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| Wolfgang Tillmans grey jeans over stair post 1991 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
The Things of the World
I would like to say something for things as they are, in themselves,
Not standing for anything else, multiform, legion
In their fleeting exactitude,
Fashioned in intricate and elusive ways, individual,
Each like nothing else precisely. I am speaking
Of observable things, this chair,
This leaf, that slab, the sun, dust, a fly.
Sometimes interacting, sometimes not, depending
On the nature of each, but always
And ever changing, coming into being, vanishing;
May be observed or not; beautiful or ugly
Only as someone's opinion;
Neither right nor wrong; neutral; concerned only with
Their presence here, enduring their given span:
The manifold things of the world.
– Robert Sargent (1991)
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Kate Sitting 1996 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Faltenwurf (oliv) 1996 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
Meaninglessness
He was staring at one of its faces,
fine-boned, with one of those faint,
appealing scars, a face he might
seek out at a party on a night
he couldn't help himself again.
He'd learned, but forgotten,
the pointlessness of seeking;
he was, after all, alive,
and desire often sent him aching
toward some same mistake.
The museum was spacious, the walls full
of those gestures toward permanence
he wanted to believe mattered.
No longer was he sure they did.
But he was there, had paid his money.
The definition of beauty, Valéry said, is easy;
it's what leads you to desperation.
He moved from room to room
and the face moved with him.
Renoir's women looked merely healthy.
A museum guard trailed, careful
not to hover. Meaninglessness,
he remembered (but not in time),
is what always makes a promise.
Otherwise we'd expect little
from it, no bloodrush, or grand
holiday of the mind, no sweet
prolonged forgetfulness
about what the future holds, no cheers
from the suddenly awakened soul.
– Stephen Dunn (1996)
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Naoya Tulips 1997 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans o.T. München 1997 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Stilleben Markstrasse 1997 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Jochen taking a bath 1997 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
from Her Last August
Underwater, I lay back,
on the bottom, and looked up, to wait
for the gray shape of the wave to pass over
like a swarm. It did not pass and did not
pass, and then I understood
I had been lying there for a long time,
and I woke up. The moon past full
was behind the storm-clouds. My friend had said
feeling empty might always be part of my life,
feeling like nothing, and seeing the shining
on others, the shining which might be cast,
partly, by the watcher's spirit. . . .
– Sharon Olds (1997)
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Concorde L449-17 1997 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Concorde Grid 1997 chromogenic prints mounted on paper Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans I don't want to get over you 2000 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
from The Men
I've arrived at this famous year 2000, and what do I get?
With what do I scratch myself? What do I have to do with
the three glorious zeros that flaunt themselves
over my very own zero, my own non-existence?
– Pablo Neruda, translated by Alfred Yankauer (2000)
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| Wolfgang Tillmans New Family 2001 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans The Cock (kiss) 2002 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans The Bell 2002 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Wolfgang Tillmans Strümpfe 2002 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
Tenderness and Rot
Tenderness and rot
share a border.
And rot is an
aggressive neighbor
whose iridescence
keeps creeping over.
No lessons
can be drawn
from this however.
One is not
two countries.
One is not meat
corrupting.
It is important
to stay sweet
and loving.
– Kay Ryan (2002)
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)