Book Review: Wolfgang Tillmans, Saturated Light (Silver Works)

Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica, Bogota, 2012; Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver 78, 2010, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Written by: Claire Ping

Edited by: Ben Blavat

Those who have walked through an exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans’ works may recall encountering, among portraits and observational depictions for which the artist is more widely recognized, the occasional abstract picture that leaves one wondering: Why? Klaus Pollmeier, a photo engineer, raises the same question in his conversation with Tillmans, published in the latter’s new book Saturated Light. Featuring reproductions of his abstractions, collectively named the Silver works, along with photographic documentations of their past exhibitions, it is the first to provide a panoramic and critical view of this aspect of Tillmans’ practice.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver Installation IV, 2008, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Tillmans began his initial Silver works in 1992. They have since evolved into a body of over 200 pieces, or “events” as the art historian Tom Holert refers to them in his opening essay. The pictures typically emerge from a process which is not camera-based, involving rather the interaction between film processing machine and silver nitrate-coated paper. It also incorporates a multiplicity of actors — including light, chemicals, salts, and algae — as well as the occurrence of accidents and mishaps. For instance, allowing light to penetrate cracks in the paper feeder produced streaks of color in the Silver PCR series. Paper exposed to different hues of light as it was fed into the machine led to images such as Silver 175, covered in pulsating waves of stunning tints. Moreover, it is not always possible to identify what actions or incidents trigger a particular effect. The attempt to do so may be similar to detective work and requires a vast amount of knowledge on photographic techniques, as is evident through Tillmans and Pollmeier’s profound discussion in the book.

Wolfgang Tillmans, detail of Silver 175, 2014, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver 6, 1998, and Silver 7, 1998, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Works from the Silver family are not only unpredictable, but also unstable in that they are permitted to “live on.” Unlike other images from the artist’s oeuvre, they are left with traces of their maltreatment intact, potentially leading to further changes in the material, the composition and the image. It is even more intriguing that some of the works, most of which are small- to medium-format, have a large-scale photographic double. As the original piece is subject to ongoing evolution, the latter image becomes a documentation of one single moment or state in its life. For Tillmans, each of his Silver works represents the “result of a making” attributable to a range of human or non-human actors and processes, both expected and unexpected. The artist is but one of these agents, his level of intervention varying from one piece to another.

David Zwirner, New York, 2018; Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver 188, 2014, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Parallel to more publicized parts of his practice, Tillmans has continuously probed the essence of photography in this previously understudied group of works. Distrusting the idea that photographs depict reality, he seeks to reveal that they are entirely “made.” The Silver works, as a result, seem to be not so much “image” as “non-image” — their shift away from photographic representation leading to a heightened sense of materiality. They can perhaps be considered as objects in their own rights, existing beyond both the activities of and meanings bestowed by the human world. Often shown next to their representational counterparts, they create a dynamic interplay between what can be processed by human perception and the much wider domain outside of its grasp. Yet, as Holert reminds us, it would be wrong to assume that they are completely devoid of artistic intervention. It is such paradoxical concepts prompted by the Silver works that distinguish them from being merely another set of abstraction and make them endlessly revealing, particularly when viewed alongside Tillmans’ more familiar pictures.

WIELS, Brussels, 2020; Sandblasted Wall, 2020; Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver 157, 2013, and Silver 158, 2013, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne