Wolfgang Tillmans: Burg / Truth Study Center / Wolfgang Tillmans

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An experimental evening with DonChristian (live), Fragile/Wolfgang Tillmans (live) and Nedalot (dj) O’Hagan, Sean. “Wolfgang Tillmans: 'I Was Hit by a Realisation – All I Believed in Was Threatened'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Feb. 2017, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/feb/13/wolfgang-tillmans-photographer-interview-tate-modern The cover of Frank Ocean’s Blond (also stylized as, “ Blonde,”) says a lot about the album, more than most people would realize without listening to it an inordinate amount of times. On the surface it’s a simple picture of Frank Ocean in a bathroom, covering his face, while some mid-winter sunlight creeps over him via a bathroom window. The focus on a very few works in this room serves as an example of Tillmans’s varied approaches to exhibiting his prints. Though best known for installations comprising many pictures, he always places emphasis on the strength of the individual image.

Benjamin Britten: War Requiem, ENO at National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying),Kaohsiung City, Taiwan Now using a high resolution digital camera, Tillmans captured images in a depth of detail that is immediately compelling, but also suggests the excess of information that is often described as a condition of contemporary life. From the outset of his career, Wolfgang Tillmans(b. 1968, Germany) has revolutionized the prevailing conventions of photographic presentation, making connections between his pictures in response to a given context and activating the space of the exhibition by hanging photographs in a corner, above a doorframe, on a free-standing column, or next to a fire extinguisher. In developing his own language for these overall installations, Tillmans’s practice verges into a sculptural dimension. The decisive logic of his practice is a visual democracy, best summarized by his phrase “If one thing matters, everything matters.”Fletcher, Madeleine. “Wolfgang Tillmans Explained in 5 Works.” Sleek Magazine, 16 Aug. 2019, www.sleek-mag.com/article/wolfgang-tillmans-explained/. I wanted to somehow represent what was not being represented elsewhere. Even though my early photographs are re-enactments, they are showing people at rest and at ease with themselves. They are not doing silly poses or wrapped up in fashion. In that way, they are images of a kind of freedom that was not being expressed honestly elsewhere.”

Tillmans is interested in social life in its broadest sense, encompassing our participation in society. His photographs of individuals and groups are underpinned by his conviction that we are all vulnerable, and that our well-being depends upon knowing that we are not alone in the world. Fragile, Art Twenty One, Lagos and CCA Centre for Contemporary Art, Yaba, Nigeria, 28 May – 10 July 2022 Tillmans, who studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in England and lived in London from 1992 to 1994, and again from 1996 to 2007, was also the first foreign artist to win the Turner Prize; the award is given to "a British artist," which includes non-nationals working in the United Kingdom and British artists working abroad. At the time—and particularly given the prominence during the 1990s of so-called YBAs (Young British Artists) including Tracey Emin, shortlisted for the prize in 1999, and Damien Hirst, who won in 1995—this important milestone sparked debates around nationality and diversity in the arts. "His work is full of life, and works best when seen in the full," Adrian Searle wrote in The Guardian of Tillmans’s Turner Prize exhibition. "The cultural life of Britain is immeasurably strengthened by those from abroad who have chosen to work here. We need different voices, different attitudes, different ways of looking at the world." Adding to the specialness of the moment was that, for most of the intervening two decades, the two subjects remained anonymous. Tillmans had asked around to see if anyone knew these boys, but with no success. It’s come to be an incredibly defiant image in the queer community, because of the reaction it’s had,” says Stuart. ​ “I know about the violence it evoked at Hirshhorn, Iknow about the Pulse nightclub [response]. That violence was part of what Iwanted to capture in the book. The lads at the heart of the story are two 15-year-olds, incredibly innocent, and all they do is share their first kiss. But that is met by such violence.

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The exhibition reveals the full breadth of Tillmans’ creative output to date, with photographs, video projections, sound installations and his ongoing project, Truth Study Center, on display. Born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany, Wolfgang Tillmans became known in the 1990s for his photographs of everyday life and contemporary culture and for his pioneering method of displaying prints as whole-room installations. While these elements remain central to his practice, he has expanded his activity since then to include video, publications, sculptural pieces, curatorial projects, performance and recorded music, as well as increasingly experimental approaches to image-making.

The Museum of Modern Art will present Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear, the artist’s first museum survey in New York, from September 12, 2022 through December 31, 2022. Unique groupings of approximately 350 of Tillmans’s photographs, videos, and multimedia installations will be displayed according to a loose chronology throughout MoMA’s sixth floor. Organized by Roxana Marcoci with Caitlin Ryan and Phil Taylor, the exhibition will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art following its run at MoMA.Communal spaces, people, animals, and still-life studies of nature or food are just some of the subjects that feature in Neue Welt. Seen together, these images offer a deliberately fragmented view. Rather than making an overarching statement about the changing character of modern life, Tillmans sought only to record, and to create a more empathetic understanding of the world. In an increasingly interconnected world voices that create division between people and peoples, have gathered momentum and try to unravel the achievements of cooperation and solidarity. Europeans in particular are challenged by nationalist and divisive language from outside and from within the EU. 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. Relentlessly pushing to find ways to make new pictures in our image-saturated world, Tillmans has, throughout his career, explored and integrated photography’s many genres, techniques and presentation strategies. Stoppard, Lou. “Interview: Wolfgang Tillmans.” SHOWstudio, 10 Apr. 2017, www.showstudio.com/projects/in_camera/wolfgang_tillmans.