Wolfgang Tillmans’ “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010)
Mon, Dec 11 2023
The cover of “The Last Observer” featured Wolfgang Tillmans’s “Truth Study Center (NY)”. Issue 6 of the catalogue-in-progress of “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010). Edited by Latitudes.
For ”The Last Observer”, the sixth of the ten issues of “The Last Newspaper” (pdf here), we commissioned then-writer Lorena Muñoz-Alonso to interview artist Wolfgang Tillmans about his work “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010). Tillmans’ work shared the floor with our temporary office and is a project he began in 2005 with a show at his London gallery Maureen Paley.
Forward ten years. In 2021, the interview “Is This True or Not?” was included in the 352-page reader “Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader” (ISBN 9781633451124), published on the occasion of his retrospective “To Look Without Fear” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor – see pages 171 to 173.
We recently received a request to use our Tillmans’s New Museum installation photograph in the highly anticipated publication “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books) by our former teacher, and now professor in the Ph.D. Program in Art History at CUNY Graduate Center in New York, Dr. Claire Bishop.
Cover of the forthcoming book “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books, 2024).
Photo: LeBal Books here.
Forward ten years. In 2021, the interview “Is This True or Not?” was included in the 352-page reader “Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader” (ISBN 9781633451124), published on the occasion of his retrospective “To Look Without Fear” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor – see pages 171 to 173.
(Above and below) Wolfgang Tillmans, “Truth Study Center, 2005–”, installation view at the New Museum, 2010. Photos: Latitudes, Barcelona. Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley Gallery.
In “Disordered Attention...”, Bishop “identifies trends in contemporary practice – research-based installations, performance exhibitions, interventions, and invocations of modernist architecture – and their challenges to traditional modes of attention. Charting a critical path through the last
three decades, Bishop pinpoints how spectatorship and visual literacy are evolving under the pressures of digital technology.”
The book will be available from June 2024. An excerpt was published in Artforum in April 2023, titled “Information Overload”.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Night at the (New) Museum, 11 Dec 2010
- At Last...The Last Newspaper catalogue!, 10 Dec 2010
- 'THE LAST OBSERVER' AVAILABLE NOW! #6 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum, 10 Nov 2010
- Max Andrews reviews in frieze: ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’ (LUMA Foundation, Arlès) and Pere Llobera's ‘Acció’ (Bombon Projects, Barcelona) and ‘Kill Your Darlings’ (Sis Galería, Sabadell), 4 January 2019
Max Andrews reviews in frieze: ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’ (LUMA Foundation, Arlès) and Pere Llobera's ‘Acció’ (Bombon Projects, Barcelona) and ‘Kill Your Darlings’ (Sis Galería, Sabadell)
Fri, Jan 4 2019
Frank Gehry's LUMA building under construction, as of October 12, 2018. Above and following photos by Latitudes.
Views from the exhibition ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’.
"Le Fusil Photographique" by Étienne-Jules Marey.
Works by Wolfgang Tillmans (vitrines) and Christopher Williams (wall).
Hans-Peter Feldmann's "9-12 Front Page", 2001.
‘PICTURE INDUSTRY: A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’, curated by Walead Beshty. Exhibition views, les Forges, Luma Arles, Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France, 2018. © Marc Domage.
‘PICTURE INDUSTRY: A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’, curated by Walead Beshty. Exhibition views, les Forges, Luma Arles, Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France, 2018. © Marc Domage.
‘PICTURE INDUSTRY: A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’, curated by Walead Beshty. Exhibition views, les Forges, Luma Arles, Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France, 2018. © Marc Domage.
‘PICTURE INDUSTRY: A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’, curated by Walead Beshty. Exhibition views, les Forges, Luma Arles, Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France, 2018. © Marc Domage.
“As if tormented by his own cursed hand, Llobera’s darkly fugitive shtick is his alarm at its ability to paint so adeptly so easily, despite his mind’s suspicion of painters painting to be admired.”
