(Born 1968 in Remscheid, Germany)
 

Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced a younger generation more than Wolfgang Tillmans. Since the early 1990s, his works have epitomized a new kind of subjectivity in photography, pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique and the persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies. Through his seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies, he has expanded conventional ways of approaching the medium and his practice continues to address the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world.

Born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany, Wolfgang Tillmans studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in Bournemouth, England, from 1990 to 1992. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and first non-British artist to receive the Turner Prize, an award given annually by Tate in London. In 2009, he received the Kulturpreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie and was selected to serve as an Artist Trustee on the Board of Tate. He has been a member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, since 2012 and was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2013. Tillmans was the recipient of the 2015 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography and in January 2018, he was awarded the Kaiserring (or “Emperor’s Ring”) prize from the city of Goslar in Germany. The artist joined David Zwirner in 2014, and PCR marked his inaugural exhibition with the gallery in New York the following year.

Since the early 1990s, Tillmans’s work has been the subject of prominent solo exhibitions at international institutions. In 2003, his first midcareer retrospective, if one thing matters, everything matters, was presented at Tate Britain in London to much critical acclaim. In 2006, Tillmans’s first New York museum exhibition, titled Freedom from the Known, was hosted by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City. On view later that year was his first American museum survey, consisting of approximately three hundred photographs, co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. It traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, in 2007, followed by the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, in 2008. In 2010, the Serpentine Gallery, London, organized a major survey of the artist’s work that subsequently toured through South America in 2012. The exhibition traveled to the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá; Museo de Arte de Lima; and the Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago. In 2012, the Kunsthalle Zürich presented photographs from the artist’s body of work Neue Welt, which traveled the following year to Les Rencontres d’Arles in France. Also in 2012, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, displayed a selection of works spanning twenty-five years; the show traveled to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, in 2013. In 2015, Your Body is Yours was presented at The National Museum of Art, Osaka. Also in 2015, Book for Architects, a two-channel video installation, was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as well as a solo show at the D m Umění – Galerie Sou asného Umění eské Budějovice, Czech Republic. In 2016, a solo show of the artist’s work was hosted by Museu Serralves, Porto.

In 2017, Tate Modern in London held a major survey exhibition of Tillmans’s work. The artist also presented a new immersive installation featuring his work in music and video in the South Tank at the museum. Later that year, solo shows of Tillmans’s work were on view at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, marking the institution’s first comprehensive examination of photography as a medium, as well as at the Kunstverein in Hamburg.

Fragile, a major solo exhibition of the artist’s work, opened in 2018 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain et Multimédias in Kinshasa, organized by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, Goethe-Institut Kinshasa, and Académie des Beaux-Arts, Democratic Republic of Congo. The show traveled to Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi; The GoDown Arts Centre, Nairobi; Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg; and the Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Qu'est-ce qui est différent?was presented at Carré d'Art - Nîmes Museum of Contemporary Art, Nîmes, France in 2018. Rebuilding the Future was on view at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin in 2018-2019.

The artist has operated the non-profit exhibition space Between Bridges since 2006. First located in London until 2011, Between Bridges has exhibited a range of work by artists, including David Wojnarowicz, Ull Hohn, Charlotte Posenenske, and Charles Henri Ford. In January 2014, it reopened in Berlin with a solo show of work by Patrick Caulfield. From 2003 to 2009, Tillmans served as a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt.

Tillmans considers the printed page to be an important venue for his work. He is deeply involved in the publication of artist books and monographs, and regularly contributes to magazines. Publications that have been designed and edited by the artist include Wolfgang Tillmans: manual (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2007); Wolfgang Tillmans: Lighter (Hatje Cantz, 2008); Wolfgang Tillmans: Abstract Pictures (Hatje Cantz, 2011); Wolfgang Tillmans: FESPA Digital / FRUIT LOGISTICA (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012); Neue Welt: Wolfgang Tillmans (Taschen, 2012); and Wolfgang Tillmans: The Cars (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2015), amongst others.

In recent years, Tillmans has been more directly involved in political activism. In tandem with his ongoing Truth Study Center project (begun in 2005), he has created posters for the anti-Brexit campaign in Britain and in response to right-wing populism in Germany.

Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; 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; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, London; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Tillmans lives and works in Berlin and London.

 

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen Art Institute of Chicago Arts Council Collection, London Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, France 17 Castello di Rivoli - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin Centre d’arts plastiques contemporains (CAPC) Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), Paris Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid Centro de Arte Visuales Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain Des Moines Art Center, Iowa Fondation Beyeler, Basel Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) île-de-France, Paris Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) Haute-Normandie, France Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany Kunstmuseum Basel Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis Moderna Museet, Stockholm Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt Museum Ludwig, Cologne Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK), Vienna Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Modern Art, New York National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa The National Museum of Art, Osaka National Portrait Gallery, London Peter C. Ruppert Collection, Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg, Germany Philadelphia Museum of Art Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg Sammlung Goetz, Munich Sammlung Gundlach, Hamburg Seattle Art Museum Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Sprengel Museum, Hanover Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany Städel Museum, Frankfurt Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Tate Gallery, London Victoria and Albert Museum, London University of Warwick Art Collection, Coventry, England Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.