Sunday Times

Photos not flat

- — Wolfgang Tillmans, from the catalogue of Fragile

One evening in 2000 I was walking around my studio and I had this realisatio­n that everything I do is on paper. Soon after I made a picture of the big sheet of red photo paper, which I hung attached only on one corner. I observed how it curled and how the sharp sunlight brushed it, and how the paper was sort of falling. That’s how the name “paper drop” came about. Then in 2006 I again looked at large pieces of exposed paper. I had curled a sheet backwards on itself and I saw the drop-like shape. I photograph­ed it in a way so that only the edge of the paper was sharp and everything in front and behind was out of focus. I always understand photograph­s as objects, not just flat surfaces.

 ?? Picture: Wolfgang Tillmans ?? Paper Drop
Picture: Wolfgang Tillmans Paper Drop

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from South Africa