Eyes of Our Time. Wolfgang Tillmans compiles 30 years of his work to draw a picture of where we are today
Wolfgang Tillmans has explored the medium of photo-imaging with greater range than any other artist of his generation. From early portraits of his friends to abstract images made in a darkroom without a camera or works made with a photocopier, he has pushed the photographic process to its outer limits in myriad ways. For this collection of photos, his fifth book with TASCHEN, Tillmans edited his previous four books into one stream of intersecting perspectives on life around the turn of the millenium. Keeping his original layouts intact, he added some new works, bringing the scope of the publication to the present day.
Like hardly any other artist of his generation, Wolfgang Tillmans has shaped our perception of the world. From early portraits of his friends to still lifes, travel shots, nudes, landscape and sky photographs, to his abstract work, Tillmans has created a multitude of iconic works in his unmistakable visual language, opening up new paths and possibilities for both photography and contemporary art. In 2000 he was the first photographer and the first non-British person to receive the renowned Turner Prize.
His first volume for TASCHEN (1995) shows the young generation of the 1990s, of which Tillmans himself was a member, in clubs, at Gay Pride, at fashion events, and in everyday life. His dense, realistic photographs conjure up tangible utopias of community and society and are important documents of their time as well. With the follow-up volume Burg (1998), Tillmans enriches his subject matter with another array of beautiful, now-iconic photographs. In truth study center (2005), his images condense into even more subtle compositions and now stand alongside completely abstract works. Finally, Neue Welt (2012) documents Wolfgang Tillmans’ travels around the globe: from London to Tierra del Fuego, India, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, and Central Africa, we follow his ever-inquisitive eye for the realities of our planet, for social situations with people and markets, technology and architecture, and last but not least, nature and astronomy. For this volume, the artist for the first time made use of the new possibilities of digital photography. This enabled a density of information and incisiveness hardly seen in photographs until then.
This 40th-anniversary publication from TASCHEN combines the best of the four books in one volume. Wolfgang Tillmans himself has compiled this edition, partly redesigned it, added some recent works, and written a new foreword.
Paging through this collection of images, which spans three decades, there are countless moments to delight in, moments that are held not only in our collective memory but in our individual ones too.
The photographer:
Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Remscheid, Germany, in 1968 and studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His work, whilst appearing to capture the immediacy of the moment and character of the subject, also examines the dynamics of photographic representation. From the outset he ignored the traditional separation of art exhibited in a gallery from images and ideas conveyed through other forms of publication, giving equal weight to both. His expansive floor to ceiling installations feature images of subcultures and political movements, as well as portraits, landscapes, still lifes and abstract imagery varying in scale from postcard- to wall-sized prints. His work is in the collections of numerous international museums including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, the National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka, Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and Tate, London, and was included in the Venice Biennale 2009. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2000, the Hasselblad Award in 2014 and the Kaiserring der Stadt Goslar in 2018.
About the series:
TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program — now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.
