GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHER EXHIBITS IN NAIROBI
By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 14 April 2018)
In the same
way that one often hears newcomers to the art world ask, what made Pablo
Picasso such a global celebrity in the 20th century [realm of modern
art], one may also want to know what’s made the German photographer Wolfgang Tillman
an international phenomenon in the 21st century world of
contemporary art?
Is it
because both are masters of self-promotion or because they’re explorers and
experimenters in their chosen fields of fine art. Are they genuine innovators
and fine artists or is it just that they’re prolific, ever-innovating and
impossible to ignore.
Jackie Karuti spoke about Wolfgang's photography at Goethe Institute before he left Nairobi. James Muriuki looks on
Could it
also be that both have been keen observers of the political, cultural and
social trends and reacted to them passionately through their art? In other
words, they’ve recognized that their art and the arts generally have the
capacity to move mountains and affect change in the world’s socio-political
psyche of the times.
Picasso
certainly did with his painting of ‘Guernica’, and Tillmans has done it with
his anti-Brexit campaign.
Tillmans was
just here in Nairobi on the third leg of a nine-country Africa tour, having
just come from Kinshasa and Lusaka. The London-based German-born
self-identified European photographer came with an entourage who assisted him
in mounting more than 200 photographs of all sizes, colors and genres, from
reportage and portraiture to abstraction and almost painterly sorts of still
life.
With support
from the German Institute for International and Cultural Relations (Institut
fur Auslandsbeziehungen), Tillmans’ multifaceted exhibition also includes video
projections, music, publications and sculptural objects, all of which
constitute the show he’s entitled ‘Fragile’.
Tillman at Goethe Institute Nairobi
In fact, his
diverse assembly of art is so large that Goethe Institute (which played host to
Tillmans and his team throughout his dozen-day stay in Kenya) had to negotiate
with other cultural institutes in order to display all of his art.
Tillmans’ ‘Fragile’ show is still up for the
viewing at the GoDown Art Centre and Circle Art Gallery. It’s well worth
visiting, especially at the GoDown where there’s sufficient space to do justice
to the depth and rich complexity of his photographic art.
Tillmans has
won a multitude of awards, most surprising and prestigious of which is the
Turner Prize which normally goes to a Briton. But he may have won this
important prize in part because he identifies not in narrow nationalistic terms,
but as a European and citizen of the world.
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