To look without fear

Photo Credit - Frank, in the shower (2015). Image courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York / Hong Kong, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne, Maureen Paley, London

Photographers are always seeking the next shot - surveying the scene and making decisions every time we attempt to fill the frame. We use words like “capture” and “isolate” and “contextualize” about the moments, objects, and people we place in front of our lenses, an act that has the power to change everything. It’s a heavy concept and a big responsibility, one that comes with it’s own philosophical and ethical challenges, but what happens when we approach the process with a radical sense of openness and blind faith that everything can be worthy of photographic attention?

At MoMA, Wolfgang Tilmans has laid out a visual manifesto in “To Look Without Fear,” a sprawling retrospective and a convincing argument for the liberation of looking - the central act of the photographic process. From 4x6 drugstore style snapshots to larger-than-life portraits, there’s a freedom to Tilmans’ images that does more than “invite” you to look closer, it welcomes you in with wide eyes and open arms. It makes no claims to “truth” or “accuracy” but feels inherently real. Affixed to the walls with scotch tape and binder clips, it’s dismissal of museum glass and hardwood frames feels raw and intimate. There are no boundaries, no limits, and no conventions to kowtow too. Tilmans is working outside all of the boxes, leaving the fine art reverence for the content of his images, not the context in which they are seen.

Credit of course must also go to the curatorial staff at MoMA, who have been taking photography seriously for longer than any other art institution has. Which is why they can not only get away with hanging prints with thumbtacks and tape, but can be wildly successful in the process. A show of this magnitude cannot be framed - literally and metaphorically. It’s broadness and vulnerability is it’s foundation. But Tilmans also seems to be interested in, quite literally, works on paper. Careful choices have been made about print size and pairing, but we also see Tilmans experimenting with Xerox machines, newspaper clippings, magazine covers, packaging, wrappers, and light-sensitive photo paper. If looking leads us to an image, when that image is committed to paper and put on display the whole process comes full circle.

Tilmans can’t control how we see his work, but he can certainly make sure we are looking.