Totale Sonnenfinsternis

Totale Sonnenfinsternis is an early artist book by Wolfgang Tillmans, a 48-page paperback that Galerie Buchholz published in Cologne to mark his exhibition there in May 1999.

Galerie Buchholz describes it as photographs, image material, graphics and texts that Tillmans produced or assembled on the phenomenon of solar eclipses, a subject printed directly into the bilingual title on the cover, "Totale Sonnenfinsternis / Total Solar Eclipse." It is fully illustrated and bound in paper wraps, measuring roughly 20.5 by 30.5 cm, and the gallery now lists it as out of print.

The subject connects to Tillmans's Total Solar Eclipse Grid (1998), a set of 21 photographs taken during a total eclipse that he later installed as part of his Turner Prize presentation in 2000, the award that made him its first photographer and first non-British winner, and that now belongs to Tate's permanent collection. Galerie Buchholz, then run by Daniel Buchholz, still represents Tillmans today from galleries in Cologne, Berlin and New York.