Wolfgang Tillmans. View from above

...... My photographs and installations have always oscillated between an exploration of the autonomy of the photographic image as such in a given space or context and the photographic as a medium of social content. To keep this dialogue active, it’s been imperative for me to keep questioning and refuting expectations that are brought to my work. By introducing semi-figurative and abstract images into my project a range of questions has arisen, which now equally afffect my older, through-the-lens photographs;

a semi-abstract annd fully abstracts group of works in 1998 as the Parkett edition (1992-1998)... I gave them sixty of those darkroom accidents and interventions. So everybody got a unique picture yes, usually when I do edtions I try to play with the concept of multiples and uniqueness).

Some of them were manipulated versions of well-known images of mine and others showed only the strange traces of dirt from cleaning my processing machine with blank paper. In any case, they all ad a peculiar beauty that led me to continue experimentating with interventions onto the photographic image and paper.
I decided I wanted to be in control of this, and developed over the past 3 years differents abstracts and semi-abstracts image types that are at time diametricallay opposed to each other, in both the impression they give and in the function they fulfill in space.

Q : How do you make those Blush marks those wire-thin lines and tiny particles?

WT : They are all done in the darkroom, with me manually exposing the photographic paper to customized and modified light sources, such as torches. Afterwards the paper is processed normally. All is done by manipulating light on paper, not the negative. Most of the time, the chemical process does’nt get manipulated either. It’s quite an involved process, which I don’t really want to go into because I want the images to be what they are, and not just how they’re made.

The initial question everybody asks when confronted whith a photogaph is? Who is it? Where is it? When was it made? How was it taken? A photograph is always seen through its presence as an object in itself, whereas when confronted with other art objects one always deals with both aspects. That’s what I try to negociate in my exhibitions by asking myself, for example, “What happens when I put six Blushes on this wall by themselves?” or “How does the framed c-print cohabit with the inframed, suspended ink-jet print?

Q: To me, the Interventions Pieces as well as the Blushes or String Pieces are very close to gestural abstract painting, which is not about the object only, but also about the gesture and the act of making it. Do you feel that plays a part in your work too?

WT : it is an act, I mean it is a drawn-out process, which I have to get into. I don’t want to romanticize it either, but it is a kinf of intuitive process, and I need, in a way, to bond with the material I’m using, and then overtime I develop a sense of, sy, how to filter to get the colour I want or how to time to exposure exactly, or make a movement quickly enough so that the paper doesn’t get too dark - and all that is, of course, very much like what a painter does. So it is a very physical thing, and I love this sheet of paper itself, this lush, crisp thing. A piece of photographic paper has its own elegance, how it bows when you have it hanging in one hand or in two and manipulate it, expose it to light. I gues it is quite a gestual thing.

Q : Painting with light?

WT :: Well, that’s an obvious analogy that comes to mind, but I think it’s been used in an apologetic way in the past, trying to bring photography up to what is deemed to be a higher level - well, to that of painting. But, I don’t want to mimic paintings, and I think it’s crucial that my works are perceived as photographs. In a way they do not do anything that photography doesn’ do anyway, because they record light. They’re inherently photographic, and they are not like painting. I mean they do not abuse the photographic process to do something else and so, in that sense, they are as truthful as any photography can be. Again, I think it goes back to just letting them to be what they are. Another thing that is important about them — and which ties them to be what into the rest of my work — is the simple manner in which they are made. Even though I don’t want to explain the technical process, the fact is that they are very simply made and, as with my other pictures, I am interested in how I can transform something simple, or even something complicated, into something else.

... in 1990, or shortly thereafter, I started up to use people as actors of ideas or actors of their own ideas, like a kind of collaboration. I soon realized that photography is a good way to see situations that you would like to see, like scenes of togetherness, but can’t under “normal” circumstances. It’s a little strange to ask people “Could you hold each other because I want to see what it looks like?” But with a camera it’s not such an unusual request, because it is understood that taking a picture is a good enough reason. And this is actually one thing that I really enjoy about photography and have made use of ever since I realized it : a camera provides a good excuse to study things.

Q: Were the Lutz and Alex photographs structured as fashion shots in someway? They were done for I.D. weren’t they?

MAGAZINE_FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY AS SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
WT : They were in i.D yes. I realized that the fashion pages in i-D then, and only a few other magazines now, were pages on which you could actually publish pictures that are not subject to conventional editorial guidelines, whilst still reaching a largish audience. I love the immediacy and accessibility of MAGAZINES. Sometimes a magazine becomes a place where you can show pictures for what they are; And I employed the magazine as a catalyst to enact something I wanted to see, I really wanted to bring my ideas of sexuality into the context of i-D, to represent a man and a woman as partners, rather than the woman as the exploited one and the man in control. The man is,in a way, as exposed as the woman, since topless isn’t equal among the sexes; it is only equal when (as in these pictures) the woman is topless and the man bottomless. So there were a lot of ideas on clothing and attitudes that I had gathered overtime, which all crystallized on a single week end.

