Artists who Inspire me: Wolfgang Tillmans

During a course on abstract photography, I came across Wolfgang Tillmans and his photograph, Paper Drop (Star) from 2006.  I was stunned by the price the work had fetched at auction – running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. On further contemplation, the beauty of the image struck me. I couldn’t figure out what it was about (I was on an abstraction course!).  Yet when the instructor revealed that it was a folded piece of photographic paper lying on Tillmans’ desk, something clicked. He was able to capture a compelling abstract image by simply observing the world around him. This jived with me because I was wrestling with the question “Do I need to construct images, or do I capture what presents itself to me?” The latter had been my approach but it seemed all too random and ad-hoc - “non artistic”. Yet seeing this image produced by a renowned photographic artist, experiencing so much success, gave me confidence that my approach was valid within the art world.  

The instructor then showed us Tillmans’ Chair (Part 1 & 2) from 2001 and explained that one of these images was held by a major international bank as a significant financial asset. Like the Paper Drop (Star) image, Tillmans was seeing and photographing the beauty in everyday life. I also noted how his image, JAL was similar to a recent photo of mine, further affirming my ability to see ‘good’ images. 

Somewhere Over Austria, 2024

Inspired, I purchased Phaidon’s book on Wolfgang Tillmans to deepen my knowedge of his practice.  

As I leafed through the book, I was struck by the sheer breath of his work and the numbers of different genres. There were portraits, abstraction, still life's and much more. The essays provided an in-depth account to his artistic practice and his journey from photographing his friends and nightlife in the late 80s / early 90s through to winning the Turner Prize in 2000 and beyond.  I discovered that Paper Drop (Star) was one of a series of similar images made over a period of several years.  The book also discusses Tillman’s non-conformist presentation of his photographs, often pinning prints to the gallery wall rather than mounting and framing. I love his willingness to embrace the serendipity in his photographic process, such as fortunate mistakes in the darkroom, and use them to create new bodies of work.