Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968)

Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968)
Portishead (Seagull)
signed, titled and numbered 'Portishead seagull pl. 1293 proof 694 7/10+1 Wolfgang Tillmans' (on the reverse)
C-print
12 x 16in. (30.5 x 40.5cm.)
Executed in 1993, this work is number seven from an edition of ten plus one artist's proof

Another from the edition is held in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Provenance:
Anon. sale, Farsetti Prato, 28 May 2008, lot 344.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Wolfgang Tillmans, 1994.

Literature:
Wolfgang Tillmans, Cologne 1995 (another example illustrated in colour, unpaged).
Wolfgang Tillmans. Wer Liebe wagt lebt morgen, exh. cat., Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 1996 (installation view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac exhibition, Paris, 1994, illustrated in colour, pp. 144-145).

λ Please see our Conditions of Sale for definitions of cataloguing symbols.

Specialist Notes:

Wolfgang Tillmans’ photographs capture evocative, intimate reflections of often overlooked objects and moments in everyday life. Since the mid-1980s, he has reinterpreted representational genres from portraiture to still life to landscape, and invented a radical presentational approach that engages and brings to the fore the particular dynamics of specific spaces. Indeed his imagery has a distinctive energy, often appearing spontaneous and capturing the essence of the moment.

And yet, his photographs are not random snapshots; they are carefully selected and crafted in order to convey a distinctive way in which to perceive the world around us. In Portishead, Tillmans’ photograph displays well-defined zones of different textures and hues. From the seaweed covered rocks, to the choppy sea and soft cloud-studded sky, Tillmans conceives a well-balanced composition with undeniable painterly qualities. Indeed the punctuation of the orange from the suited fisherman seems to act as an anchor of sorts to the scene, bringing a sort of atonal harmony to an otherwise seemingly banal image. From a distance, the image takes on an abstracted quality of form and colour. Tillmans relishes this in his photography, noting that ‘You are free to use your eyes and attribute value to things the way you want. The eyes are a great subversive tool because they technically don’t underlie any control, they are free when used freely’ (W. Tillmans, quoted in D. Birnbaum, ‘A New visual Register for Our Perceptual Apparatus’, in Wolfgang Tillmans, exh. cat., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 2006, p. 16).

This work is featured in our How to Collect like a Tate Curator article – find out more here.

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.