On April 23rd, Tillmans released a powerful series of open-source, anti-Brexit posters to encourage the United Kingdom to vote to remain in the European Union. (The German-born photographer, the first non-Brit to take home the Turner Prize, has lived in London for some 25 years and was inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013.) He later produced a series of t-shirts that were donned by the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Daniel Craig. But while the June 23rd referendum ended unfavorably for Tillmans’s camp, the viral campaign brought about a renewed surge of recognition for the artist, who also opened solo shows with Maureen Paley, Galerie Buchholz , and Regen Projects this year. “He introduced us to a new perspective of the ‘normal.’ He showed us the beauty of everyday life,” says Karen and Christian Boros, who have been collecting Tillmans’ work since the ’90s. “Recently, he has engaged once again with normalcy. Namely that it should be normal that in Europe people live with each other respectfully and tolerantly.”

Political and social activism, if indirect, have long been inherent in Tillmans’s work. In the ’80s and ’90s, he captured raw images of youth and club subcultures—from gay rights demonstrations to the acid-house scene—giving voice to a generation for which he believed hedonism could be a form of activism. In following years, he’s harnessed the power of images to empower individuals living with HIV to become informed about their treatment, to garner aid for reconstruction efforts in earthquake-torn Haiti, and since 2005, to examine perception and opposing truths (like the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) through his multi-part tabletop installation of news clippings and found ephemera, the Truth Study Center. Throughout these years, Tillmans has redefined how photographs are both made and presented, from abstract camera-less photography to his signature style of taping his photographs to the wall unframed and paired with clippings from magazines to flatten hierarchies of value.



i-D magazine in 1991 spanned Europe’s various techno scenes, made his own musical debut. In July, he released his first record, an EP he began as a teenager in 1986. The following month, an unreleased track by Tillmans bookended Frank Ocean’s visual album Endless, the cover of which the artist also shot. He strolled the catwalk for cult menswear label Hood By Air during New York Fashion Week, leaving us to wonder what—besides major solo exhibitions at 2016 also marks the year Tillmans, whose first piece formagazine in 1991 spanned Europe’s various techno scenes, made his own musical debut. In July, he released his first record, an EP he began as a teenager in 1986. The following month, an unreleased track by Tillmans bookended Frank Ocean’s visual album, the cover ofwhich the artist also shotHe strolled the catwalk for cult menswear label Hood By Air during New York Fashion Week, leaving us to wonder what—besides major solo exhibitions at Tate Modern and Fondation Beyeler in 2017—the talented polymath will bring us next.



