Wolfgang Tillmans, from Neue Welt @Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 large scale color photographs, variously framed and displayed, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space, the connecting hallway, the back gallery, and the office area. Most of the works are inkjet prints on paper, some mounted on aluminum and framed in white, others unframed and clipped directly to the wall. These prints range in size from roughly 31x25 to 95x63 (or reverse) and are available in editions of 3+1AP or 1+1AP depending on size. 3 of the works are c-prints mounted on dibond and framed in white; they are each sized 93x71 (or reverse) and are available in editions of 1+1AP. The exhibit also includes a grid of 128 offset prints. All of the works were made between 2009 and 2012. Monographs of Neue Welt and Fruit Logistica were recently published by Taschen (here) and Walther König (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In his most recent work, Wolfgang Tillmans has set himself an audacious goal - to capture the astonishingly diverse spirit of our sprawling, global, hyper-connected, 21st century world. Bouncing from continent to continent over the past few years, he has made pictures in countless locations, from Jeddah to Buenos Aires, Shanghai to Addis Ababa, and Los Angeles to Munuwata, selecting moments that have the first glance look of random snapshots, but soon coalesce into a deeper set of underlying patterns and rhythms. In his hands, our complex world resolves itself into set of contradictions, finding an uneasy balance between confusingly interwoven and juxtaposed realities.

Tillmans has always thought deeply about editing and image sequencing, and this exhibit is no exception. It moves back and forth with directed purpose, mixing emblems of old and new in a point-counterpoint dialogue, the visual conversation interrupted occasionally by an elegant abstraction to turn the viewer back inward for just a moment. The broadness of the starry night sky over Kilimanjaro is matched by computerized laser astronomy tools, improvised markets of crouching women and outstretched tarps are offset by the perfect displays at a futuristic food tradeshow, and the natural, earthy growth of mushroom spores on a tree trunk is set against the sleek, engineered headlights of high tech cars at an auto show. His eye pushes us to see the simultaneity of disparity and difference all around us. The hopelessly poor streets of Addis Ababa clash with the shiny escalators of a Jeddah shopping mall, the soot encrusted roof of a Masai hut fights with the mundane sterility of a hotel room, and the timeless games on the nighttime streets of Shanghai disregard the modern metal buildings of Los Angeles. We are at once pushing forward with energy and innovation and dragged back to the roots of our existence.

Given the complexity of Tillmans' overall argument, it might be reasonable to assume that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts here, but there are more standout single images in this show than I can ever remember seeing in a Tillmans show. The car headlights are aggressively streamlined and technical, the fly perched on a mass of crab legs is bold and compositionally dense, and the water flowing out of a plastic pipe into the gutter is gracefully dirty. In this particular edit, his eye for color and detail is very strong, especially when he moves in close.

Trying to document the global zeitgeist is a perilous challenge, but Tillmans has found a way to represent the complexity of our age with remarkable coherence and legibility. His works capture both our lofty aspirations and our crude realities, without a sense of omniscient pretense or judgment. In these diverse photographs, he shows us all our glorious incongruity and discord, singling out its extremities with perceptive interest.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The inkjet prints range from $28000 to $68000 based on size, while the large c-prints from the Silver series are $90000 each. Tillmans' work is generally available in the secondary markets, with a handful of images on offer in most auction seasons. Recent prices have generally ranged between $2000 and $90000.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), New Yorker (here)

Wolfgang Tillmans, from Neue Welt
Through June 22nd

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) @Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 83 color photographs by Walker Evans, framed in white and matted, and hung in the large single room main gallery. All of the works are SX-70 Polaroids made in 1973 or 1974, sized roughly 4x3. The exhibit also includes 4 photographic diptychs by Roni Horn. These works are iris-printed photographs on Somerset Satin paper, each panel sized 22x22. The images were made in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2007, and are available in editions of 15+3AP. Additional supporting photographs include an 1887 Eadweard Muybridge collotype from Animal Locomotion (sized 19x24), and a Eugene Atget albumen storefront from 1900 (sized 9x7); these two photographs are displayed in the entrance area. The installation also includes a selection of oak furniture by Gustav Stickley, an 19th century architectural model of a cooper's workshop, and a 19th century English birdhouse. This exhibit was curated by Ydessa Hendeles; a spiral bound catalog of the show is available for free at the reception desk (and is worth taking). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: One of the unforeseen consequences of a proliferation of art on the Internet is that we have inadvertently (and permanently) diluted the meaning of the word "curator". We're all choosers, selectors, organizers, editors and like-ers now, whether we are celebrities, gallery owners, scholars/academics, collectors, or idle watchers. At one level, this is mighty freeing and empowering, breaking down old restrictive barriers and letting in some much needed fresh air. But at another, we seem to be losing sight of the nuances of old school curating craftsmanship and excellence that go miles beyond just gathering a bunch of pictures under a clever theme for a group show.

