Exhibitions

Buchholz & Buchholz Installation 1993

Artwork Factory

This room represents an exact replica of the Buchholz & Buchholz Gallery, where Wolfgang Tillmans exhibited his photographs in 1993. Here the artist tested a form of presentation in which photographs, photocopies, and reproductions of magazine pages stand side by side on an equal footing and are distributed throughout the room.

In 1993, Wolfgang Tillmans had just graduated from art college and moved to London. With his camera, he captured the people and events of his surroundings. Among them were his friends from the techno scene, the first love parades and gay pride events, musicians and revelers who danced at raves all night long. His photographs document the spirit of a young generation hoping for social change after the fall of the Berlin Wall (in 1989).

In his installation, Wolfgang Tillmans mixes photographs with copies of magazine pages that also show his images.

"[…] in the nineties everything seemed possible, everything was new. This new situation soon became the norm. There was a sense of a new era dawning. The world seemed close to being a better place in the nineties – a place where there would be a respite from the crass commercialism of the late eighties, as many perceived it."

Wolfgang Tillmans

Source

Wolfgang Tillmans is a political person. He is involved in information projects relating to HIV in Africa, he organized a poster campaign against Brexit, and has started a solidarity campaign for cultural institutions suffering financial limitations as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.