Einzelgänger II

2003
Wolfgang Tillmans

Satiny chromogenic colour print
228 x 171 cm

The resulting images appear to feature liquid, hair, internal organs or sub-aquatic scenes, but no liquid was actually used in their making. The effects were achieved by hand, dry: the printed marks were literally created by the artist's movements. Although at first sight these works do not look like photographs, the abstract lines highlight the photographic process, whether or not a camera was used. The images were not created using an automatic process but reflect the artist's own touch and physical presence. Wolfgang Tillmans began to work with abstraction in 1998, not considering it to be a new direction but a pause in the obligation to represent.

Hangs

Expressionist and contemplative works

From 17 December 2014 to 18 May 2015

Wolfgang Tillmans emerged at the beginning of the 1990s as a photographer of a libertarian post-punk youth who listened to techno music.

Since the late 1980s, Wolfgang Tillmans has developed a body of work that stretches the limits of photography and image making. His photographs which he presents taped to the wall, hung from clips or framed, revisit the traditional genres of portraiture, still life and landscape. Tillmans has also worked with the photocopier and has created abstract photographs made in the darkroom without a camera.

The Foundation has more than thirty works by Tillmans acquired since 2007 and, today, is pleased to be showing select works from that collection in Tokyo.

In 2000, Tillmans was the first non-British photographer and artist to receive the Turner Prize awarded annually by Tate in London. The Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna hosted a major Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition in 2021. The Museum of Modern Art in New York devoted a major retrospective to him in the fall of 2022. In Osaka, Japan, the National Museum of Modern Art showed his work in 2015.