29 Facts About Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans was born on 16 August 1968 and is a German photographer.

Wolfgang Tillmans has been the subject of large-scale retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern and Moderna Museet.

In 2023, Wolfgang Tillmans was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time.

Wolfgang Tillmans was born in 1968 in Remscheid in the German area of Bergisches Land.

From 1987 to 1990, Wolfgang Tillmans lived in Hamburg; there, in 1988, he had his first solo exhibitions, at Cafe Gnosa, Fabrik-Foto-Forum, and Front.

Since 2007, Wolfgang Tillmans has divided his time between Berlin and London.

Wolfgang Tillmans was initially known for his seemingly casual, sometimes snapshot-like portraits of friends and other youth in his immediate surroundings and scene.

Wolfgang Tillmans has a passion and love for the streets and the clubs.

Wolfgang Tillmans exhibited his first abstract and damaged pictures as a Parkett edition in 1998.

The Silver works, which Wolfgang Tillmans has been creating since 1998, reflect the reaction of the photographic paper to light, as well as mechanical and chemical processes.

Since 2000, Wolfgang Tillmans has become increasingly interested in the chemical foundations of photographic material, as well as its haptic and spatial possibilities.

Wolfgang Tillmans started to make 'paper drop' images depicting photographic paper specifically exposed to coloured light in his darkroom in 2001.

Wolfgang Tillmans creates extraordinary sculptural forms in photographic paper; then, by photographing them, returns them to the accustomed flatness of that medium.

In 2005, at his major supporter Maureen Paley's gallery, Wolfgang Tillmans showed his large-scale display-case installation Truth Study Center.

In 1987, Wolfgang Tillmans began making videos, and he has exhibited them since 2002.

In 2002, Wolfgang Tillmans filmed a video clip for the pop band Pet Shop Boys' single "Home and Dry," composed almost entirely of shots documenting the mice living in the London Underground system.

In 2001, Wolfgang Tillmans was awarded first prize in the competition for the design of the AIDS memorial for the City of Munich, whereupon the memorial was erected after his designs at the Sendlinger Tor.

In 2015, Wolfgang Tillmans was commissioned with creating the official portrait of retiring British Museum director Neil MacGregor, which was acquired by the museum as the first photograph portrait in a tradition stretching back 250 years.

In 2011, Wolfgang Tillmans collaborated with The Opiates by offering a range of photographs to accompany their Hollywood Under the Knife album and Rainy Days and Remixes EP.

Between April 2006 and late 2011, Wolfgang Tillmans maintained the exhibition space in the ground floor of his Bethnal Green studio, a former umbrella factory named Moarain House, at 223 Cambridge Heath Road, London.

In 2022, it relocated to a six-story corner building Wolfgang Tillmans designed and built in the Kreuzberg district.

Wolfgang Tillmans contracted HIV at the age of 26 from his boyfriend Jochen Klein, a German painter and his collaborator on art during most of his life.

Wolfgang Tillmans stated in his interview with the SHOWStudio's Lou Stoppard that after experiencing this he feels like life is fragile, and should not take advantage of it.

Wolfgang Tillmans' work has since been shown in large solo exhibitions at European museums, for example the Kunsthalle Zurich, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Castello di Rivoli in Italy, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and Serpentine Gallery in London.

Tate Britain's extensive mid-career retrospective of Wolfgang Tillmans' work was shown in 2003.

In 2005 and in 2009, Wolfgang Tillmans was included in the Venice Biennale.

Between 2009 and 2014, Wolfgang Tillmans served as an Artist Trustee of the Tate Board.

Wolfgang Tillmans is a member of the museum's Collection Committee and the Tate Britain Council.

Wolfgang Tillmans has owned a beach house in Fire Island Pines, New York since 2016.