Wolfgang Tillmans

This limited edition print poses the questions: How likely is it that only I am right in this matter? Prompting the viewer to consider the grey area between truth and opinion. The starting point of this project was What is Different? (2017/18), Tillman’s volume for the Jahresring series which explored the notion of the backfire effect, a tendency of some people to resist accepting evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. The print takes the form of a scan of a photocopy Tillmans has manipulated during the photocopy process.

Since the early 1990s, Tillmans’s works have epitomized a new kind of subjectivity in photography, pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique and the persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies. Through his seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies, he has expanded conventional ways of approaching the medium, and his practice continues to address the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world.

Born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany, Wolfgang 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 in London. In 2009, he received the Kulturpreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie and 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 (or “Emperor’s Ring”) prize from the city of Goslar in Germany.

Since the early 1990s, Tillmans’s work has been the subject of prominent solo shows at international institutions. Recent venues include Tate Modern, London; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Kunstverein Hamburg; Musée d’Art contemporary, Kinshasa; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, London; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Tillmans lives and works in Berlin and London.