Views from Pere Llobera's exhibition ‘Acció’ at Bombon Projects, Barcelona. Courtesy the artist. Above and photos below: Roberto Ruiz.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Writing archive on Latitudes' website (since 2005);
- Max Andrews reviews Lúa Coderch; "Crash Test. The Molecular Turn" and Julia Spínola for frieze 9 April 2018
- "The Kørner problem” essay by Max Andrews in the monograph "John Kørner" published by Roulette Russe, 19 February 2018
- Max Andrews's essay on Christopher Knowles for NoguerasBlanchard at Liste 2017, 21 July 2017
- Cover Story – January 2017: How open are open calls? 4 January 2017
- Cover Story – December 2016: Ten years ago – Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook, 5 December 2016
- January 2016 Monthly Cover Story: Kasper Akhøj's Eileen Gray’s E.1027, 4 January 2016
- Review of the exhibition "What cannot be used is forgotten" in the May issue of frieze magazine, 29 April 2015
- Review of Maria Thereza Alves' exhibition at CAAC Sevilla published in frieze magazine 9 March 2015
At Last...'The Last Newspaper' catalogue!
Fri, Dec 10 2010
Latitudes' 10-week editorial residency at the New Museum has come to an end! Below photos of each of the 10 weekly newspapers we have published and that has been available every Wednesday from the museum galleries.
The Last Post (#1): See contents and learn about Dara Birnbaum's Media Habits here
The Last Gazette (#2): See contents and read a focus text by Julienne Lorz on Hans Haacke's News here
The Last Register (#3): See contents and read an exclusive interview with visual artist Francesc Ruiz here
The Last Star-Ledger (#4): See contents and read an exclusive interview with Portugal's newest newspaper's Creative Director, Nick Mrozowski here
The Last Monitor (#4): See contents and read an read about the history of newspapers' paperweights here
The Last Observer (#6): See contents and read an exclusive interview with Wolfgang Tillmans here
The Last Evening Sun (#7): Read contents and a text on Luciano Fabro's work 'Pavimento–Tautologia' here
The Last Journal (#8): See contents and read an exclusive interview with Rirkrit Tiravanija here 
The Last Times (#9): See contents and read Pablo Vargas Lugo's Picture Agent contribution here
The Last Express (#10): See contents and read the report on the 27 November talk between filmmaker Adam Chadwick and web veteran Jason Fry here.
Each of 'The Last...' has been edited and freely distributed from a micro-newsroom on the New Museum's third-floor gallery space.
The Last Post, The Last Gazette, The Last Register, The Last Star-Ledger, The Last Monitor, The Last Observer, The Last Evening Sun, The Last Journal, The Last Times and The Last Express comprise the catalogue of The Last Newspaper exhibition, curated by Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill.
The final catalogue compilation includes over 100 contributors’ articles and exclusive interviews with participating artists as well as texts and special features concerning an expanded selection of individuals and organisations whose work addresses the news, the medium of the newspaper and their evolving form and function.
The catalogue will soon be available from the New Museum's Store for $15. More details to follow on the European distribution – see update here. The exhibition continues at the New Museum until 9 January 2011.
