Feeling Through His Eyes: Wolfgang Tillmans
- Anthony Roberts
- Dec 15, 2022
- 7 min read
Kate Moss, 1996
Wolfgang Tillmans
Photographer
Portraits, Still Lives, Candid Shots
Berlin, London
ArtMatch Value Score*: Strong
Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968) is a photographer whose varied practice explores the world through his eyes, informed by a strong sense of spirituality, humanity and playfulness.
Whether he captures still lives of fruit, intimate portraits of famous musicians and models, ethereal scenes from experiments with photographic materials, or passionate lovers at a party – with film or digital cameras, Tillmans’ work has an undeniable, unique feel. “The reason why a photograph I take can be recognized is literally beyond words.” His work takes on a language of its own - the language of a man with a profound love of life and humanity who walks through life with eyes open, focusing on beauty but courageous enough to defend the values in which he strongly believes. These values were informed by his being part of the first generation of Europeans free to explore identity, particularly in the areas of nationality and sexuality. Over his thirty year career, Tillmans has become one of the world’s most well-known and respected photographers and a representative of sorts for freedom. Tillmans’ work is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in his first major career retrospective in the United States.
“My primary goal is that my pictures should depict what it feels like to look through my eyes.”
Image Credit: Collier Schorr for The New Yorker
Tillmans was born in Remscheid, a manufacturing city near Cologne, Germany, the youngest of three children. His parents ran a business exporting locally made tools to South America. Tillmans first visited London at age fourteen where he stayed with a host whom his mother befriended in 1955 through a postwar exchange program. Boy George was one of his early idols and he liked Britain’s “repressed but omnipresent sexuality.” His first photograph which he considers a work of art was taken on a family vacation: a self-portrait of his pink T-shirt, Adidas soccer shorts and sandy knees. At age 20, Tillmans opted out of military service as a conscientious objector and instead fulfilled a community service requirement in Hamburg. It was here that he purchased his first camera. Following his service, Tillmans initially enrolled in photography school in Berlin, but he dropped out after six weeks due to the strict format of instruction. Instead, he returned to the UK where he enrolled at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art & Design. The approach at Bournemouth was psychoanalytic, focusing on the “why” of Tillmans’ photography. This experience helped him think deeply about his purpose at a young age. “I saw myself as a serious being and not just being one thing, not just being young, but interested in spirituality as much as in hedonism, interested in politics as well as in personal friendships. The multiplicity of myself and my contemporaries – that’s what interested me and that’s what I wanted to communicate.” Tillmans’ spent the first twenty years of his career in London.
Many of Tillmans’ early photographs from the nineties featured young people exuding freedom and openness. In many ways, he chronicled the formative years of his generation, Gen X, a period marked by the fall of the Berlin wall and the birth of rave culture. On a visit to New York, Tillmans met artist Jochen Klein, and the two fell in love. They moved in together in London and spent three happy years together. Shortly after Tillmans’ opening at the Chisenhale Gallery, a non-profit gallery space in East London famous for showcasing emerging contemporary artists, Klein was hospitalized with pneumonia. The doctors informed them that the illness was HIV-related, news to them both that they were HIV-positive. Klein passed away one month later. Tillmans grieved his death for three years.
Deer Hirsch, 1995 (With former partner Jochen Klein)
In 1998, at a time when Tillmans felt the world was “over-photographed”, he shifted his focus to a series he called Silver, where pictures were made by experimenting with light, chemicals, salts and algea run through a film processing machine on silver nitrate-coated paper to create a set of colorful, ethereal works. He further explored non-lens pictures through his Freischwimmer series which is the result of directing light sources and light-emitting tools over light-sensitive paper.
Freischwimmer 33, 2003
After a time, Tillmans returned to his lens-based photography practice. He was a late adopter of high-definition digital cameras, as he wrapped his head around how to use a machine that had greater visual acuity than the human eye. When he did adjust to the new technology, he chose not to use a specialized camera, but a Canon S.L.R. manufactured for general use. Before that, he had used a 35mm. Fuji film and a 50-mm. lens, roughly the same focal length as the human eye.
