Wolfgang Tillmans at Andrea Rosen Gallery

Chelsea's contemporary Andrea Rosen Gallery is currently displaying the photographs of famed artist Wolfgang Tillmans. While it is extremely difficult for photographers to create original, deeply personal and instantly recognizable visual styles, Tillmans has successfully done so, transforming himself into an innovative artist-photographer of modern life.

While the photographer has boldly explored various genres, techniques, and subject matters throughout his career (which began in the early 1990s), his eclectic creations all point to a “Tillmans-esque style” (one that is widely imitated and well – known). Tillmans' images portray beauty and nonchalance – accomplished through the photographer’s use of monochrome colors and abstract and fragmented styles. He seeks to create uncontrived pieces and sticks by his belief that photographs should occupy wall space more like a sheet than a piece of art (this is why he frequently leaves his photos unframed).

In his current exhibition, the photographer masterfully adheres to his signature style - as much of the gallery is hung with unframed pictures of varying scale – with some clustered and some isolated. In a recent review in NY Magazine, Jerry Saltz remarks,

“Visiting is like being suspended in a photographic aquarium. Although at first you might think he was just traveling around, snapping the shutter willy-nilly, you soon see that he’s trying, with each picture, to make something powerful and personal out of impossibly clichéd subjects.”

I’d love to be a fish in this aquarium! The exhibition runs through March 13th.

Check out other current exhibitions going on in Chelsea

Check out these photography exhibitions now on display at galleries and museums around NYC