Table of contents of the 10 issues:
Issue 1: The Last Post
October 6, 2010
Cover: ‘Ink vs Link’. Press Room of The Richmond Planet, c. 1899
Editorial: ‘Welcome to The Last Post, The Last Gazette, The Last Register...’ by Latitudes
Picture Agent (Our singular picture agency): Kirstine Roepstorff
Media Habits: Dara Birnbaum
Exclusive Interview: ‘Double Trouble’, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso interviews TLN artist Pierre Bismuth
Feature: ‘Lights, Camera...Banality’, Kolja Reichert on Marie Voignier’s Hearing the Shape of a Drum (2010)
‘Working with Utopians’ by Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill
The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news): ProPublica
Fit to Print: ‘The (L.A.) Times it is A-Changin’ by Adam Chadwick
100 Years Ago…: The Salt Lake Herald-Republican
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Teen Balls’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs with Rob McKenzie
Issue 2: The Last Gazette
October 13, 2010
Cover: ‘Sorry for the Metaphor’. Special cover by Amalia Pica (and page 3)
Editorial: ‘34 People Like This’ by Latitudes
Focus: ‘A system is not imagined, it is real’, Julienne Lorz on TLN artist Hans Haacke’s News (1969/2008)
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on the newspaper-as-catalogue
Picture Agent: Ilana Halperin
The Next Newspaper: Clay Shirky
Photo essay: ‘Picture Mining’ by Ines Schaber
Obituary: ‘Sorry we’re dead’, Andrew Losowsky on TLN artist Adam McEwen’s Untitled (Caster) (2010)
Fit to Print: Adam Chadwick on hyperlocal citizen journalism
100 Years Ago…: Daily Public Ledger
In Brief: ‘Sac Bee Cuts’
Media Habits: Luis Camnitzer
Infographic: ‘U.S. Gazettes: Average Circulation’ by Irina Chernyakova
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Money’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Issue 3: The Last Register
October 20, 2010
Cover: ‘Exhibit: Exposed!’. Installing TLN wall text
Report: ‘Reaction Distraction’: Gwen Schwartz on the TLN talk with participating artists Nate Lowman, Aleksandra Mir and Sarah Charlesworth
Focus: Doryun Chong on TLN artist Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares (1986)
Media Habits: Dora García
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on truth and fiction
Picture Agent: Sergio Vega
The Next Newspaper: Paul Schmelzer on the American Independent News Network
Feature: ‘Broadcasting’, Joe Salzman on the representation of the journalists on TV
Exclusive interview: Latitudes with TLN cartoonist Francesc Ruiz
‘Patricia Esquivias on...The French Revolution’
100 Years Ago…: New York Tribune
Feature: ‘Hyphen-ated’ by Stephen Spretnjak
Photo essay: ‘Behind the Scenes’, Installing ‘The Last Newspaper’
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Scratch Lottery’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs with Adam Shecter
Issue 4: The Last Star-Ledger
October 27, 2010
Cover & Picture Agent: Special cover by Haegue Yang (and page 12)
Exclusive interview: ‘Rank and File’, Latitudes interviews Ignasi Aballí
Focus: ‘A Newspaper is Never Complete, Because News is Never Complete’, Interview with Ed Pierce from the archive of TLN partner organization StoryCorps + ‘StoryCorps Key Facts’
Focus: ‘Execution, Ejaculation, Exhibition’, Collin Munn on TLN artist Dash Snow’s Untitled (2006)
The Next Newspaper: Latitudes interviews Nick Mrozowsky about i
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on TLN artist François Bucher
‘Patricia Esquivias on... Communism’
100 Years Ago…: The Tacoma Times
Media Habits: Nicoline van Harskamp
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Specialization’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs with Rob McKenzie
Issue 5: The Last Monitor
November 3, 2010
Cover: ‘Today & Yesterday’. Gustav Metzger, Eichmann and the Angel, 2005
Exclusive interview: ‘Eating the Wall Street Journal’, Janine Armin with TLN artist William Pope.L
Feature: ‘Today and Yesterday’, Sophie O’Brien on Gustav Metzger
Picture Agent: Jordan Wolfson
The Next Newspaper: The San Francisco Panorama by Irina Chernyakova
Fit to Print: Adam Chadwick on the digital divide
100 Years Ago…: The Bisbee Daily Review
Media Habits: Mark von Schlegell
Focus: ‘Who Framed Sarah Charlesworth?’, Marcel Janco on TLN artist Sarah Charlesworth
Readers’ Lives: ‘Paper-Weight Champion’ by Harley Spiller
Feature: ‘Heralding the Gizmo’, Max Andrews on Kirstine Roepstorff
Readers’ Lives: ‘My Name is Marc D’Andre and I’m a Newspaper Addict’
Infographic: Facebook poll: where do @NewMuseum followers get their news?
