Wolfgang Tillmans

Photo courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Wolfgang Tillmans, “Schneckenstilleben” (2002)

Photo by Lee Stalsworth, courtesy Hirsshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

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Yes. As well as an interesting new piece called Memorial to the Victims of Organized Religion, which, in a town full of memorials, seemed to be the one that was missing. It's a grid of 48 black and very dark blue photographs, each of which is 24- by 20- inches. There is a modified version of the Soldier piece from 1999-2000, which is adapted for today's context.

And the Truth Study Center is here. It's in its own room, with absolutely nothing on the walls, and the 24 tables are arranged in a diagonal to the space. I'm really happy about the sculptural aspects of the piece. I haven't held back on the content either. It's got a whole variety of issues that are of great concern to me, like the South African government's denial that HIV is the cause of AIDS, like the questioning of evolution in America, like holocaust revisionism in some places in Germany. There's a table dedicated to a very recent piece from The Guardian by Naomi Wolf, called "Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps."

Have you considered that President Bush might stroll along the Mall and wander in and see your work?

Well, I don't think he'll do that, but I was told that this is the most visited period of the year for the Hirshhorn and because of its location there will be an audience of 200,000 for this show. If some of them stumble across [the political work], it would be very good.

Do you think of yourself as a subversive artist?

I think that intending to be subversive often has the opposite result. But I am interested in reversing thoughts and questioning assumptions, which of course is subversive, because the hardest thing for all of us is to change our point of view, or to change our behavior.

I want to be very aware of how my mind functions, and to play with expectations.

The most fundamental truth is that things are not always what they seem. It's important to think twice, and to look twice. That is [what I consider] subversive.

Another term that's often used in discussions of your work is the "snapshot aesthetic." I wonder how difficult it is to create the appearance of spontaneity?

Here's the thing that I don't like about the word "snapshot." There's a suggestion that it's about not caring, about not knowing. I like the way noncritics and nonprofessionals use the word. They use it to suggest intimacy and things that they love—because people take snapshots of things and people they love. I like the immediacy and closeness in that sense of the word.

I learned at an early stage that it was much easier to make something look complicated and arty. But to make a picture enter your consciousness on a different level, it's better if it looks very simple and doesn't talk so much about its own artifice and processes. I've developed ways to take pictures so that you don't notice how it's been lit, for example. The process doesn't exactly disappear—when you look at the picture you realize that the colors are very specific, and the geometry, and the lines, and how things are composed are still there. I don't want to make these things disappear completely, but I want to avoid a language that points them out.