Strange Beauty: Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, 1968- ) often photographs mass produced objects such as Tupperware, cigarette lighters, magazines and newspapers along with the more typical still life subjects of fruit, vegetables and flowers or plants. He sees beauty in the ordinary, while his compositional sense is extraordinary, his subjects seemingly unposed but the arrangements utterly stylish.

Tillmans constructs complex and playful relationships between many objects, none more important than another, creating a democratic and sensual mood. His images are usually in color, and the lighting is even and unremarkable, since he wants his work to have the accessibility of daily life, and none of the sanctified remoteness of high art.

Watermelon 

Still Life, New York City 

Still Life, Talbot Street 1991

Layers 2000

Arkadia I, 1996

  Faltenwurf (Grey) 2011

Movin Cool inkjet print on paper

Tukan C-print 2009

Nachtstilleben inkjet print on paper 2011

Classic photography seemed so remote, so irrelevant to me...Now I'm glad I never knew the history of photography until after I found my stylistic footing.

Paradise is maybe when you dissolve your ego- a loss of self, being in a bundle of other bodies.- Wolfgang Tillmans