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Tools’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs with Holly Coulis and Ridley Howard
Issue 6: The Last Observer
November 10, 2010
Cover: ‘Truth Study?’. Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans Truth Study Center (NY) (2010)
Exclusive interview: ‘Is this True or Not?’, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso with TLN artist Wolfgang Tillmans
Focus: ‘There’s not Enough Rage These Days’, Greg Barton & Collin Munn on TLN artist Judith Bernstein
Picture Agent: Renzo Martens
Media Habits: City-as-School Students
Feature: ‘Relationship Status’ by Manuel Segade
Focus: ‘‘Old News’ to me’ by Lars Bang Larsen + ‘Nothing New About Old News’
Feature: ‘Editorial Curatorial’ by Marcel Janco
The Next Newspaper: Patch. Andrew Losowsky interviews Warren Webster, company president
Report: Irina Chernyakova on the ‘Perpetual Peace Project’ of TLN partner the Slought Foundation
Fit to Print: Adam Chadwick on The Huffington Post
100 years Ago…: The News-Herald
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Backcover’ by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Issue 7: The Last Evening Sun
November 17, 2010
Cover: 'Without Rain Partial Nights Aerial Days'. Special cover by Julia Rometti & Victor Costales (and page 12)
Feature: ‘Translating Rubble’, Kathleen Ritter on Mark Manders
Focus: ‘Floor Tautology’, Simone Menegoi on TLN artist Luciano Fabro’s Pavimento–Tautologia (1967) + ‘Fabricating Fabro’ by Shannon Bowser
Special pull-out poster: Installation pictures, checklist of TLN + ‘Your week in Headlines’ by New Museum Facebook and Twitter followers
Feature: 'Thomas Hirschhorn ♥ Queens', Charity Scribner on TLN artist Thomas Hirschhorn
Feature: 'Red and black all over, again' Irina Chernyakova interviews The Last... newspapers’ designer Chad Kloepfer
Focus: TLN project Jeffrey Inaba/C-Lab’s Cloudy with a chance of Certainty (2010) + ‘C-What?’ by Greg Barton
Media Habits: Michael Rakowitz
The Next Newspaper: WikiLeaks
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin at the Taipei and the Gwangju Biennials
Picture Agent: Maria Loboda
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Flavor of the month’ by Francesc Ruiz
100 Years Ago…: Palestine Daily Herald
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Issue 8: The Last Journal
November 24, 2010
Cover: ‘Le Petit Journal’. Fernando Bryce, from the series L'Humanité (2009–2010)
Feature: 'L'Humanité', Yasmil Raymond on Fernando Bryce
Report: 'Independent Gazette', Lorena Muñoz-Alonso on The Independent by Damián Ortega and Can Altay’s The Church Street Partners' Gazette + Damián Ortega talks with Alona Pardo
Media Habits: Ester Partegàs
Brazil Focus: 'The Imaginery Newspaper', Chris Dercon on Luciano Figueiredo + ‘Jornal da Cidade’, Ana Paula Cohen on 28b
Focus: 'Boetti e His Double', Christian Rattemeyer on TLN artist Alighiero e Boetti's Corriere Della Sera (1976)
The Next Newspaper: Crowd Sourcing – spot.us / emphas.is, by Irina Chernyakova
Exclusive interview: 'The Days of This Society...', Desiree B. Ramos interviews TLN artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
Focus: 'Paper view' Gwen Schwartz with New Museum visitors
Focus: 'What's CUP?', on TLN partner organization The Center for Urban Pedagogy, by Gwen Schwartz and Max Andrews
Picture Agent: Adrià Julià
Focus: '29 Days Later', Sarah Wang on Larry Johnson’s TLN work Untitled Green Screen Memory (2010) + ‘2009 California Fires’ by Collin Munn
Cartoon: 'The Woods: Creation' by Francesc Ruiz
100 Years Ago...: The Marion Daily Mirror
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Issue 9: The Last Times
December 1, 2010
Cover: Peter Piller, Pfeile (Arrows), Archiv Peter Piller 2000-2006
Exclusive interview: ‘Bedeutungsflächen, In Löcher blicken, Ortsbesichtigungen...’, Julienne Lorz talks to Peter Piller
