My latest photograph & painting exhibitions & Wolfgang Tillmans at Tate Modern.

My most recent work has involved photography, I have been recently part of a group exhibition at Bargehouse, Oxo Tower in London follow link http://www.oxotower.co.uk/locations/bargehouse/
which was very successful  see pic below:

and I was selected to be part of a group exhibition by the Watts Gallery in Surrey that went very well, see link: www.wattsgallery.org.uk
I  have been exploring the urban space through walking and noticing the unseen. I am hyperactive and sometimes I find focusing on things can be hard in the urban environment, so carrying along my camera to record and reflect upon my walks gives me a way to focus without feeling anxious. I am finding myself fully absorbed in the process, and I can immerse myself more fully in the surrounding environment.

I have been exploring urban spaces and taking pictures of daily objects, observing the mundane, which I can then turn into abstract pieces of work thereby creating my own narrative. I am particularly interested in the distortions that can be created through the camera. With it I stare at the world. I have been practising walking at a slower pace and really paying attention to what is around me and I have been experimenting by printing the photographs on different types of paper  and on different sizes to see what the effects of this are. In the future I hope to explore new areas, to push myself and maybe go abroad and take photographs abroad.
If you are a Gallery or Magazine and you are interested in my work contact me here:
https://twitter.com/mirtaimperatori

I saw Wolfgang Tillmans work at the Serpentine Gallery in 2009. Some of the photographs in that   exhibition are also in this one at Tate Modern, but this latest exhibition is much more comprehensive.

Photo taken at Tate Modern by Mirta Imperatori. Copyright Wolfgang Tillmans.

I particularly enjoyed the photographic print of the hotel room where the bed is reflected int the TV, so you get a different perspective, see pic. above. When you first see the image you think is just a normal boring picture of a bedroom but then you realise it is much more. 

Copyright Wolfgang Tillmans

Some of the photographs look like anybody could have taken them, but there is still something beautiful in their every day ordinariness, see picture above. Nowadays unless you are Wolfgang Tillmans it would be really hard to sell them,  due to the fast progress of digital technology and everybody having a chance at taking good photographs, with affordable and efficient equipment. Everybody can be a photographer, it's a lot more competitive so you have to really distinguish yourself to get noticed.  What make Tillmans different is the way he exhibits his work, fantastically well produced, some of the photographs are framed and some unframed. 

Photo by Mirta Imperatori at Tate Modern. Copyright Wolfgang Tillmans

All through the exhibition you realise he has done a lot of travelling although I note that the brochure says he works a lot in the studio.  You can see from his more abstract work that he is also interested in creating images without the camera, just focusing on colour  so he is painting in a way, see pic below.

Copyright Wolfgang Tillmans

Many of the photographs are taken abroad, both in Europe and beyond, and this is a later phase of his work. These photographs have a market in magazines and newspapers, which made me assume that his background is in magazines. He photographs people, animals, and food; they are presented in a fragmented way so as to record what he sees without making an overall statement. I have to say the room I liked least was the one of mid-year 2000 depicting global events, for example the Iraq war.  I felt it was too fragmented and there was too much information, I could not focus long on any of the pieces  and there was too much information for me. With this specific work he is pointing at the subject of truth and fake news, and at how distortion of truth has an effect at a psychological level. It is really relevant today especially with what is going in the USA with  President Trump excluding certain media from his press conferences, and with fake news on the Internet. His work predates and anticipates all of this.

Another thing that comes out clearly from this exhibition is Tillmans' interest in social life and music,  for example the photographs taken in clubs, people gathering together for a party, music or activism.  I actually find them moving, maybe because I have never experienced being part of a music gathering. There is another section in the exhibition with portraits of individuals, friends and strangers; here the photographs peer into the subjects uncovering vulnerabilities and strengths. The Playback Room is the 2014 music installation with fun and energetic music including a bit of reggae which reminded me again of night clubs, of people gathering and having fun. With reference to freedom, here he is exploring the idea of how free we are? How much do we conform? This is given by one of the songs  playing which alluded to the series The Prisoner the science fiction British television series in the 1960's where the Prisoner is a former agent who resigns from his job and is imprisoned by a weird community which is really worth seeing. 

The Playback Room Photo taken by Mirta Imperatori, Tate Modern. Copyright Wolfgang Tilllmans.

Anyway I was just happy sitting there listening to music and resting my eyes, after  seeing so many photographs and yes thanks to Tillmans I might have been in a gathering for just a moment while listening to music or maybe I just wished I was at one of those parties depicted in his photographs. An enjoyable exhibition.