While this show takes place at the Andrea Rosen Gallery and selling is ostensibly going on, a retail experience seems wholly beyond the point of this exhibition. The art objects on view transcend being works by Walker Evans or Roni Horn or whoever, and become elements of an elaborate theatrical set piece. Taken together, the individual items have been meticulously arranged and sequenced to highlight internal relationships and connections that have very little to do with their inherent Walker Evans-ness or Roni Horn-ness. The hand of the curator is so evident here that it trumps the underlying works themselves; we've entered the carefully controlled world of Ydessa Hendeles, and it is the sum of the parts that matters.

This kind of mixed media, open ended, metaphorical curation is rarely seen in Chelsea these days; it's such an unusual animal that we've almost forgotten how to react to such a complex presentation. My first reaction upon entering the main gallery space was to notice its clean geometries and the manipulation of scale going on: tiny Polaroids interrupted by larger prints, surrounding small church pews leading to a grand central object, in this case, an ornate, domed birdcage made of intricate polished wood. As I circled the gallery, the Evans Polaroids drew me into an intimate dialogue, vicariously wandering and circling the vernacular architecture just like Evans himself, moving in and out, around and across, seeing silhouettes and then details in succession. The Horn images of birds forced me to physically move back, to take them in as objects related to the central bird cage, and then to move back in to see their delicate layers of feathers in an architectural manner. The overall result is a sense of fluidity and motion that isn't linear but more swirling and rhythmic, the movement through space not strict and rigid, but more loose and serendipitous than it appears on the surface.

While there are a number of individual standouts mixed in among the works on display, many of the Evans Polaroids aren't hugely memorable, and are of more interest as a process flow, like contact sheets where we can see the photographer moving from frame to frame with deliberate action. There is a palpable sense of Evans testing the limits of the camera, figuring out how his eye could control the output of the device in ways that he wanted. Some work and some don't, but seen together, there is the real feeling of being along for the ride with a master.

What I like best about this installation is that there is some curatorial risk taking going on here. Hendeles didn't just give us a static ring of Evans Polaroids, but an immersive environment that draws from those Polaroids, one that offers additional less obvious pathways to explore; there are multiple "ways in" to this exhibit, leading to different contextual conclusions. I also appreciate the clear move to take photography out of its own separate artistic silo and to mix it together with other decorative arts that can provide alternate resonances. Her setting provides a richer experience of Evans' late work, offering us ways to look and see that are beyond the simple or straightforward.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The Walker Evans Polaroids are priced at $7000 each, and the Roni Horn diptychs are either $85000, $120000, or NFS (she is represented by Hauser & Wirth here). Evans' late Polaroids do come up for sale at auction from time to time; prices in recent years have ranged between $1000 and $5000.
.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
.

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: Vogue (here), Opening Ceremony (here)

The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project)

Through February 4th
.
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Wolfgang Tillmans, Out of the Boxes @Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 60 color photographs, framed in white but not matted, and hung in double rows in the small, single room back gallery. The c-prints are displayed in two sizes: 12x16 or reverse, in editions of 10+AP, and 20x24 or reverse, in editions of 3+AP. There are 23 images in the medium size and 37 images in the small size in the show. The works were made between 1991 and 2010 and are arranged roughly chronologically. (Installation shots at right.)
.
Comments/Context: Given how prolific Wolfgang Tillmans is, it's not at all surprising that his gallery would have a large number of boxes of his prints in different sizes back in the storage room, in the event a potential collector or client might like to review a selection of works. With this exhibit, the gallery has begun a multi-part series where it will invite an individual curator to look through these boxes of ready prints and to select a group to be displayed in the small single room space near the offices. The show builds on Tillmans' own idea of a living, growing artistic archive, one that can be remixed and re-edited to generate alternate views. The difference here is that instead of Tillmans carefully doing the choosing and sequencing (as is normally the case), someone else is jumping into the complexity of his work and drawing his or her own conclusions.

