Folding, Refraction, Touch: Modern and Contemporary Art in Dialogue with Wolfgang Tillmans

, University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums
  • Wolfgang Tillmans’ Folding, Refraction, Touch Installation Time-Lapse
  • Untitled, 1963/006
  • Moon Landscape
  • Hand
  • Katastrofa
  • Basic Research
  • 61/6
  • Untitled
  • Silver 101
  • Folding, Refraction, Touch – Installation for the Busch-Reisinger Museum
  • Silver 101
  • Princess Julia Berlin
  • stripped II
  • shiny shorts
  • Love Parade, rain
  • paper drop (sheet)
  • U-Bahn sitz
  • Untitled
  • Karl, Utoquai 2
  • Karl, Utoquai 4
  • Irm Hermann
  • Renovierung
  • Kopierer, a
  • Everlast
  • Faltenwurf (dry)
  • New Family
  • Space Sculpture
  • Untitled
  • Klassenraum, Leibniz Gymnasium I
  • Hallenbad, Detail
  • Kopierer, e
  • paper drop (Berlin)
University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

Drawing on the strength of the Harvard Art Museums’ modern and contemporary art collections, this exhibition presents a major recent acquisition by renowned German artist Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968). Entitled Folding, Refraction, Touch (2013), Tillmans’s installation foregrounds, formally and thematically, the material and immaterial qualities of the photographic medium. The 19-part installation, created specifically for the Busch-Reisinger Museum and shown publicly for the first time, is accompanied by 10 works from other artists, including Oskar Nerlinger, Norbert Kricke, and Isa Genzken, whose works resonate with Tillmans’s interest in surface, light, and the body.

Curated by Lynette Roth, Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and Olivia Crough, Ph.D. student in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University.

This exhibition was funded by the Charles L. Kuhn Endowment Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Related Programming
Information about events related to Folding, Refraction, Touch: Modern and Contemporary Art in Dialogue with Wolfgang Tillmans, including a film and video series, Materials Lab Workshops, gallery talks, and an Art Study Center Seminar, can be found in our calendar.

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Learning from Tillmans

 Olivia Crough, a Ph.D. student in Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and a 2015–16 graduate intern in the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, gained hands-on curatorial experience as she helped organize the exhibition Folding, Refraction, Touch: Modern and Contemporary Art...