A detail of a photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans titled Sicily Morning, dated 2018.

Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced younger generations more than 

 (b. 1968). In a career spanning almost four decades, he has consistently redefined the medium of photography through a seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies. His inventive practice pairs intimacy and playfulness with a commitment to social awareness and a persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies. Guided by a profound sense of curiosity and care towards his subjects, Tillmans seeks to expand the poetic possibilities of the medium while addressing the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world. As the artist states, “The underpinning of my work has always been the use of my medium and everything it offers in order to make a new picture.”

Born in Remscheid, Germany, Tillmans studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in Bournemouth, England, from 1990 to 1992. In 2000, he was the first photographer and first non-British artist to receive the Turner Prize, an award given annually by Tate, United Kingdom. From 2003 to 2009, Tillmans served as a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. In 2009, he was selected to serve as an artist trustee on the board of Tate. He has been a member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, since 2012 and was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2013. Tillmans was the recipient of the 2015 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography and in January 2018, he was awarded the Kaiserring (Emperor’s Ring) prize from the city of Goslar in Germany. In 2023, Tillmans was named one of the TIME100 Most Influential People.

Since the early 1990s, Tillmans’s work has been the subject of prominent solo exhibitions at international institutions, including Tate Britain, London (2003); P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2006), which traveled to Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2006–2007), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2007); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2008); Serpentine Gallery, London (2010; traveled to venues in South America including Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia; Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; and Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago, Chile, through 2012); Kunsthalle Zürich (2012; traveled to Les Rencontres d’Arles, France, through 2013); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2013; traveled to Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf); and The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2015). Also in 2015, 

, a two-channel video installation by the artist, was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 2016, a solo show of the artist’s work was hosted by Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal.

In 2017, Tate Modern, London, held a major survey of Tillmans’s work. The artist also presented a new immersive installation featuring his work in music and video in the South Tank at the museum. Later that year, solo shows of Tillmans’s work were on view at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, marking the institution’s first comprehensive examination of photography as a medium, as well as at the Kunstverein in Hamburg.

, a traveling exhibition of the artist’s work, opened in 2018 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain et Multimédias in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, organized by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, Germany, and traveled throughout Africa, with its last venue at Art Twenty One and Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria. 

 was presented at Carré d'Art - Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, France, in 2018. 

was on view at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2018–2019. The exhibition 

 was presented at WIELS, Brussels, in 2020. 

 was on view at the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok), Vienna, in 2022.

A major traveling exhibition of Tillmans’s work,

, opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2022, and subsequently traveled to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, in 2023 and the San Francisco Museum of Modern in 2024.

The artist has operated the nonprofit exhibition space Between Bridges since 2006. Located in London until 2011, Between Bridges has exhibited a range of work by artists including David Wojnarowicz, Ull Hohn, Charlotte Posenenske, and Charles Henri Ford. In January 2014, it reopened in Berlin with a solo show of work by Patrick Caulfield.

Tillmans considers the printed page to be an important venue for his work. He is deeply involved in the publication of artist books and monographs, and regularly contributes to magazines. Publications that have been designed and edited by the artist include 

 (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2007); 

(Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012);

 (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2015); 

(Taschen, 2020); amongst others. In 2019, the artist guest-edited 

In recent years, Tillmans has been more directly involved in political activism. In tandem with his ongoing Truth Study Center project (begun in 2005), he has created posters for the anti-Brexit campaign in Britain and in response to right-wing populism in Germany.

The artist joined David Zwirner in 2014, and his inaugural exhibition with the gallery took place in New York the following year. In 2018, his work was the subject of two solo exhibitions at the gallery’s Hong Kong and New York locations. The solo exhibition 

, was presented in 2023 at David Zwirner, New York. The following year, 

 was on view at David Zwirner, Hong Kong.

Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide. Tillmans lives and works in Berlin and London.

 Wolfgang Tillmans, “Interview with Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist,” in Sophie O’Brien and Melissa Larner, 

 Exh. cat. (London: Serpentine Gallery, 2010), p. 23.

Alex Needham

, Wolfgang Tillmans (born 1968) chronicles East London’s art scene and nightlife of the early 2000s, as well as his friendship with collaborator and artist Conor Donlon. The book sees Donlon’s appearance and style changing, as well as his backdrops: a 2003 demonstration against George W. Bush’s state visit; a picnic at the park after an opening at Tillmans’s exhibition space Between Bridges; the bright yellow walls of Tillmans and Donlon’s home; long-gone LGBT clubs The Ghetto and The Joiners’ Arm; and quieter moments spent talking in the studio and around town.

Tillmans’s photographs are at once intimate and emblematic of a flourishing arts era, where both artists’ work gained momentum. 

 culture editor Alex Needham introduces the work with an essay about Donlon’s initial role as Tillmans’s assistant, contextualizing the artists’ collaboration and the inception of London independent bookstore Donlon Books in 2008.

Wolfgang Tillmans: Conor Donlon

Wolfgang Tillmans: Conor Donlon | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.