It seemed natural to use the context that was most relevant to my life at the time. So some of my earlier work appeared as fashion stories, but these were not commissioned, but purely my own worK. I never had or pursued a career as a fashion photographer, but over the years I did go back a few times to fashion as a location and ever as a catalyst for my work. Most of my editorial work has been portraiture or social documentary photography.

Q : What is the background to the London Underground Pictures ? They seem to be a departure in a way?

WT : This was a project I had in mind for a long time, which I finally realized last year when I guest edited an issue of the London homeles magazine THE BIG ISSUE. I have always associated the underground with incredible intimacy among people, without them wantinf to be intimate with each other.... we’ve all decided not to think of it as a sensual experience, because a taboo is at work... the tube pictures are also ultimately about how negotiable social behaviour is; but initially, of course, I was fascinated by what i saw...
... You can argue that these works are documentary, on the other hand, you could say they are mere abstract studies of surface textures...
... that is the interesting role that the cameraless pictures play (in the book, in the exhibition), they alter the reading of the figurative pictures. In recent exhibitions as well in this book’s image sequence a shift occurs in the way I dissolve the perspective of the “me” as the unifying element that holds the different subject matter together. There is now another layer that asks for a different point of entry to the work.

SNAPSHOTS
Q : You’ve said that you don’t believe in snapshots, what did you mean by that?

WT : : The big misunderstanding of the 1990’s was people thinking that in photography it’s all about “anything goes”, people snapping snapshots. As if taking lots of pictures is interesting as an activity in itself:the notion that you can take pictures of anything has been around about for a long time and is, in terms of art, not very interesting.
Yet, I am always interested in how I can make photography do for me what I want it to do by any possible means, including carrying small “snapshot” camera around with me sometimes. There are moments when I just try to see. Well, I’m in that situation now. Can I take a picture of what I see in front of me with this film and camera I am holding now? It is of cours possible that a great picture can come from a so-called snapshot camera.

Q : AA breackfast ?

WT : : Yes, for example. At that particular moment its was the appropriate camera. No other camer could have given me that picture. In a way, that is a good example of the spur of the moment, when readiness of the camera is the only way for the camera to be.
But that’s not my dogma... I don’t want people to assume that my pictures are any more or less real that anyone else’s. THEY ARE ALL REAL BECAUSE THEY ALL HAPPENED IN FRONT OF MY CAMERA.
But then at the same time they are all constructs, there are not real, they are photographe, and they are my way of making or trying to make, the camera do what I whant it to do. It’s always more like an attempt. And getting better at it is a life long process.

Those enormous ink-jet prints.... I guess I could have an easier life if I did’nt so much about all the different manifestations of an image, if I did’nt care aboout making the prints myself or in my studio but somehow I see that as beeing part of my work... I understand my work better through this process...

PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE
Q : You mentionnel that you intend to start taking more portraits of people again?

WT : : Yes, all of last year, I took more portraits again and it’s something I guess I won’t ever really tire of - sometimes I don’t feel I have anything to contribute to portraiture, and then, suddenly, after a year or two, I find I have a renewed, refreshed interest in people. Growing tired of people in general would be a terrible thing to happen to me. MAKING A PORTRAIT IS A FUNDAMENTAL ARTISTIC ART, and the process of it is a very direct human exchange, which is what I find interesting about it. The dynamics of it never change, no matter how successful you are or how successful the sitter is or how famous anybody involved is. The actual dynamics of vulnerability and exposure and embarrassment and honesty do not change, ever. And so, I’ve found that portraiture is a good levelling instrument for me. It always just sends me back to square one. I’m not saying it’s something you can’t get better at;of course, it develops. But it requires of me as person to be sort of intact and fluid.

AUFSICHT
Q: I think you mentioned that emptiness or nothingness was to be one of the subtexts of your “Aufsicht” and... that snow in Russia you photographed last year... which then melts and nothing is left..

WT :: Yes. It’s this voluminous nothingness that at the time is very real... I am very interested in the nohingness of things because I know that my own existence and life are insubstantial physically.
... in other words, even the most interesting stuff, like the snow, is actually physically present as a diamond, or as a person. What makes it valuable, or not, is our projection on to it, and that transformation interests me, how something, suddenly, thorough an emotional charge, becomes something different. The idea, that everything,from a purely physical point of view, is pretty similar is what interests me, and what we choose to see and not see.

