Wolfgang Tillmans, the German-born, London-based, Turner-Prize winning (2000) photographers gets his first Scandinavian presentation in this exhibition (15 January-21 April) which launches the museum’s 2003 season. Following his first solo exhibition in Hamburg in 1988, Tillmans worked as a magazine photographer until 1992 when he moved to London and began to create the photo-installations that launched him as a photographic artist. This exhibition recapitulates his work of the past four years, work that marked a new departure for him. While in the 1990s he was concerned with youth culture, more recently it has verged on the abstract. Many of the shots are taken from above, such as his night-time views of Los Angeles and images of plants in his window box, and, di sopra in giù, the artist attempts to make visible the social, psychological and architectonic patterns he sees around him. At the same time, some of his photographs have a homely, almost snapshot quality to them, suggesting another, more gemütlich, kind of perspective. At the same time, Tillmans asks us to consider our viewpoint and sense of perception by varying the size of photographs and inkjets.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Wolfgang Tillmans: view from above'