Faltenwurf (Stairwell)

2017 - Photography (Photography)

30.5 x 40.6 cm

Wolfgang Tillmans

location: London & Berlin
year born: 1968
gender: male
nationality: German
home town: Remscheid, Germany

Wolfgang Tillmans initiated the ongoing series Faltenwurf in 1989, representing compositions of unused clothing, with special attention paid to the ways in which they drape and fold. The title is taken from a Germanic term used in the context of art history, designating classical drapery. In this particular photograph, Faltenwurf (Stairwell) , an assortment of various colored clothes lay tangled on a set of stairs, as a sculpture of abstract forms. Through this work, the artist conveys the fundamentals of the photographic medium as it relates to dimensionality and sculpture, as well as the relationship between surface and materiality. At its core, this formal exploration of color, texture, and shape is concerned with translation—from sculpture to photography, from three-dimension to two-dimension. The garments in this photograph appear to have been cast off or discarded down the stairs, perhaps in a hurry, or a half attempt at putting them in the laundry. In television and film clothing on the floor is a visual euphemism employed to signify that a sexual act has taken place, which suggests a sensual quality to Tillmans’s photograph. In a utilitarian sense, clothing offers protection, while sartorially they aid in creating or performing identity. Often, they are what gets left behind in a moment of urgent displacement. The absence of a body in relation to the clothing in this context also casts a somewhat foreboding impression on the photograph. Symbolically, clothing can convey multiple meanings, all of which are up for discussion in Tillmans’s work.


Wolfgang Tillmans is an influential contemporary photographer, as well as a musician, writer, and political activist. He engages with contemporary culture in its plural forms challenging conventional aesthetics. Tillmans’s work considers issues of sexuality, spirituality, borders, and global events, as well as reflecting on the photographic medium itself. He is well known for his casual documentary photographs of youth, clubs, and LGBTQ culture for magazines in the 1990s. Experimentation and innovation are crucial elements of his methodology and approach to presentation. Social and political concerns have been a constant throughout Tillmans’s practice; he is preoccupied with the destabilization of the world, the refugee crisis, and how global events are communicated. Tillmans is directly involved in political activism as he was one of Europe’s most outspoken critics against Brexit and the rise of the right wing across the continent. In 2006 he founded a non-profit exhibition space, Between Bridges, devoted to the advancement of democracy and now used to address the ongoing European migrant crisis.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Abstract Photography, » Color Photography, » Diaristic, » Documentary Photography, » German

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Untitled (Joseph T. Robinson Standing at a Podium in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

The Crime of Art
© » KADIST

Kota Ezawa

2017

The Crime of Art is an animation by Kota Ezawa that appropriates scenes from various popular Hollywood films featuring the theft of artworks: a Monet painting in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), a Rembrandt in Entrapment (1999), a Cellini in How to Steal a Million (1966), and an emerald encrusted dagger in Topkapi (1964)...

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910)
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2010

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910) is a visually compelling photogram...

Untitled (Ruby Downing sitting between two Unidentified Men in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Untitled (Sten-Frenke House #04)
© » KADIST

Luisa Lambri

2007

Custom-built for a silent film star in 1934 in Santa Monica, the Sten-Frenke House is an idiosyncratic icon...

Muster
© » KADIST

Clemens von Wedemeyer

2012

Clemens von Wedemeyer has imagined a trip back in time at Breitenau...

Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself
© » KADIST

Yee I-Lann

2013

Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...

Office Work
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2018

Office Work by Walead Beshty consists of a partially deconstructed desktop monitor screen, cleanly speared through its center onto a metal pole...

Hat with photograph
© » KADIST

Hans-Peter Feldmann

The types of objects Feldmann is interested in collecting into serial photographic grids or artist’s books are often also found in three dimensional installations...

Mike and Sky
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1993

Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender...

Alistair Fate
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1994

Alistair Fate (1994) depicts, presumably, a member of the LGBT community...

Stanley "Tom" Durrell, Tinsmith
© » KADIST

Sharon Lockhart

2008

Lockhart’s film Lunch Break investigates the present state of American labor, through a close look at the everyday life of the workers at the Bath Iron Works shipyard—a private sector of the U...

7-headed Lalandau Hat
© » KADIST

Yee I-Lann

2020

7-headed Lalandau Hat by Yee I-Lann is an intricately woven sculpture evoking the ceremonial headdress worn by Murut men in Borneo...

John Heartfield and Silvio Berlusconi
© » KADIST

Thomas Kilpper

2009

These two images come from the series called “State of Control” which Kilpper made in the building formerly occupied by the Stasi in Berlin...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Martin Kippenberger

1988

Martin Kippenberger’s late collages are known for incorporating a wide range of materials, from polaroids and magazine clips to hotel stationery, decals, and graphite drawings...

Untitled (Shuffle)
© » KADIST

Wallace Berman

1969

While Untitled (Shuffle) presents the same formal characteristics as the rest of Berman’s verifax collages, this constellation of specific images inside the radio’s frames—the Star of David, Hebrew characters, biblical animals—have Jewish symbolism and attest to the artist’s lasting obsession with the kabala...

Untitled (Miller House, #02)
© » KADIST

Luisa Lambri

2002

Lambri’s careful framing in Untitled (Miller House, #02) redefines our understanding of this iconic mid-century modernist building located in Palm Springs, California...