This first incarnation was organized by Beatrix Ruf, director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, and takes a subtly formalist approach to Tillmans' work. Rather than explore groupings of common subject matter or overarching theme, she has opted for a generally chronological plan, where the images are double hung in dense ribbons around the room. In sifting through the boxes, her eye seems to have been attracted by echoes and patterns of form; the show has a sense of forward momentum that draws the viewer around the circle of the space, and visual ideas and motifs are continually repeated and refrained using pairs of images, either hung side by side, or just nearby enough to make sure the doubling effect doesn't get lost. There are obvious subject matter pairs, like two chairs, two flowers, two furled book pages, or two architectural details, as well as pairs of color (purple shirt followed by purple sky or red shirt followed by red leaves), pairs of form (the moon and a male nude), and pairs of theme (man washing in the Ganges with a man taking a shower). I'm sure that if this show was parsed even more carefully, it would be found to be full of these echoes, puns, and connections.

What these repackaged juxtapositions tell us about Tillmans's photography that we didn't already know is less clear; quite a few of the images on view here will be familiar to those that saw his last show at the gallery in 2010 (review here). This selection and arrangement imposes a framework that often focuses the viewer on elements of composition, showing us that Tillmans may have consciously repeated similar ideas across relatively short periods of time, the structures explored serially and then sometimes returned to in modified form again and again. Or perhaps some of these connections were completely unconscious, only visible when seen at the aggregate level across many years.

Rather than pin too much on one intepretation or another or to unnaturally overthink things, I think it is best to see this show as a cleverly selected Tillmans playlist, with hits and rarities in equal measure, and with a conscious set of smart connections to make you think as you shuffle from one image to the next.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The 12x16 prints are $8000 each, while the 20x24 prints are $16000 each. Tillmans' work is consistently available in the secondary markets, with prices ranging between $2000 and $50000 in recent years.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Out of the Boxes
Through June 11th

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Wolfgang Tillmans @Andrea Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 85 color images in various sizes, unframed and either taped or binder clipped directly to the walls, and hung at multiple heights in the entry, main gallery, hallway, and back room. (Installation shots at right.) 20 of the images are printed in the smallest size (4x6) and clustered together as part of the installation in the entry only. The other 65 images are printed in one of 4 permutations:

• c-print, 12x16 or reverse, editions of 10+AP
• c-print, 20x24 or reverse, editions of 3+AP
• c-print, largest size (no dimensions given; not in the exhibition), editions of 1+AP
• inkjet print, 82x54 or reverse, editions of 1+AP

All of the works are from the period 2006 to 2009, except for the framed collection of images in the entry (executed as a single work) which is from 2002. There is one image which is duplicated (Arup, 2007) in two different sizes on two different walls.

Comments/Context: When trying to put Wolfgang Tillmans into some kind of historical context, I have always thought he was a photographic descendant of Nan Goldin. Using a casual snapshot aesthetic, his work from the 1990s centered on himself and his inner circle of friends, often documenting small moments of intimacy, the exuberance of the club scene, or the chaotic afterparty mess found in the bedroom and kitchen. At first glance, many of the images seemed entirely forgettable, but with more sustained looking, I came to appreciate their genuine freshness and their ability to document the immediacy and hidden importance of the present.

.

What I found intriguing in this show of Tillmans' new work is that he seems to have moved on from documenting the nuances of his internal life and has begun to look outward at the world around him with more deliberateness. Perhaps this is simply the result of being a recognized art world star, with a hectic travel schedule that takes him away from his close friends and to the far reaches of the globe, or perhaps it is a function of being a little older. In any event, there are very few of his signature shots of youth culture in this exhibit; no portraits or nudes of friends, no joking or beer bottles or full ashtrays. This is an externally focused Tillmans, seeing the cultural details and rich surfaces of what surrounds him, from Bangkok to Gaza, from Moscow to Tunisia.

This evolution has taken his work away from the emotionally charged landscape of Goldin toward a cooler and more detached examination of the nuances of color and form, in the mode of Eggleston, with a youthful, international edge. An open window with a red mosaic tile edge becomes a complex composition of lines. A cage full of chicks dyed garish hues of pink, yellow, purple, and green becomes a painterly mixture of fuzzy blobs. The overlooked fabric on a long distance bus seat is suddenly seen to be a dizzying tangle of overly vibrant colors. Stacks of eggs in cardboard cartons become layers of unexpected geometries.

.

This exhibition also has a very strong sense of time, of the 21st century "right now" and the interconnected world we inhabit today. This comes not from any single image, but from the cumulative effect of the pictures seen together. The specific installation of the works enhances this result I think - the huge images force the viewer to step back and take in a wider view of the gallery (and the interrelated themes being presented), while the small images require the viewer to engage in a more intimate conversation. This ebbing and flowing movement is then controlled by the sequencing of the images, where the story and mood of our less rooted and more anonymous international existence is slowly pieced together. Computer screens, views from open air taxis, tourist monuments, and people dressed in elaborate motorcycle leathers remind us of both the known and unknown around us. The image of the girl with her faced pressed up against a window is perhaps the most emblematic of this modern situation: on the outside, looking in, and seeing the strangeness around us as something both pleasing and unexpected.

