Wolfgang Tillmans - Life

Life

Wolfgang Tillmans was born on August 16, 1968 in Remscheid. It was during his childhood that he first discovered his interest in photography when he began collecting photographs and magazine clippings. During his first visit to England as an exchange student in 1983, he discovered the British youth-culture and the local fashion and music magazines of the time. From 1987 through 1990, he lived in Hamburg where he also had his first solo exhibitions at Café Gnosa, Front and Frarik-Foto-Forum. From 1990 through 1992, he studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in southern England. After his studies he moved to London and then to New York in 1994 for a year, where he met the German painter Jochen Klein. After moving back to England, Tillmans lived with Klein until he died of AIDS-related complications in 1997.

From 1995, Wolfgang Tillmans primarily lived and worked in London. During the summer of 1998, Tillmans participated in a month-long residency at the last active Shaker community in the world, in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Since 2007, he has divided his time between Berlin and London. Following a guest professorship at the Hochschule für bildende Kunst in Hamburg from 1998 to 1999 and his Honorary Fellowship at the Arts University College at Bournemouth in 2001, Tillmans has been a professor for Interdisciplinary Art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main since 2003. In 2001, 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 2011, Tillmans travelled to Haiti with the charity Christian Aid to document reconstruction work after the country's devastating earthquake one year before.

Between 2009 and 2014, Tillmans is serving an Artist Trustee of the Tate Board. He also is a member of the museum's Collection Committee and the Tate Britain Council.