ARTISHOK: Wolfgang Tillmans "Neue Welt", Les Rencontres d’Arles 2013 (01.07

Yasmina Lahjij sends her personal favourites from Tillmans exhibition in Arles:

After having worked with abstract images for more than a decade, Wolfgang Tillmans’s new approach is starting to filter through the desire to look at the world as it is. Using for the first time a digital camera, he set out globetrotting, visiting among other places Jeddah, London, New York, Oslo, Papua New Guinea and Shanghai. Wanderingly, during these short trips the photographer gathered material for his new series titled Neu Welt presented this summer at the 44th edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles. Epic in several regards, the show is made up of large format prints pinned to the walls in a surprisingly orderly manner, which is rather exceptional for an artist notorious for his disorganized displays. Here, two particular aspects of Tillmans’s approach surface through the series: on one hand an interest in human interaction and a focus on certain trends of life. On the other hand a distinct exploration of photography as a pure writing of light is on display – through abstract leitmotifs. Apart from the nonrepresentational images titled ‘Silver’, the series depicts soft landscapes as well as seemingly banal observations of people, objects or architectural forms. Simultaneously, a sublimation of the mundane along with an eroticization of consumerism are testament to the artist’s particular gaze. This appealing commercialized aesthetic is pointing to our contemporary hyper-consuming society. Tillmans has a knack for discerning and reevaluating various ways of life; he ever so delicately observes the beauty of our excessive existence.