A brush with… Wolfgang Tillmans—podcast – The Art Newspaper

Tillmans, born in Remscheid, Germany, in 1968, has modified the historical past of images. He has taken established genres of artwork and the photographic medium, from portraiture to nonetheless life, panorama, political topics and abstraction, and relentlessly experimented with the framing, printing and presentation of his photos and photographic objects. His topics embrace all the things from pressing imagery of social occasions like protests or membership nights, formal portraits and experimental cameraless images.

From the very begin of his now near four-decade profession, Tillmans has proven his works in installations that reply particularly to the intricacies of the areas wherein they’re displayed, with the pictures offered in codecs that vary from postcard measurement to huge and enveloping prints. The pictures would possibly abut the nook of a room, be hung excessive up the partitions or unorthodoxly low, or adjoining to bureaucratic components like fireplace exit indicators. They may be organised in flurries or constellations, or in spare linear preparations or grids. By this course of, Wolfgang constantly reenergises his archive, juxtaposing photos taken years and typically many years aside. Whereas images has remained his major medium, Wolfgang has steadily expanded his media, with video set up, textual content and sound and music gaining growing prominence in his exhibitions.

He discusses the early influence on him of seeing the work of Kurt Schwitters, his present curiosity within the work of Francisco de Zurbarán, his lengthy affiliation with the up to date German artist Isa Genzken, a profound expertise at a Laurie Anderson live performance in 1986 and the affect of the Indian author and thinker, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Plus he offers perception into his life within the studio and solutions our typical questions, together with the final word: what’s artwork for?

Wolfgang Tillmans: Construct From Right here, Maureen Paley, London, 3 October–20 December; Ausstellung in Remscheid, Haus Cleff, Remscheid, till 4 January 202636th Bienal São Paulo: Not each traveler walks the roads – On humanity as a observe, till 11 January 2026; Fictions of Show, MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, till 4 January 2026Könnt ihr noch? – Kunst und Demokratie, Königsklasse, Schloss Herrenchiemsee, Munich, till 12 October 2025On View: Begegnungen mit dem Fotografischen, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, till 12 October 202

This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the humanities and tradition platform.Bloomberg Connects presents entry to an unlimited vary of worldwide cultural organisations by way of a single click on, with new guides being added frequently. They embrace quite a lot of museums which have had main displays of Wolfgang Tillmans’s work, together with the Museum of Trendy Artwork and the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York, Tate and the Serpentine in London, the Nationwide Museum of Artwork in Osaka, Japan, and the Bienal Sāo Paulo in Brazil, whose thirty sixth version in 2025 options an set up by Wolfgang. Within the information to the biennial on Bloomberg Connects, you’ll be able to learn concerning the idea behind the exhibition, which known as Not each traveler walks the roads – On humanity as a observe, and is curated by a staff led by the final curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. You’ll be able to uncover the entire artists within the exhibition—which together with Wolfgang, contains the previous visitors on this podcast, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Oscar Murillo, Otobong Nkanga and Nari Ward—and see wherein of the exhibition’s six chapters they function.