Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium's foundations.

Tillmans was the first photographer, and first non-British person, to be awarded the Turner Prize. He has been the subject of large-scale retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern and Moderna Museet. In 2023, Tillmans was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time. He lives in Berlin and London.

Tillmans was born in 1968 in Remscheid in the German area of Bergisches Land. At the age of 14 to 16, visits to museums in Düsseldorf and to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne acquainted him with the photo-based art of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, which counts among his earliest influences. During his first visit to England as an exchange student in 1983, he discovered the British youth culture and the local fashion and music magazines of the time. From 1987 to 1990, he lived in Hamburg; there, in 1988, he had his first solo exhibitions, at Café Gnosa, Fabrik-Foto-Forum, and Front. From 1990 through 1992, he studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design (now Arts University Bournemouth) in southern England. After his studies he moved to London and then to New York in 1994 for a year, where he met the German painter Jochen Klein. After moving back to England, Tillmans lived with Klein until Klein died of AIDS-related complications in 1997.

From 1995, Tillmans primarily lived and worked in London. During the summer of 1998, Tillmans participated in a month-long residency at the last active Shaker community in the world, in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Since 2007, he has divided his time between Berlin and London. Following a guest professorship at the Hochschule für bildende Kunst in Hamburg from 1998 to 1999 and an Honorary Fellowship at the Arts University Bournemouth in 2001, Tillmans was a professor for Interdisciplinary Art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main from 2003 to 2006.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024