Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter

David Zwirner is pleased to present The Point Is Matter, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Wolfgang Tillmans at the gallery’s location in Hong Kong. The exhibition’s title stems from Tillmans’s long-term understanding of his work sitting between the physical reality and presence of the world he works and lives in and the conceptual, sociopolitical, sensual, and spiritual concerns that underpin his practice. Presented across both floors of the gallery, the works on view include depictions of changing forms of atmosphere and elusive natural phenomena; pictures that explore notions of time and temporality; and images that engage with the artist’s expansive conceptions of the still life and the portrait. Tillmans punctuates the exhibition with works made in Addis Ababa, Berlin, Lagos, and Mongolia, along with those taken in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, sensitively invoking resonant associations between the local and the world at large, while advocating for an experience of connectedness that is rooted in the process of looking.

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Image: Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

Location

5–6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong

Dates

March 25—May 11, 2024

Opening Reception

Monday, March 25, 3—7 PM

Gallery Hours

Tues—Sat 11am–7pm

Artist

Wolfgang Tillmans

Press Release

The Point Is Matter

Wolfgang Tillmans

HKG Airport Interior, 2023

《香港機場內部》
2023年

Tillmans has visited and returned to Hong Kong and Shenzhen on numerous occasions in his extensive travels and across his body of work. HKG Airport Interior (2023) shows a largely dysfunctional informational display wall, with a pixelated screen frozen in a moment of technological rupture. In HK drive (2018), an image of an outreached hand on the back of a Hong Kong bus merges with the porticoed stairwell on the street—the public built environment seamlessly flowing into the visual excesses of advertising.

Wolfgang Tillmans

HK drive, 2018

《香港駕車》
2018年

Portraits such as those of a young woman, Yixue, seated in a banquet hall, and a scene of packages toppling onto a Shenzhen street connect the presentation to the surrounding metropolis and region.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Yixue, 2018

《一雪》
2018年

Wolfgang Tillmans

Anders Stretching On The Carpet, 2022

《安德斯在地毯上伸展》
2022年

Tillmans’s portraits are at times long-planned, at other times the result of unexpected interactions or in-the-moment encounters. The portraits shown in this exhibition range from Anders Stretching On the Carpet (2022), of his oft-photographed long-term friend, the Danish artist Anders Clausen, to the women of Maraljingoo, Sambuunyam & Norimaa in their ger (2023), which shows multiple generations of a Mongolian family in their home. Tillmans’s portraits have served as an ongoing investigation: what does it mean to depict a person?

Wolfgang Tillmans

Maraljingoo, Sambuunyam & Norimaa in their ger, 2023

《馬拉爾金古、桑布永岩和諾里瑪在他們的蒙古包裡》
2023年

Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

Wolfgang Tillmans

Lunar Landscape, 2022

《月球景觀》
2022年

In each of the gallery spaces, distinct subject matter emerges. Among them is a room that focuses on images that picture the cycle of water as it transitions from a liquid to a solid (ice) to a gas (water vapor). In Lunar Landscape (2022), the Atlantic Ocean glows at great luminosity, the image colliding the celestial plane with the surface of the Earth.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Sirius Through a Defocused Telescope, a, 2023

《散焦望遠鏡中的天狼星，a》
2023年

Sirius Through a Defocused Telescope, a–f (each 2023) show Sirius, the brightest star visible to the human eye, at distinct moments as the star “twinkles.” The works depict air currents and air cells of different densities that result in an ever-changing flicker, blur, and display of spectral colors and shapes. Astronomy represents the artist’s earliest passion, having trained his eye through the observation of the physical universe, the sky, and celestial phenomena.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Sirius Through a Defocused Telescope, b–f , 2023

Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

Wolfgang Tillmans

Ulaanbaatar Still Life, 2023

《烏蘭巴托靜物》
2023年

Tillmans further indicates the subtle geological movements and natural states of matter in a world undergoing historic and rapid changes. In Ulaanbaatar Still Life (2023), arranged in Mongolia, silk flowers rest on a heating unit in front of a window that overlooks a snowy landscape and a ger, a portable tent that can withstand fierce winter winds, used in the region as a nomadic, adaptable home. Summer Storm Rain Drops Freeze Frame (2023) captures rain droplets outside the artist’s studio in Berlin in an otherwise imperceptible moment of transition.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Summer Storm Rain Drops Freeze Frame, 2023

《夏季風暴雨滴在窗戶上凝結》
2023年

Wolfgang Tillmans

Filled with Light, a, 2011

《充滿光明，a》
2011年

Other works in the show delicately evince a sense of temporality. These pictures evoke the cumulative passage of time in the distinct moments they depict. Filled with Light, a (2011) exposes in large scale the luminous shifts that Tillmans observed in his studio, rays of light casting the shadows of window frames onto the bare floor, walls, and ceiling. In Window Left Open (2023), another work Tillmans made in his studio, we see a layered interplay between light and shadow, interior and exterior architecture, and domesticized vegetation.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Window Left Open, 2023

《開著的窗戶》
2023年

Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

Wolfgang Tillmans

Office Paper For Food Wrapping Recycling, Addis Ababa, 2019

《辦公用紙回收為食品包裝，亞的斯亞貝巴》
2019年

In other works on view, Tillmans reflects further on transformative processes. In Office Paper For Food Wrapping Recycling, Addis Ababa (2019), discarded business papers are repurposed as packing material. In Temporary Shoe Shop (2022), a car hood and windscreen are covered in trainers—the surfaces effectively converted into a retail outlet in Lagos.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Temporary Shoe Shop, 2022

《臨時鞋店》
2022年

Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

Wolfgang Tillmans

citrus still life I, 2001

《柑橘靜物 I》
2001年

Tillmans’s expanded approach to still life and the portrait are emphasized throughout the exhibition. In a large still life, citrus fruit and a smoked cigarette in an ashtray are laid atop a copy of the Los Angeles Times from 2001. In Badehose, photocopy II (1996), the sculptural qualities of swimming trunks are translated into two-dimensionality, their folds abstracted further by the photocopying process. Though recognizable, the otherwise distorted, crumpled form is suggestive of the way in which figuration and abstraction coexist within Tillmans’s oeuvre, as well as the relationship of photography to surface and three-dimensionality.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Badehose, photocopy II, 1996

《泳褲，影印件II》
1996年

A new video work on view, Build from Here (Video Room) (2024), extends Tillmans’s fascination with the interplay between his video and music-making languages and showcases his interest in sound and movement. The video features tracks from the artist’s forthcoming album, Build From Here, to be released on April 26; Tillmans will be working on the video right through the installation period, in response to the exhibition. The video consists of footage recorded by Tillmans at different times and locations. In the opening and closing sequences we see Tillmans’s body at moonrise, silhouetted as the full moon illuminates the ocean; he performs gestures with a large stick-like form that exaggerates the body’s improvised movements as he effectively draws in space. Another sequence shows telescopic imagery of the surface of the moon: shot in real time, it reveals the rotation of the earth as the moon gradually moves across the screen. Punctuating the footage is close-up imagery of an industrial offset printer in action: ink rollers covered in paint show the different stages of the analogue printing process.

Installation view, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2024

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An installation view of the exhibition, Wolfgang Tillmans: The Point Is Matter, at David Zwirner in Hong Kong, dated 2024.

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