Osaka still life

  • 2015
  • Wolfgang Tillmans
  • Inkjet print on paper, binder clips
  • 138,4 x 207,0 cm
illustration

Still lifes hold a prominent place in Tillmans' work. Osaka still life: is a window into a moment where we discover a curious mix of objects, both familiar and disorienting, arranged with a sort of improvised ritual.

In the foreground, the eye is invited to explore a haphazard assortment of provisions and personal items, meticulously arranged on what is a windowsill, in a pictorial composition.

An elegant fan, black and white, with its delicate patterns and Japanese characters, takes pride of place, adding a touch of aesthetics. Scattered papers, a ticket, a document with inscriptions like "Wolfgang Tillmans" and "Osaka to Tokyo," anchor the scene in a concrete reality of travel, of destination (in 2015, the artist had an exhibition at the National Museum of Art in Osaka).

Crédit artiste : © Wolfgang Tillmans Crédit photographique : Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Wolfgang Tillmans

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.

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illustration