Focus: ‘Press Victim’, Collin Munn on TLN artist Mike Kelley's Timeless/Authorless Series (1995) + ‘Mike on Mike’, Mike Santistevan on Mike Kelley
Picture Agent: Pablo Vargas Lugo
100 Years Ago…: The Seattle Star
The Next Newspaper: Web aggregation, by Irina Chernyakova
Focus: ‘Sarah’s Sex Sport-Trait’, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso on Fat, Forty and Flab-ulous (1990) by TLN artist Sarah Lucas
Media Habits: Carey Young
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on Allen Ruppersberg’s TLN work Screamed from Life (1982)
Focus: 'Dutiful Scrivener', Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere on their work for TLN + Mark Twain’s ‘Amended Obituaries’ (1902)
Focus and exclusive interview: ‘Graphite Testimony’, Greg Barton on Andrea Bowers’ Eulogy to One and Another (2006) featured in TLN
Exclusive interview: ‘Having It All’, Latitudes talks with TLN co-curator Richard Flood about TLN artist Robert Gober
Cartoon: 'The Woods: Fahrenheit 451' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
Issue 10: The Last Express
December 8, 2010
Cover: Hans Haacke, News (1969/2008)
Exclusive interview: ‘I’m still nostalgic vis-à-vis image-making’, Rodrigo Moura interviews Mauro Restiffe
Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on TLN participant Dexter Sinister’s The First/Last Newspaper (2009)
Report: 'Fit to Print?: The newsroom reinvented', Latitudes reports on the New Museum talk between Adam Chadwick and Jason Fry
100 Years Ago...: Los Angeles Herald
Focus: ‘Blu Dot: What?’, Gwen Schwartz and Mariana Cánepa Luna on TLN partner organization Blu Dot
The Next Newspaper: The Daily, by Irina Chernyakova
Focus: ‘Do you like milk and honey?’, Greg Barton on TLN artist Emily Jacir’s Sexy Semite (2000-2)
Picture Agent: Simon Fujiwara
Media Habits: Michalis Pichler
Feature: ‘Embrace the Ambiguity’, TLN co-curators Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill reflect on the exhibition
Focus: ‘Reading the Reader’, Greg Barton and Irina Chernyakova on TLN partner organisation NetLab’s the New City Reader
Exclusive interview: ‘The Wires’, Janine Armin interviews TLN artist Hans Haacke
Cartoon: 'The Woods: The End' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising: Ester Partegàs
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002, USA
Wednesday 11-6 pm; Thursday 11-9pm; Friday-Sunday 11-6 pm;
Monday and Tuesday closed
http://www.newmuseum.org
All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
Wednesday 11-6 pm; Thursday 11-9pm; Friday-Sunday 11-6 pm;
Monday and Tuesday closed
http://www.newmuseum.org
All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
'THE LAST OBSERVER' AVAILABLE NOW! #6 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum
Wed, Nov 10 2010
Issue 6: 'The Last Observer'(READ IT ON ISSUU)
Table of contents:
Cover: 'Truth Study?', Wolfgang Tillmans' 'Truth Study Center (NY)', 2010
Feature: London correspondent Lorena Muñoz-Alonso meets Wolfgang Tillmans whose table top installation 'Truth Study Center' is featured in 'The Last Newspaper'
Focus: Greg Barton & Collin Munn pay a visit to Judith Bernstein, who presents 'The Last Newspaper' visitors with two works from 1967
Picture Agent - Our singular picture agency: Renzo Martens
Media Habits: City-as-School Students
Feature: Curator and writer Manuel Segade – who opened his Facebook account four years ago and now has 872 friends– comments on the profile of the 'click self'
Feature: Art Historian and curator Lars Bang Larsen went to high school with Jacob Fabricius, the fellow Dane behind the non-profit free newspaper 'Old News', featured in 'The Last Newspaper'
Feature: Editorial Curatorial. ‘The Last Post’, ‘The Last Gazette’, ‘The Last Register’, ‘The Last Star-Ledger’, ‘The Last Monitor’ and now ‘The Last Observer’ have set out in part to address the role of the curator versus the role of the editor. Our Cluj-Napoca correspondent Marcel Janco takes up the story.
