Matthias Michalka Book order

Tillmans' photographic explorations of human connection and tangibility in dialogue with our new virtual present The observation of people--their bodies, movements, relation to surroundings--lies at the core of the diverse oeuvre that German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans (born 1968) has amassed over the past three decades. Today, these haptic relations and interactions are undergoing massive shifts in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and technological change, as the necessity of social distancing and the migration of everyday life into virtual space transforms how we interact with one another. Wolfgang Tillmans: Sound Is Liquidreflects on the photographer's oeuvre against the backdrop of these societal developments. Accompanying an exhibition at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (MUMOK) in Vienna, Austria, this catalog features a wide selection of Tillmans' work from his early photographs produced in the pop-culture milieu of the 1990s to his acclaimed photographic abstractions, his high-resolution images of the globalized and digitalized reality of the early 21st century, and photos taken shortly before and during the coronavirus pandemic.

Objects Recognized in Flashes' is the title of a group exhibition focusing on surfaces of photographs, products, and bodies. The exhibition was developed by the curator in consultation with the artists Michele Abeles, Annette Kelm, Josephine Pryde, and Eileen Quinlan. It asks how our largely mediatized society deals with and relates analogue and digital images. How are relations between material and immateriality, body, screen and photographic surface constituted? In our contemporary consumer culture, products and questions of commodity aesthetics are becoming more and more significant. This is not without consequences for our use of photographic images. Ubiquitous advertising, marketing, and product presentation create imaginary visual standards that have now become a firm fixture of our self representations in photos on social media platforms. The works by the four artists in the exhibition respond both in respect to each other, and to this changing context.

For several years now, film and video have determined contemporary art and exhibitions on a scale unheard of since the 1960s and 1970s, but rarely have these roots themselves been explored. X-Screen presents a comprehensive historical analysis of expanded forms of filmic projection, arranging a complex constellation of films, performances, and installations according to three categories. First is an exploration of the expansion of the field of projection, understood as part of Happenings, as well as Fluxus and Pop performances. Work by Robert Whitman, Carolee Schneemann, and USCO is discussed. Second is an interrogation of the screen in terms of media analysis, anti-illusionism, or institutional critique in the context of Structural Film and Conceptual art. Film installations and multiple projections are especially relevant here, including work by Valie Export, Michael Snow, and Peter Weibel. And third is a consideration of post-minimalist explorations of the relationship between the media image and physical space, as seen in the work of Dan Graham, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, and others.