While rooted in the material world, Tillmans’s works are the result of an interplay of optical translations of matter, which the artist transforms through the technological use of the camera. Under his gaze, purposeful objects cease to have their specific functionality and are morphed into sculptural objects of meditation, pointing beyond their intended purpose: a steel urinal radiates sensations of texture and reflection; a large, seemingly stranded, freight container, exhibited at a 1:1 scale, invites us to look at its sheer presence and mediate on its size, color, and shape; a gigantic advertising structure acts as pure material distortion; and a tower of brussel sprouts becomes an active element in an examination of play and scale in the making of a picture.
Galerie Buchholz
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