Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans is a German artist and one of the most influential contemporary photographers working today. Emerging in the 1990s with his snapshot documentations of youth, club, and LGBTQ culture, Tillman’s practice has expanded over time to include diaristic photography, large-scale abstraction, and commissioned magazine work. “I want the pictures to be working in both directions,” the artist has said. “I accept that they speak about me, and yet at the same time, I want and expect them to function in terms of the viewer and their experience.” Whether he is capturing landscapes, still lifes, or portraits, Tillmans’ images represent an almost obsessive need to self-document, not unlike the work of Nan Goldin and Conceptual artist Mike Kelley. Born onAugust 16, 1968 in Remscheid, West Germany, Tillmans spent the early part of his career in London after graduating from the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design. In 2000, he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize, with his win marking the first time the prize was given to a photographer and a non-British artist. Tillmans lives and works in London.