PHOTO:Wolfgang Tillmans-On The Verge Of Visibility

Since establishing his reputation in ‘90s London subculture, Wolfgang Tillmans has become one of the most influential artists of today. For his first exhibition in Portugal, Tillmans pays particular attention to what he describes as “Vertical landscapes”, visual phenomena when day meets night, sky meets sea, sea meets earth, and threshold moments associated with borders, between different states of matter and their distribution, concretely within the area of the image, and politically in the world of people and goods.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art Archive

“On The Verge Of Visibility” draws its name from a still life taken by Tillmans in 1997, who was drawn to the varying colours of red of the objects assembled on his table. Wolfgang Tillmans thinks of the exhibition space as a laboratory in which to test out the experiential possibilities of his pictures. His use of the term “Pictures” is a deliberate emphasis on his work as more than simply a photograph, and much more than an image. At Serralves Museum, Tillmans has conceived the exhibition in relation to the architecture of the Museum galleries. The chronological scope of the exhibition encompasses Tillmans’ photocopied photographs made in the late ‘80s through to a number of iconic works from the ‘90s and recent photographs taken in the ‘00s and ‘10s. None of the photographs have been digitally retouched. They range from the standard print size to the scale of history painting. While people and society are largely absent from the works presented in the exhibition, a reflection on the possibilities and the limits of who and what can be recorded and represented are implicit. In Tillmans’ pictures of the border between day and night, he draws our attention to the light effects that occur when it is already night on earth while sunlight still illuminates the sky, joined by views of the vivid ribbon of light from the setting sun that persists on the horizon while all else goes dark. His recent wave picture freeze in time, in mesmerising detail, the infinite permutations of natural forces. Printed to monumental scale, they read at a distance as vast vistas that evoke nineteenth century ideas of the sublime. Moments of counterpoint to the phenomenal views of sky, land and sea are reflected in pictures of parts of airplane jets and precision instruments. Tillmans’ deep interest in the limits of seeing and the application of science and technology in expanding what it is possible to see is a concurrent meditation on the idea of borders and liminal states that runs through his work. The full portrait-sized picture of piles of fragments of North African boats used by migrants on the beach in Lampedusa, and the view of an Italian coastal guard boat in the port of Lampedusa, are an extension of this meditation and an explicit expression of the borders, visibility and invisibility as they exist in our present reality.

Info: Curator: Suzanne Cotter, Assistant Curator: Paula Fernandes, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Rua D.Sun 10:00-19:00, April-September Tue-Fri 10:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-20:00, www.serralves.pt