Chucking traditional curatorial norms out the window, Wolfgang Tillmans presents a show like it’s a site-specific installation, clustering images together—some wondrous, others just plain blah—hanging framed photographs alongside unframed prints, with the occasional magazine spread or page of scrawled text thrown in. The result is a democratic visual lineup of varying sizes and quality that’s unfettered and provocative.

The work itself, which even though 30 years old and evoking a certain era, remains immediate and fresh. Lutz & Alex Sitting in the Trees (1992) has lost none of its edgy allure after all these years. The same can be said about The Cock (Kiss) (2002), which became a potent symbol of undaunted LGBTQ Pride following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.

Anders in Kitchen (2011) is at once so ordinary, yet so compelling. Seated in front of a window in yellow T-shirt and shorts, Anders holds the ashy end of a burning cigarette in his hand. Above him blue smoke hangs in the air. The image is large-scale and the figure is somewhat backlit. These are aesthetic choices that grab our attention. But it is the sweet, relaxed face brimming with humanity that really draws us in. When it comes to capturing himself, Tillmans can be more obscure or playful. His first self-portrait, Lacanau (Self) (1986), features an undulating area of textural white flesh color against a pink washed parabola. Positioned where the two passages meet (the gap of the title) is a black Adidas logo—a prized symbol for a 1980s German kid. Lüneburg (Self), a lush color print of a smartphone propped against a plastic water bottle, cheekily presents the artist in the self-view window of a video call, as one would so often be in 2020, the year the photograph was made.

Tillmans’ still lifes seem like casual accumulations of ordinary things. And yet, thanks to his eye for color, texture and composition, these images of tomatoes, Pomodoro (1993), clothing, Faltenwurf Bourne Estate (2002), sausages, Still Life, New York (2001), and lobster and crab shells visited by a fly, Astro Crusto (2012) are jewel-like, sensual discourses on accidental beauty. Tillmans’ stunning abstract works are made without a camera, using photosensitive paper and many unorthodox approaches, like developing prints in dirty water, or scratching the prints’ surfaces. The transcendent I Don’t Want to Get Over You (2000) with its expanse of turquoise framed by green tendrils, created in the darkroom, suggests a dreamy tropical landscape. Here, Tillmans uses the flaws and imperfections of the print to create a sense of aching nostalgia. 

With his show’s title, Tillmans asks us to look unflinchingly at the world he presents and the world in general: the titillating, the hard truths, the ordinariness. Tillmans may be a rule breaker, but his is not a nihilistic act. Rather, it’s a gloriously generative one, pushing the boundaries of photography and challenging us to see differently, or as Tillmans himself puts it, “To look without fear.”