Wolfgang Tillmans' Band Project "Fragile": Visual Album Released

German artist Wolfgang Tillmans has just released a visual album of his band project Fragile: “That’s Desire / Here We Are EP”! Reminds me a lot of Tillmans' recent abstract work. Love it!

Artist Statement: “Directed and photographed by myself, the 27 minutes film features performances by Hari Nef, Karis Wilde, Ash B., Matthew Salinas, Bashir Daviid Naim, Rachel Guest, Christopher Olszewski and myself as well as band members Juan Pablo Echeverri, Jay Pluck, Kyle Combs, Tom Roach and Daniel Pearce.“

“Participants danced and improvised in Los Angeles and New York to the music, without previously knowing it. Whilst editing the footage with Michael Amstad in Berlin, it became clear, that what was planned to be cut into six individual videos, should not be separated, but should remain as a consecutive sequence of six different moods.”

Explaining the motivations behind the visual album Wolfgang Tillmans says: 

"Four songs have been written and recorded this summer in Fire Island and New York, in a time now marked as 'post Brexit / pre Trump'. New Jersey’s Ash B.’s performance and improvised rap on That’s Desire blew us away. The song was recorded in 30 minutes. Two vocal takes by myself, one by Ash B. That was it. Warm Star was written and recorded in Porto in January this year. Principally a love song with political undertones, some lines of the lyrics later made it onto my pro EU / anti Brexit campaign posters.” (From the Youtube website).

Check it out on the link below.

Facts:

Fragile: Visual Album "That’s Desire / Here We Are EP"

Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=--14I6ajk5c

Wolfgang Tillman's Catalogue Raisonnee: "If One Thing Matters, Everything Matters" (2003). As you can see, I've studied it a lot.

Still on View: The Intimate World of Josef Sudek

Happy New Year!

My first exhibition tip in 2017: While attending the opening of the Canadian Photography Institute (http://visualencounter.blogspot.ca/2016/10/launch-of-canadian-photography.html), I had a chance to see the wonderful Josef Sudek exhibition. It's still on view until end of February, and the thoughtful works by “Prague's Atget” are worthwhile a visit. I love the views from his studio in the change of seasons, and over the years... how the glass refracts the light. (Window of My Studio, c. 1940–54).

From the NGC website:

Czech photographer Josef Sudek (1896–1976) produced some of the twentieth century’s most haunting images taken through the window of his studio, as well as of gardens, parks and streets of his beloved city, Prague. Working solely with bulky large-format cameras, despite losing an arm in the First World War, Sudek was a master of pigment and silver print processes. He pushed photography beyond its preoccupations with painterly and modernist styles to explore his own particular brand of romanticism. This Canadian Photography Institute exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada is the first major show to examine the work and life of Sudek and his intimate circle of artist friends during the decades before and after the Second World War.

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Facts: 
The Intimate World of Josef Sudek
28 Oct 2016 - 26 Feb 2017
Canadian Photography Institute (located at the National Gallery of Canada)
Link: http://www.gallery.ca/sudek/en/