Wolfgang Tillmans treats the photograph as a physical object as much as an image. He pins, tapes and arranges prints directly onto gallery walls rather than framing them uniformly.
In 2000, he became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the Turner Prize.
His work spans intimate portraits of friends, club culture, abstract darkroom experiments and political posters, often shown together so that the relationship between images matters as much as any single picture. Tillmans has continued to use his practice for direct political engagement, including a 2016 campaign of anti-Brexit posters distributed across the UK.
In 2000, he became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the Turner Prize.
His work spans intimate portraits of friends, club culture, abstract darkroom experiments and political posters, often shown together so that the relationship between images matters as much as any single picture. Tillmans has continued to use his practice for direct political engagement, including a 2016 campaign of anti-Brexit posters distributed across the UK.
Summary
Wolfgang Tillmans treats the photograph as a physical object as much as an image. He pins, tapes and arranges prints directly onto gallery walls rather than framing them uniformly.
In 2000, he became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the Turner Prize.
His work spans intimate portraits of friends, club culture, abstract darkroom experiments and political posters, often shown together so that the relationship between images matters as much as any single picture. Tillmans has continued to use his practice for direct political engagement, including a 2016 campaign of anti-Brexit posters distributed across the UK.
In 2000, he became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the Turner Prize.
His work spans intimate portraits of friends, club culture, abstract darkroom experiments and political posters, often shown together so that the relationship between images matters as much as any single picture. Tillmans has continued to use his practice for direct political engagement, including a 2016 campaign of anti-Brexit posters distributed across the UK.
Artworks by Wolfgang Tillmans
About Wolfgang Tillmans
Biography
About Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans was born in 1968 in West Germany. As a teenager, he kept a scrapbook of found photographs and made his first serious picture, Lacanau, a year before finishing school. He studied photography and print media at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in England, from 1990 to 1992.
Club culture, then everything else
Tillmans's early photographs documented rave culture and youth subcultures in the UK and Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He shot with an intimacy that treated his friends and their world as worthy subjects for fine art.
His practice expanded quickly beyond documentary photography into abstraction, still life and large scale installation, often combining several formats and print sizes on a single wall.
In 2000, this approach won him the Turner Prize, awarded for the first time to a photographer and to an artist not born in Britain.
Prints, posters and public causes
Tillmans's prints range from small, unframed pages pinned directly to a wall, to large format c-prints mounted formally. He has also used offset print and poster formats for explicitly political projects, including anti-Brexit posters distributed across Britain in 2016.
Tillmans founded the non-profit space, Between Bridges, in 2006 to support politically engaged art. He was appointed to Tate's board of trustees in 2009.
Biography
About Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans was born in 1968 in West Germany. As a teenager, he kept a scrapbook of found photographs and made his first serious picture, Lacanau, a year before finishing school. He studied photography and print media at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in England, from 1990 to 1992.
Club culture, then everything else
Tillmans's early photographs documented rave culture and youth subcultures in the UK and Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He shot with an intimacy that treated his friends and their world as worthy subjects for fine art.
His practice expanded quickly beyond documentary photography into abstraction, still life and large scale installation, often combining several formats and print sizes on a single wall.
In 2000, this approach won him the Turner Prize, awarded for the first time to a photographer and to an artist not born in Britain.
Prints, posters and public causes
Tillmans's prints range from small, unframed pages pinned directly to a wall, to large format c-prints mounted formally. He has also used offset print and poster formats for explicitly political projects, including anti-Brexit posters distributed across Britain in 2016.
Tillmans founded the non-profit space, Between Bridges, in 2006 to support politically engaged art. He was appointed to Tate's board of trustees in 2009.