The Next Newspaper: Patch. Andrew Losowsky interviews Warren Webster, company president
Focus: Irina Chernyakova on the 'Perpetual Peace Project’ of ‘The Last Newspaper’ partner organization the Slought Foundation.
Fit to Print: Adam Chadwick attempts to get in touch with 'The Huffington Post' founder for his documentary film about the news industry.
100 years Ago…: 'The News-Herald' (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973 (changed title to 'The Hillsboro Press-Gazette' (1973-1985), November 10, 1910.
Cartoon: ‘The Woods: Backcover’ by Francesc Ruiz
‘Advertising Department’: Ester Partegàs
IS THIS TRUE OR NOT?
‘The Last Observer’ London correspondent Lorena Muñoz-Alonso meets Wolfgang Tillmans, whose table top installation ‘Truth Study center’ is featured in ‘The Last Newspaper’.
Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans’, Truth Study Center (NY), 2010.Wood, glass, and mixed media. Courtesy the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery,
© Wolfgang Tillmans. Photo: Benoit Pailley. Courtesy New Museum.
A door buzzer is activated on a busy street of East London on a rainy Saturday evening; I push and find myself in Between Bridges, the non-profit gallery space Wolfgang Tillmans opened in 2006 to show artists that “are overlooked in the London scene”. (The current exhibition is by Gerd Arntz, a fairly unknown German artist and activist of the Weimar era.) I climb the spiral staircase to the studio and Tillmans welcomes me upstairs and offers me tea. He is tired but talkative, having just returned from Nottingham, where he has been installing his works for the British Art Show 7. His studio is a huge open space, full of desks and wooden tables, where newspapers and magazines pile under the neon lights. “Last year at the Venice Biennale I had four table works. And I had a whole room table installation (Space, Food, Religion, 2010) at the Serpentine Gallery show. But having The Last Newspaper and the Nottingham show opening in the space of three weeks has reactivated the Truth Study center project in a very significant way”, he says while pointing to the build-up of world-wide printed media that towers on every surface of the studio.
Lorena Muñoz-Alonso: What is or are the origins of your Truth Study Center works?
Wolfgang Tillmans: The project started in 2005 with a show in London at Maureen Paley which coincided with the publication of my third book for Taschen, also titled Truth Study center. It was a contradiction, somehow, because the contents of the book had nothing to do with the tables. That first show included sixteen tables. Then, in 2006, I had a big mid-career survey in the U.S., a show that toured between Chicago, Los Angeles and Mexico City which included a twenty-four-table installation. In 2007 I had a show at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover where I showed thirty tables, which then become part of the exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. So there have been two very big installations so far. The U.S. installation was altered from city to city; I was adding and adapting the contents depending on the context.
LM-A: So the way you can work on the tables is quite quick and reactive?
WT: Yes, pretty much. The tour was a year and a half long, and they were heady times in the American political arena, so it was interesting being able to incorporate all that to the work. There was a particular piece that was then published in The Guardian called ‘Ten easy steps for a fascist America’ by Naomi Wolf – a very heavy statement indeed. It was very striking and beautifully illustrated, so I made a table incorporating that on the spot. That table piece is again in The Last Newspaper exhibition. Americans don’t really like foreigners to criticise them. They are good at self-criticism, but the moment it’s a foreigner who does it, they can get defensive. But Wolf is American, so that couldn’t be accused of coming from European prejudices.
Detail of Truth Study Center (NY), 2010. Wood, glass, and mixed media.Courtesy the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery, © Wolfgang Tillmans. Photo: Latitudes
LM-A: How did you begin the process of incorporating the table as a new element in the vocabulary of your practice?
WT: It actually started in 1995 with a show at Portikus in Frankfurt where I used five flat cabinets to show images I had published in magazines. Also in the Turner Prize show in 2000 I used the same idea of laying out elements on a flat horizontal surface, so it was already settling within my practice then. While I was editing the Truth Study center book I came to this really obvious realisation that all my work happens on a table. A table provides a space for a loose arrangement, where things are laid out in a certain way, but can be easily rearranged. On a wall, you have to pin or tape the stuff, but a table is more fluid. There is clarity and complete contingency at the same time.
