Wolfgang Tillmans: The Cars

Publisher Marketing: "The Cars" compiles a new body of work by renowned photographer Wolfgang Tillmans (born 1968). Since the early 90s, Tillmans has redefined the genre of photography, epitomizing a new kind of subjectivity and questioning existing values and hierarchies. "The Cars" is no exception; images of cars in a typical street view--not in a crash, or an extreme traffic jam, but simply present--pay tribute to the amount of time we spend around, or looking at, or using the vehicle."Cars are everywhere," the photographer says. "Their sheer number is the most crazy thing about them. They appear in our lives with excessive omnipresence. In their volume cars intrude upon public space, and the way they occupy streets and open areas is rarely challenged." This unusual artist's book takes up a subject rarely deemed worthy of representation. "Virtually wherever there are people, there are cars and they are visually intermingling in whatever we see," Tillmans points out. "We are looking at the world from a car and cars are in the foreground, the background or in between of what is in our view."With over 100 color photographs and text by the artist himself, this new volume is an important addition to any photobook collection, and to our understanding of what it is to live in a world oversaturated with both cars and images. Contributor Bio:  Tillmans, Wolfgang Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Remscheid, Germany in 1968 and studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His work, whilst appearing to capture the immediacy of the moment and character of the subject, also examines the dynamics of photographic representation. From the outset he ignored the traditional separation of art exhibited in a gallery from images and ideas conveyed through other forms of publication, giving equal weight to both. His expansive floor to ceiling installations feature images of subcultures and political movements, as well as portraits, landscapes, still-lives and abstract imagery varying in scale from postcard- to wall-sized prints. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1996 and Tate Britain, London, in a major retrospective in 2003. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2000.