Wolfgang Tillmans at the Hirshhorn Museum

I Don’t Want to Get Over You, 2000 and Lutz & Alex Holding Cock, 1992
© Wolfgang Tillmans

Before leaving D.C., I was able to make some quick gallery/museum rounds. One of the highlights would have to be the rather large Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The exhibition includes approximately 300 photographs by Tillmans, a video, and installations of works that span his career, including the abstractions created by the direct manipulation of light on paper.

Though Tillmans’ work is hugely influential to many younger artists, and since the 1990s he has garnered international recognition as one of the most significant artists to emerge, I’ll be honest; Prior to seeing this exhibition there were only “a few” photographs that “I liked” by Wolfgang Tillmans.

While certain works are notably singular and iconic (for me the above image on the right, Lutz & Alex Holding Cock, 1992), his use of a shifting scale for his prints and an ever-changing rotation of images with each successive installation demonstrates his desire to see all of his pictures as universally significant. At the entrace to the show, the statement explains that Tillmans considers most all exhibitions to be, in a way, site specific. And at the Hirshhorn, Tillmans did indeed decide on the installation based on the space. Tillmans applies the same purpose to every picture – whether it’s a photograph of a place, person, object, situation, or an abstraction, he asks the viewer to allow themeslves the ability to look at the work without any pressing image hierarchy. In fact, many of the images are literally Scotch-taped to the wall, others clipped, and a few framed.

Installation view, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek, Denmark, 2003
© Wolfgang Tillmans

For this reason I believe the show was thoughtfully installed, the space obviously well considered by Tillmans in the presentation of the work. Thinking back on the recent exhibition that I was in, I mentioned briefly what a pleasure it was to install work in a space that wasn’t overbearingly white, removing any potential feeling that a viewer can get from these types of galleries that often make the work feel less accessible. Where I felt as if we successfully broke this tension by choosing an alternative space, Tillmans successfully subverted the white-wall space by allowing his images to hang with this air of humblness. Even his large-scale abstractions felt, to me, to just be bigger renditions of smaller experiements (as in the case of the above image on the left, I Don’t Want to Get Over You, 2000).

Again, I feel I’ve grown a new apprecaition for Tillmans after seeing this show. I’ve always known his eye to be rather democratic, but not until I experienced (in person) his full range of “uses” for the medium did I truly understand.

For more check out this phone interview with Tillmans by Hirshhorn Assistant Curator Kristen Hileman.