[Art Gallery Tour 34] Walk into Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition @David Zwirner

#WolfgangTillmans #WalaArt #DavidZwirner
Wala Art is taking you to a tour at David Zwirner Hong Kong
March 25-May 11, 2024
David Zwirner is pleased to present The Point Is Matter, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Wolfgang Tillmans at the gallery’s location in Hong Kong. The exhibition’s title stems from Tillmans’s long-term understanding of his work sitting between the physical reality and presence of the world he works and lives in and the conceptual, sociopolitical, sensual, and spiritual concerns that underpin his practice. Presented across both floors of the gallery, the works on view include depictions of changing forms of atmosphere and elusive natural phenomena; pictures that explore notions of time and temporality; and images that engage with the artist’s expansive conceptions of the still life and the portrait. Tillmans punctuates the exhibition with works made in Addis Ababa, Berlin, Lagos, and Mongolia, along with those taken in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, sensitively invoking resonant associations between the local and the world at large, while advocating for an experience of connectedness that is rooted in the process of looking.
In each of the gallery spaces, distinct subject matter emerges. Among them is a room that focuses on images that picture the cycle of water as it transitions from a liquid to a solid (ice) to a gas (water vapor). In Lunar Landscape (2022), the Atlantic Ocean glows at great luminosity, the image colliding the celestial plane with the surface of the Earth. Sirius Through a Defocused Telescope, a-f (each 2023) show Sirius, the brightest star visible to the human eye, at distinct moments as the star “twinkles.” The works depict air currents and air cells of different densities that result in an ever-changing flicker, blur, and display of spectral colors and shapes. Astronomy represents the artist’s earliest passion, having trained his eye through the observation of the physical universe, the sky, and celestial phenomena.
Tillmans further indicates the subtle geological movements and natural states of matter in a world undergoing historic and rapid changes. In Ulaanbaatar Still Life (2023), arranged in Mongolia, silk flowers rest on a heating unit in front of a window that overlooks a snowy landscape and a ger, a portable tent that can withstand fierce winter winds, used in the region as a nomadic, adaptable home. Summer Storm Rain Drops Freeze Frame (2023) captures rain droplets outside the artist’s studio in Berlin in an otherwise imperceptible moment of transition.
Artist：Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans was born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany, and studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in Bournemouth, England, from 1990 to 1992.
Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced younger generations more than Tillmans. In a career spanning almost four decades, he has consistently redefined the medium of photography through a seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies. His inventive practice pairs intimacy and playfulness with a commitment to social awareness and a persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies.
In recent years, Tillmans has been more directly involved in political activism. In tandem with his ongoing Truth Study Center project (begun in 2005), he has created posters for the anti-Brexit campaign in Britain and in response to right-wing populism in Germany.
Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide. Tillmans lives and works in Berlin and London.