LM-A: And why did you start using newspapers as a raw material in your work?
WT: I had worked with found newspapers before, in the ‘Soldiers’ series (1999). I have to confess I am a bit of a newspaper junkie and have collected them since childhood. I often think that a day’s newspaper contains the essence of the whole world. But I guess that around 2002–2004, the years post 9/11, a clearer picture of the world we live in emerged – all the insanity that surrounded us – after what had seemed like the less politically charged 1990s. I was enraged and concerned and spending a lot of time reading media and thinking about all these different claims to the truth, ‘the big truth’ which was the ultimate justification behind all that violence and those wars. I realised that all the problems that the world faces right now arise from men claiming to possess absolute truths.
Detail of Truth Study Center (NY), 2010. Wood, glass, and mixed media.
Courtesy the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery, © Wolfgang Tillmans. Photo: Latitudes
LM-A: So hence the name…
WT: Of course it would be very desirable to have a completely neutral ‘Truth Study center’, but that will never be possible. So even though it has this big title, it is not claiming to be delivering truth, but rather looking at all these different, opposed truths. But it is not at all saying that everything is relative or subjective. I do think there are certain truths that are not negotiable, that some events and attitudes are wrong, and I am straightforward about in the work, which I think is precisely what makes it interesting. It takes a moral stand on the one hand, but on the other is always aware of its absurdity and of its extreme limitations. So it presents all these issues, like the impact of AIDS denial in Africa or the question of the existence or not of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – the whole war came about from a single question: is this true or not?
LM-A: Are the tables fixed in their arrangements and subjects?
WT: The tables are, or can be, pieces in their own right. They do not always have to come in the same installations. But it’s the same as with a wall installation when I think a grouping really works, I try to maintain it. But the working process is quite flexible and not set in stone.
LM-A: So you color–photocopy all the newspaper that are on the tables, which is already a process of translation in itself…
WT: Very much so. That is the essential part of the visual composition because we have been talking a lot about content but of course, if the table works were not interesting to look at, they wouldn’t have an artistic justification. I use the color photocopy because of aesthetic reasons, but also because the color copy is amazingly permanent, as opposed to the newspaper. I couldn’t use the original newspaper cause it wouldn’t look good after a year. But media-wise there are also real things, like a lottery ticket, a bus ticket, a vegetable wrapper…
Installation view of the Truth Study Center (NY), 2010. Wood, glass, and mixed media. Courtesy the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery, © Wolfgang Tillmans. Photo: Latitudes
LM-A: You have a very strong relationship to printed matter. You have even said: “Everything I do happens on paper”, which I think is a simple but very meaningful realisation, with a lot of implications...
WT: I have a double interest in The Last Newspaper show. Not only do I use newspapers and magazines as material, but also my work is heavily featured in printed media and I use media as both generator and distributor of my work.
LM-A: What are the main subjects of your tables are in The Last Newspaper?
WT: There is one table about soldiers and war, one about religion, another about the depiction of war, games and violence on the internet. I also have some images of airlines and the experience of flying and there is one about Americans’ attitudes to food. There are a lot of critical messages there, but you could find all of them in very mainstream publications. Information and criticality is there for everyone, which is also one of the issues I want to highlight in this work.
LM-A: Is this series your outlet for political expression?
WT: There is definitely a bit of that. I use these works to make statements on subjects that I feel very strongly about but that I can’t or don’t want to tackle in my photographs. At the same time, though, the reason why I started to work with images from the very beginning was that I wanted to be involved with what was going on the world. Questions of taste or of beauty have always been politically charged for me. Do you find two men kissing disgusting or beautiful? That is a question of aesthetics but also of politics. I’ve always had this very strong awareness that every freedom that I enjoy as a gay person has been hard fought for by many people before me, and that gave me a great sense of public responsibility. I think every person counts. I might be very traditional in that sense, but I really think it does matter.