Concorde L449-19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28

Photographed through the fences of London Heathrow airport on numerous occasions, the Concorde was of ambiguous interest to Tillmans. The metal machine frozen in the sky, denied the speed for which it is renowned, evokes both a utopia of a 1960s futuristic modernity, which still fascinates those who watch it go by thirty years later, as well as a deleterious, noisy, polluting nightmare. 

This conflicting view was heightened in recent memory by the sudden halting of its flights in 2003, which made the Concorde a modern myth. This photographic installation composed of seven images reveals Wolfgang Tillmans’ freedom in his choice of his subjects—at times anodyne and ordinary and at others, universal and laden with references—his playing with the sense of scale, and the spatial arrangement of his prints, all of which characterise his work.