Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile

Wolfgang Tillmans’s artistic work is based on his never-ceasing curiosity, his intensive research in preparation, and a constant testing and advancing of the medium and its technical and aesthetic potential. His visual language derives from precise observation that reveals a deeply human approach to our environment. Emotions like familiarity, empathy, friendship, and intimacy are visible and tangible in his pictures. Tillmans’s approach can be seen as an appeal for freedom and an invitation to encounter others fearlessly and with open-minded curiosity. For Tillmans, acceptance of the fragility that determines us as individuals and that plays into our relations with each other is not a weakness – it is a great strength. He uses failure, ruptures, and frailty as impulses to develop new processes. They refer to the imperfect nature of our lives and they reveal unanticipated perspectives on their materiality. Fragile provides a broad overview of Wolfgang Tillmans’s many facetted artistic means of expression: large format prints, sculptural objects, video projections, and music plus his curating of the installation. The ifa touring exhibition shows more than 200 works created in the years 1986 to 2020: in addition to framed and unframed photographic works in various formats, also on show are Tillmans’s table installation truth study center, vid-eos, and many of his publication projects. Like all of Tillmans’s exhibitions, each venue of the tour presents an installation that reacts to the specific exhibition space, its architecture and surroundings.