2017
February 15–June 11
Praised in the press as "fresh and invigorating," "unquestionably relevant," and "thrillingly visual," this exhibition presented work Tillmans has made since 2003, a year that marked a turning point in his practice from the intimate perspective of his early photographs to an increasingly outward-looking and politically oriented one. Incorporating not only photographs but also video, digital slide projections, publications, multipart sculptural installations, and music, the show demonstrated Tillmans's deepening engagement with current affairs, from gay rights to the refugee crisis and climate change. Accompanying the exhibition was a program designed specifically for the South Tank—one of Tate Modern's circular subterranean spaces dedicated to exhibiting live art, performance, installation, and film—which transformed it into a unique, immersive installation. From March 3 - 12, this part of the show brought together music, lights, field recordings, and video and featured a series of free live music events. Tillmans's musical collaborators for this project include the Los Angeles-based rock group Wreck & Reference, Cologne's Thomas Brinkmann, and his ongoing musical partners Tim Knapp, Jay Pluck, and Juan Pablo Echeverri.
When it appeared publicly in the late 1980s, Tillmans's work signaled a new kind of subjectivity in photography. The photographs he took in ordinary settings such as clubs, friends' kitchens, and parks compose an unembellished document of Tillmans's life amid youth subcultures of the 1980s and 1990s. First published in magazines like i-D and Spex, his work was soon being shown in exhibitions.
At the heart of Tillmans's influential approach is a questioning of existing values and hierarchies. This applies not only to the subject matter and display of his work, with which he is famously innovative, but also to different areas of contemporary culture. He explained his position in conversation with Jefferson Hack in Dazed and Confused magazine following the Brexit announcement: "I never thought that it was a contradiction to be interested in music and clubbing and clothes and at the same time see how all of that is connected to society and politics."
Tillmans was the first photographer to win the Turner Prize in 2000.