Biography

Wolfgang Tillmans is an influential contemporary German photographer. Emerging in the 1990s with his snapshot documentations of youths, clubs, and LGBTQ culture, Tillman’s practice has expanded to include diaristic photography, large-scale abstraction, and commissioned magazine work. “I want the pictures to be working in both directions,” the artist has said. “I accept that they speak about me, and yet at the same time, I want and expect them to function in terms of the viewer and their experience.” Capturing landscapes from an airplane window, still lifes of crustaceans, or a portrait of the singer Frank Ocean, his work conveys the profundity of an exhaustive archive. Born on August 16, 1968 in Remscheid, West Germany, Tillmans spent the early part of his career in London after graduating from the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design. In 2000, he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize, marking the first time the prize had been awarded to a photographer or non-British artist. In 2006 Tillmans established Between Bridges, a non-profit exhibition space located in Berlin. In 2017, the survey show “Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017” opened at the Tate Modern in London to critical acclaim. The artist currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom. His works are presently held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others.