The critically acclaimed installation presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Venice Architecture Biennale
2014–2015
Wolfgang Tillmans: Book for Architects is an installation which made its debut in the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale in the exhibition Elements of Architecture organized by Rem Koolhaas. The work was presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2015 following its acquisition by the museum.
Book for Architects was created over a period of ten years during which the artist visited 37 countries on five continents, amassing over 450 photographs. The images appear as a site-specific, two-channel video installation projected onto perpendicular walls in a sequence lasting around 40 minutes. "As such," Tillmans states, "the installation represents, and emulates, the randomness, beauty and imperfection that characterizes built reality, both past and present."
The exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art received wide critical acclaim. "Through the cycling shots of exteriors, interiors, skylines, and street views," says Architectual Digest, "Tillmans paints a portrait of modern-day architecture, showing the stylistic synchronicity in our globalized world." Artforum described the exhibition as "an ambitious recalibration of the relationship between architecture and image" andThe New Yorker concluded "The range is encyclopedic, the experience exhilarating."
A Book for Architects was also featured in a solo exhibition of the artist's work at the Dům Umění – Galerie Současného Umění České Budějovice in the Czech Republic.
Read more: an interview with Tillmans in i-D magazineabout the project