moonrise, Puerto Rico

This group forms part of an installation of 36 photographs titled if one thing matters, everything matters, installation room 2 1995-1997, 2003. That title conveys Tillmans’s desire that all his photographs are seen as equally significant. He suggests that an image of, say, a cup of coffee carries equal weight and importance to one of more dramatic subject matter. He questions conventional codes of representation and, in so doing, reinvigorates the genres of still life, landscape and portraiture. His images may appear artless and improvised but Tillmans knowingly adopts a ‘language of authenticity’ and many of them are carefully staged.