Wolfgang Tillmans - Lighter March 20, 2008

German artist Wolfgang Tillmans became known in the 1990s with highly original portraits and snapshots from the realm of pop culture. In 2000, he won the coveted “Turner Prize” in London for an installation consisting of portraits, still‑lives and city views. Since then, Tillmans has continually expanded the range of his work, and has concentrated on photographic processes themselves, on the structures and properties of photographic paper. These new, often entirely “abstract” works stand at the center of this exhibition, the largest of Tillmans’ work to date in Germany, and consisting of more than 200 works from the years 1986 to 2008.

The title “Lighter” (i.e., cigarette lighter) refers to a series of works which revolve around the magical qualities of illuminated paper. Photography no longer functions here as a medium of representation, but instead mainly as a material object. In the so‑called “paper drops,” the real effects of the paper are translated into compositions that are almost graphic in appearance, and hence rendered almost “palpable.” Other works are dominated by printing processes, generating a provocative interplay between motif and surface, image and object.

The show begins with the early photocopy works, continues with a reconstruction of the multipart Turner Prize room and the politically oriented table installation “Truth Study Center.” The focus of the conclusion is the latest pieces.

Official Website: http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/cont/conte/