Wolfgang Tillmans
Silver 80, 2011
C-print
239 x 181 cm
Tillmans become known in the 1990s for his candid yet casual photographs of friends, club scenes and everyday moments. His shots of the early 90s techno scene, rave-culture and involvement in gay rights movements saw his images hang both in contemporary art galleries and be printed in street style or fashion magazines. Moving into the 2000s his work become more abstract.
Silver 80 is a material investigation into the medium of photography and modes of image production. To create this series Tillmans put undeveloped photosensitive paper through a printer that purposefully wasn’t particularly clean. Any residues such as dust would thereby leave traces on the surface of the paper as it reacted to light and chemical processes. Acting as a counterbalance to the subject/object relationships in his figurative photos, the abstract ‘Silver’ series are photographs created without a camera directly questioning form and colour.