Wolfgang Tillmans
°1968, Remscheid (DE) – lives and works in Berlin (DE) and London (UK)
Over the past 30 years, Wolfgang Tillmans has redefined photography and the way it is presented. Known in the early 1990s for his seemingly casual images of the world he inhabited, his work reassessed photographic conventions and reflected the culture and identity politics of the time, capturing the fragility of human life and focusing on everyday objects. His work has always engaged with portraiture, landscape and still life, but more recently Tillmans has turned to a deeper exploration of abstraction, and has pushed the boundaries and definitions of the photographic form.
Tillmans continually challenges photographic practice by playing with exhibition methods, often pinning or taping his work to gallery walls, building study tables that resemble museological vitrines, or creating wall-based cases for selected works. Each exhibition is a renegotiation and rearrangement of material, ideas and subjects. For each installation, he investigates the process of exhibition and image-making, intuitively reflecting the politics of our shared contemporary society. Tillmans' images capture the essence of a moment, and the pictures and installations that the artist has created over the last three decades are an alchemical blend of detachment and engagement.
(courtesy of Serpentine Gallery)
Tillmans shows his work internationally, including solo exhibitions at Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Kunsthalle Zürich; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Carré d’Art, Nîmes, IMMA, Dublin; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; and Tate Modern, London.
Work by Wolfgang Tillmans is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Tate, London.
Wolfgang Tillmans is represented by the following galleries;
click through to discover more of his work.
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
David Zwirner, New York / London / Paris / Hong Kong
You can also see plenty more of Wolfgang Tillmans work on his own website.
works by Wolfgang Tillmans
from the journal
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The Absent Museum - at Wiels, Brussels
The Absent Museum is both a look backwards at the journey that Wiels has made so far and a projection of its future development, exploring what a museum’s role today could be ...
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Our highlights of Frieze Art Fair 2016
The 14th edition of the London Frieze Art Fair brings together over 160 of the world’s leading galleries showcasing works by newly discovered artists alongside some of the most respected names in contemporary art ...
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Wolfgang Tillmans turns activist with passionate posters about why Britain should stay in Europe
Wolfgang Tillmans has created a series of 25 posters and written an open letter addressing Britain's potential departure from the European Union, asking young voters to register before 7 June and speak out against a possible Brexit.
