Concorde

Concorde is Wolfgang Tillmans' sustained study of a single subject: the Concorde supersonic jet, photographed taking off, landing, in flight, and sometimes reduced to a tiny, birdlike silhouette in the sky.

For the passengers who could afford it, Tillmans has said, flying Concorde was a glamorous but cramped and slightly boring routine, while watching it from the ground was a strange, free spectacle: a super-modern anachronism and an image of the desire to overcome time and distance through technology. The book carries no text beyond a short description on the inner front flap, letting the 62 color photographs stand on their own as both a portrait of technological beauty and a record of the environmental cost the aircraft represented. First published in 1997, this fifth printing is issued by Walther König, Köln, as a 128-page softcover.

Tillmans, born in Remscheid, Germany in 1968, works across photography, installation and print, moving fluidly between intimate portraiture and subjects like Concorde that isolate a single recurring form; the book remains one of his most enduring and frequently reprinted artist's books.