Lüneburg (self), 2020
In 2016, as the Brexit vote loomed and right-wing, nationalist political sympathies were growing around the world, Tillmans felt compelled to speak out in favor of the values he embodies. He made posters to publicly campaign against Brexit in the UK and the AFD party in Germany. He formed a foundation called Between Bridges to support the arts and democracy with a focus on LGBTQ rights and combatting racism. He also created a series called Truth Study Center, which combines newspaper clippings and scientific papers to illustrate how media shapes our beliefs. The role of activist is one that Tillmans’ takes on reluctantly, out of necessity to defend a way of life that he holds dear. In describing his current exhibition at the MoMA, Tillmans says “the show is not a manifest or a rallying cry…maybe photos become standout icons for something, but there’s an openness, it’s not pushing a clearly worded message. I consciously chose that non-partisan approach.”
Anti-Brexit Campaign Poster, 2016
Tillmans is also a musician. He recently returned to a love of writing music, first explored during his teenage years. For him, music is an important creative outlet that allows him to engage with the physicality of performance and dance. He even brings this musical, performative element to the set-up of his exhibitions. “I also see the exhibitioners as performers: their work is indeed the result of moving around the space.” When he sets up an exhibition, Tillmans often cracks open a few beers and puts on his favorite music before clipping and pinning his photographs to the walls. Tillmans’ musical-bent has placed him in the orbit of other prominent musicians, notably Frank Ocean. Tillmans’ song “Device Control” framed Frank Ocean’s visual album, Endless. And Tillman captured the now famous photo of Frank Ocean showering, featured on the cover of Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde.
Frank Showering, 2015
Tillmans operates according to a set of rules, many of which he has followed since age 25.
He does not use specialized cameras.
He carries a small snapshot camera to be open to the “gift of chance.”
He never retouches or alters photos.
He does not search for examples of a particular phenomena in the world. When an idea interests him, he believes, the moment will present itself.
He does not photography people without consent.
He does not publish photographs of underground spaces or parties until the venues have closed.
He does not take portraiture commissions from collectors.
He does not shoot advertisements.
These working rules have contributed to his recognizable aesthetic. Additionally, the human body or evidence of the human body is a constant theme of his work.
Tillmans works in a studio populated with houseplants grown from clippings collected on travels. He also likes to have controlled clutter in his work space to keep things interesting. Tillmans is a meticulous archivist who documents all elements of his past work. Nothing is considered trivial. For his exhibitions, Tillmans has a very particular way of hanging his works. First, he has the space evenly lit (vs. lighting after the exhibit is installed, which is customary). Then, he applies his photographs to the walls naked, without frames using only tape, pins and paper clips. He likes to show an image unframed without barrier so that it can be seen “in its own body, in its pure existence.” He prints his works in different sizes – some as small as 4x6 inches, others larger than life – which makes viewers move constantly between close-up and further away. Altogether, these elements make for an extremely unique viewing experience.
Wolfgang Tillmans is represented by David Zwirner gallery in New York and Hong Kong, Maureen Paley in the UK, and Galerie Buchholz in Cologne. His work is on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through January 1, 2023 in a career retrospective exhibition titled To Look Without Fear. The show features 417 works that span his thirty-year career. The exhibition will also travel to San Francisco and Ontario, Canada in 2023. Tillmans was awarded the Turner Prize in 2000, the first non-British artist and first lens-based artist to win the award.
Tillmans has an active auction market with nearly 100 works auctioned in 2022 alone. His works sold for a range between $1K and $250K, with total realized prices slightly beating total average estimates. Works from his Freischwimmer series have proven most successful at auction.
How likely is it that only I am right in this matter?
Inkjet Print
12 (h) x 8(w) in
1 of 100 prints, signed by artist
$2,000
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*The ArtMatch Value Score is our assessment of the likelihood of the artist's work to hold or appreciate in value. Numerical scores are calculated based on a combination of variables, including but not limited to type of gallery representation, number of solo shows, quality of collector base, number of pieces sold at auction. Scores are summarized to one of three ranking categories: unclear, promising, and strong. Note this does not constitute official investment advice and is given purely as an input to help assess artists.
Watch an interview with ArtForum magazine as Tillmans discusses his MoMA retrospective:
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