfortable feeling of equality + individuality. Not only through the works, which have the familiar amateur look, as if anyone could do them - not really, but we can actually believe it for a moment - , but mostly by the curatorial practice. In each room one walks in, the works are in a completely different display. Some are strongly confident in hard frames, while others are simply pinned or tapped right onto the wall. Still, they are equally in the same place, and individually valuable. Tillmans can make a lot of Tillmans and all of them compose Tillmans.

 

All the works are from the year 2000 on. This exhibition could be seen as a retrospective of an artist’s stage, but would be better classified as a living proof of contemporary art, or even further I might risk - contemporary world. In an Arts analysis, it has many contemporary elements notable straight away: the informal arrangement of the pieces, natural lights, installations, massive photographs, not to mention the details. From another perspective though, it feels a lot like the real world. Not only the pictures are referring to that, but the diversity of the works and the way they are put together in space are metaphors for the globalized Century we are living in. Small pictures, small countries. Big frames, big borders. Multi-coloured, multi-racial. Fragile papers, fragile people. Even the connection between the rooms are similar to the connection between the countries and/or continents, some are very much alike, while others are complete opposites. And the viewer is somewhere in this crossing, trying to get to the other side and also remember the previous one.

 

What do we know about the others? How often do we make our minds about someone based on superfluous contacts with that one? Even the most obvious figure has its own secrets, therefore, if you’re willing to know, look closer. Because that person has been through a lot of fights, joys, and many other things. In Tillmans, this means the fold you’re seeing in the paper is there for a reason: to make it unique. We carry our history, such as those works carry theirs. Apart from the individual meanings, there is an equal importance.

 

Another highlight in the view is the fact that the artist has curated it himself. What could be more contemporary than working different sides of the same coin? And with a charm on it. Feels like inside the artist’s studio - the walls full of images made of different medias, put on all kinds of levels from ceiling to floor, tables with magazines and newspapers articles, post-it notes…even a fabric evoking the intimacy (a carpet maybe?) of the studio is there to see, to touch. Uncomfortable is definitely a word not appropriate to this show, either one likes the works or not, he/she will probably spend more time in there than what expected. It is almost as if one knows the artist and is waiting on his living room for him to come up with fresh tea. Well done Tillmans, twice.

 

Back on his main production - photography - there are two major themes on set. The first one is the subject: What? Where? Why? When? all those typical questions applied to figurative works. The second focus is on photography itself: the material necessary, the variable sizes, colours and textures, exposure to light… the negatives of the photos. Again, particular when it comes to ideas, general in terms of matter.

 

“Creating these constellations of pictures, I try to approximate the way I see the world, not in a linear order but as a multitude of parallel experiences. Multiple singularities, simultaneously accessible as they share the same space or room.”

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Wolfgang Tillmans

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Serpentine Gallery catalogue: Wolfgang Tillmans. London, United Kingdom. 2010.