Fotograf Magazine

Although it may seem that in his most recent book The Cars Wolfgang Tillmans used photography in a way reminiscent of the late 1960s and early 1970s, in fact the way he has taken hold of typologically focused conceptual photography is quite different. In this thematic collection of photos, the German photographer did try to follow his predecessors in capturing the structure of his selected subject matter; however, unlike them he focused on the interaction between the car and the surrounding environment. This is obvious not just in the published photos, in which the repetitive motif draws our attention more to what surrounds the cars, but also in Tillmans’ own commentary on the photographs. He writes that his was an attempt to portray cars in their ‘natural’ environment, which usually remains concealed. This is because when we are taking a shot of a road, unless there has been a tragic accident or there is an immense traffic jam, we tend to avoid including cars and, conversely, generally take photos of car designs in a sterile studio environment.