Contemporary Landscape Photographer Presentation: Wolfgang Tillmans

    Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Remscheid, Germany in 1968. He studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design. Throughout the years he has lived and worked various places, but since 2007 he has lived and worked in London and Berlin. He is looked at as a "chronicler of his generation" and makes the observer feel that every photo he takes is important, no matter what the subject matter is. He is also a photojournalist, and has worked for the magazine i-D. He became known for shooting London's street culture, the rise of gay pride and the nightlife of the clubbing generation. Interestingly enough, his first passion in life was astronomy, which he returned to some in some of his photos, such as those of Venus. Tillmans' work is focused on observation, perception, and translation. His work is about being able to bear reality. He doesn't have one repeated style, his work has changed over the years. He has an approach of trying to study something carefully and then reveal a greater essence of truth about it that doesn't have to have an exact meaning. He believes that every image should be significant and able to stand alone. In a review by Laura Cummings she states about his work: "...where you are, who's depicted, what exactly you are looking at: the answers are not always declared in the images." and "He is drawing your attention to the making, and viewing, of photographic images more than the things they depict." Wolfgang displays his work in a variety of forms and sizes commonly. Typically that is part of how he conveys the message of his show.


Some quotes from Wolfgang himself:


  "...art is always different from life. You can try to get close to the feeling of what it's like to be alive now, but the result of that is an art work, and that has its own reality."


"It's really the biggest challenge not to believe your own system, so the discipline is, strangely, to be undisciplined."


"Look at things the way they are."


"The experience of relative perception is something that keeps turning me on."

   'I don't want to get over you' - 2000

'Chaos Cup' - 1997