TILLMANS, Wolfgang

"I make pictures to recognize the world." - Wolfgang Tillmans

About the German photo artist Wolfgang TILLMANS (b.1968, in Remscheid)

Wolfgang TILLMANS work is characterized on the one hand by attentive observation of his environment, and on the other hand by research into the fundamentals of photography. In 2000, he became the first photographer and non-German to be awarded the prestigious Turner Prize. He became known in the early 1990s for his style-defining portraits of friends and other young people in his immediate environment. His photographs, for example of the 'European Gay Pride' in London (1992) or the 'Love Parade' in Berlin (1992), appeared in magazines, establishing his reputation as a prominent witness to current social trends. The series with his friends Lutz and Alex are now artistic and documentary icons. Since then, his photographic work has expanded to include a wide variety of genres and photographic practices. Driven by an aesthetic as well as political interest in concepts of reality and claims to truth, also in relation to homosexuality and gender issues, he has produced portraits, still lifes, sky photographs (such as the famous cycle of Concorde photographs), astronomical observations, elevations and landscapes.
Wolfgang TILLMANS stages his photographs in various sizes and formats, with or without frames in precisely conceived all-over wall installations, sometimes combining them with photocopies or magazine and newspaper pages (especially in the installations that became known under the title 'Soldiers - The Nineties'). In some cases, the images are attached to the wall with special adhesive tape, presented in showcases or arranged in room-sized table installations (truth study center). After using an analog single-lens reflex camera almost exclusively for over two decades, he turned to digital photography around 2009. In 2012, he described the accompanying change from camera viewfinder to built-in monitor as 'completely turning upside down the psychology of photography, which has always been a dialogue between photographer, object, and the imaginary image one imagines, thinks, hopes for'. His exhibition and book project 'New World' is the first time he has made greater use of the digital possibilities of photography and printing technology. According to the New York Times, with this project he 'led an insider debate about new printing methods that put painting and photography on an equal footing, [as well as] a universally accessible discourse on the absurdity of the fixed image in a world of moving targets'.
In 2009, Wolfgang TILLMANS received the Culture Award of the German Society for Photography (DGPh). In 2015 he was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. In 2018 he received the Federal Cross of Merit as well as the Goslar Kaiserring. Wolfgang TILLMANS lives and works today in Berlin and London.

Photo and artists books by and about Wolfgang TILLMANS

• 'Wolfgang Tillmans' (1995, 2020)
  'Wer Liebe wagt, lebt morgen' (1996)
  'Concorde' (1997, 2017)
  'Burg' (1998)
  'Soldiers – The Nineties' (1999)
  'Portraits' (2001)
  'Aufsicht / View from Above' (2001)
  'If one thing matters, everything matters' (2003)
  'Truth study center' (2003)
  'Freischwimmer' (2004)
  'Manual' (2007)
  'Wako Book 4' (2008)
  'Lighter' (2008)
  'Abstract Pictures' (2011, 2015)
  'Neue Welt' (2012)
  'Ausstellungskatalog Kunstsammlung NRW' (2013)
  'Wolfgang Tillmans' (2014)
  'What’s wrong with redistribution?' (2015)
  'Four books' (2017, 2022)
  'To look without fear' (2022)
  'Reader' (2022, 2023)