MENTAL PICTURES
The title is a little misleading because for me, “mental” means crazy, as in, “You’re fucking mental..;” “This song is really mental”. It means over the top in an interesting way, and I thought of just how impossible these pictures were, because they are anything but tasteful, so unfashionably colourful in a way..

Q : Kind of 1960s, TIE-DYED LOOKING

WT : : Yes. I was fascinated by them and thought to myself “My God, they are so, you don’t do that kind of thing these days”... They evoke all sorts of organic or underwater things and I achievec this, again, by very simple means... that in itself gave me great pleasure.

LES VIEWS FROM ABOVE_THE UNPRIVILEDGED VIEW
Q : I think one of the unifying things is that they are a representation of an UNPRIVILEGED gaze or view;

WT : THE UNPRIVILEDGED VIEW MAY BE APPLIED TO ALL MY WORKS
In photography I like to assume exactly the unpriviledged position, the position that everybody can take, that chooses to sit at an airplane window or chooses to climb a tower. THAT PERSPECTIVE, ON VARIOUS LEVELS, ALLOWS ME TO WORK AT THE SAME TIME IN A FIGURATIVE AND AN ABSTRACT MANNER, analysing what one could call “THE SURFACE OF THE SOCIAL FABRIC” and getting forms and shapes from which to derive pictures. I guess what was also what caused Gerhard Richter to use aerial views of the city scapes in the 1960s. Cities and agricultural landscapes are these systems - longs systems that have been developed out of innumerable human activities, the way every little thin gets to look the way it looks is a minor of some intention, and that’s may be my interest in general aesthetics, that every aesthetic decision is there for a reason. When you look at the surfaces of things, they usually harbour some sort of meaning or intention;

AN ANTI_HOMELESS PAVEMENT
Q: An extreme exemple of that is your picture of an anti-homeless pavement. You included it in THE BIG ISSUE you guest edit.

WT : That is something that I have been observing as they’ve emerged over the past ten years or so, these devices to keep people from lingering and sitting, and that’s a perfect example of HOW THE SURFACE AND ESSENCE OF A THING, BENEATH THE SURFACE, ARE ACTUALLY VERY SIMILAR, CONTRARY TO THE IDEA THAT SURFACE IS PURELY SUPERFICIAL. I have been thinking that the nature of the world is inscribed in its surface, and I think observation is the true key to understand things. Actually, the power of observation can transform something, because we understand through observation. Actually, THE POWER OF OBSERVATION CAN TRANSFORM SOMETHING, BECAUSE WE UNDERSTAND THROUGH OBSERVATION.IN A SENSE, I CAN PHOTOGRAPHY ONLY WHAT I UNDERSTAND, ONLY ONCE I HAVE UNDERSTOOD THAT SOMETHING MEANS SOMETHING FOR ME CAN I TAKE A PICTURE OF IT. Though I must say “to understand something” certainly isn’t meant here as “explaining something”.

With the VIEWS FROM ABOVE series what interests me or what is important to say is that even though one could think that it’s a position of power or... omniscience, I never associate with that position, it’s always more like an insecure elevation. The VIEWS FROM ABOVE is not intended to distance myself from other people, but it’s more like looking at myself. WHEN I LOOK AT A STRUCTURE, A MEGASTRUCTURE, I SEE MYSELF AS ACTUALLY BEING PART OF IT.

Q : All these cities are like brains.... humming with electrical connexions..

WT : Yes, like the picture of Tolyo (Aufsicht green) which was taken at nightfall, when the lights were coming on, like neurons. I often title these pictures according to their dominant color.
.... the word accident is misleading the unforeseen is actually more appropriate;

YOUTH AND LIFESTYLES_MY MEDIUM IN A WAY
... In the early 1990s, I had a strong desire to get involved in the politics of representing youth and lifestyles, the private and the public. At the same time contemporary culture is also the location of my formal consideration. It’s the world that I live in and that I can speak in, it’s MY MEDIUM IN A WAY, but what I think to find out and try to adress in my work can also be removed from the social content of the picture, even though that is equally important maybe one thing that holds the work together, the ABSTRACT AND THE FIGURATIVE, is that it all deals with the phenomenom of light, and reflects my fascination with making something that is intouchable tangible.

Q : Certainly, in the eclipse picture the subjet is light, and its absence

WT : Yes, that is the perfect example... astronomy in a sense initiated me into the visual world...when I was eleven, in 1978, 79, I fell in love with the stars... I guess I’ve always been interested in trying to figure the fundamentals what life is and where we come frme and soon which predates my fascination with people and social interaction. Maybe there are two strands, this very fundamental interest in light and what it can do and how I can shape it, the alchey of that, and, on the other hand, the very real, the very being-in-the-worldness with others, and the desire to be intensely connected to other people.