Turquoise blue waves create a swirl that observers cannot escape. It seems almost sure that “Greifbar 105” (Tangible 105) is a photograph of a real, albeit distorted, sea or cloud formation. Yet, intriguingly, this is not the case. Wolfgang Tillmans' abstract photographic series is the result of experimental darkroom processes, in which the photographic paper is processed without a camera, somewhere between chance and deliberate control of exposure. The intense compositions with their overwhelming colors lend the “Greifbar” series, part of the “Freischwimmer” (Free Swimmer) group, a poetic, pictorial effect.
Contrary to what the title suggests, the structures are anything but tangible. Tillman only creates them by directing light with his hands, not by flowing chemicals. The fine, almost black lines and shapes, which occasionally consolidate and dissolve again into cloud-like formations in the bright blue-turquoise, seem to reveal the actual movement of light. The acclaimed photographer impressively blurs the boundaries between photography and painting, creating heavenly, theatrical, mysterious, and slightly psychedelic images.
Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Remscheid in 1968. He showed an early interest in photography and came into contact with the photo-based art of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. At the age of 20, he lived in Hamburg, where he began his artistic career, but in the early 1990s, he studied in Great Britain and lived mainly in London from 1992 to 2007. His work has been internationally recognized since that time, and his 2000 Turner Prize win as the first photographer and the first non-British artist propelled him to the forefront of the international art world. Wolfgang Tillmans is rarely out of the limelight. Alongside art exhibitions, fashion photography, music albums, Instagram, and catwalk work, he also devotes a great deal of time to political and activist issues. He is considered one of the most discussed photographers of his generation, even though he does not attempt to depict reality, but rather interprets and recreates it. By experimenting with light and pushing the technical boundaries of photography, Tillmans creates new realities that, as in “Greifbar 105,” open up alternative perspectives and approaches. [AW]