I have often thought that Tillmans' work likely performs best in groups rather than as single stand alone images, and this show has not changed my opinion on this aspect of his artistic approach; while there are quite a few startling hits in this show, there are also plenty of works that aren't nearly as memorable. To my eye, the standouts of this show are the still life of a pear in a plastic bag near a clove of garlic, and the two faltenwurf still lifes of rumpled clothes (one a yellow shirt, the other a pair of underwear). These alone are well worth a visit to this show. But it is the overall effect of the works seen together (especially in this unorthodox installation) that drives home Tillmans' unique view of the atmospheric visual overload of life as we know it.

Collector's POV: As I mentioned above, all of the works in this show, except the small 4x6 images in the entry (not for sale), are available in one of four print sizes. As such, there are four prices for each work, as follows:

• c-print, small: $8000
• c-print, medium: $16000
• c-print, large, $57000
• inkjet print, large, $48000

The large framed collection of earlier images (in the entry) is available as one work for $95000. Tillmans' work is generally available in the secondary markets, with a handful of images on offer each season. Prices have ranged between $2000 and $50000 in recent years.

.

As an aside, this exhibition is a great example of how scale changes the impact of an image. There is truly an amazing difference between a banner/poster sized work and one that is 12x16, and not all images work well (or at all) at various sizes. An intriguing side discussion would be to consider why Tillmans chose the sizes he did for the installation, and how the exhibit would have been different if different pieces were alternately large or small. For collectors, there may indeed be one "optimal" size for any given image, and it may not be the one that is currently on view.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: New York (here), Artforum (here, scroll down)

Wolfgang Tillmans
Through March 13th

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Book: Wolfgang Tillmans, Still Life

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2002 by Harvard. 64 pages, with 36 color images. Includes an essay by Benjamin Paul. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: While we already have several Wolfgang Tillmans monographs in our library, I recently came across the small spiral bound catalog of a show at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum in 2002 and it seemed to be just exactly what we have been looking for all along. Tillmans is of course best known for a dizzying array of portraits, landscapes, abstractions, and other images of the circa 1990s "younger generation", casual snapshot-like images that chronicle the relaxed lives of couples and friends in ways that echo Nan Goldin's intimate pictures of her friends and lovers decades earlier. He is also known for the careful installation of his work in galleries and museums, where he often uses a wide range of sizes and formats, sometimes under glass on tabletops or unframed and taped to the wall, new work juxtaposed and mixed in with older images to create flowing narratives and unexpected connections.

An intriguing problem for collectors (and museums I imagine) is that Tillmans' work seems to be most resonant when shown in groups, where the images can respond to each other; many of the single images work extremely well in a cluster, but are perhaps less earth shaking when viewed as a stand alone print isolated from others of a common theme. Likely because of our affinity for florals, we have always been most drawn to his still lifes, which portray classic motifs in a thoroughly modern and some might say "authentic" way. This small book is thus perfect for us, as it gathers together in one volume the image types that we are most interested in exploring in more depth.

Most of Tillmans' still lifes are chaotic tabletop gatherings or dense windowsill arrangements of seemingly random objects, all bathed in natural morning light. Flowers and scraggly plants are often found sticking out of a drinking glass or a plastic disposable water bottle; fruit is often artfully arranged or seemingly recently discarded, peels and all. Crumpled laundry, broken shells and dirty dishes also make cameos. At one level, the images appear to be artless snaps of someone's lived-in apartment; at another, the found objects seem carefully placed and somehow representative of the larger life around them. To our eyes, the parallels to Josef Sudek's lyrical groupings of eggs, bread crusts, and flowers in his studio window from the 1950s are very strong, but updated by Tillmans to reflect a contemporary world and aesthetic.

Collector's POV: Wolfgang Tillmans is represented by Andrea Rosen gallery in New York (here). Tillmans' work is readily available at auction, with prices ranging from $2000 to $50000, often depending on dimensions and edition size. For our particular collection, one of the floral still lifes in this catalog would be the best fit into our framework, and could certainly be considered evidence of new conventions being applied to a traditional subject.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Artforum article 2008 (here)
• UCLA Hammer Museum retrospective 2007 (here)
• PS1 exhibit 2006 (here)
• Interview with Gil Blank in Influence 2004 (here)
• Turner Prize 2000 (here)