Wolfgang Tillmans
Jan Verwoert
Turner-prize winning Wolfgang Tillmans is a superstar of 1990s photography. This is the only book to cover his entire career, from the best-selling debut portraits in 1995 at the age of 24, to his most recent, abstract works. Large colour photographs such as Lutz and Alex Sitting in the Trees (1992), of a couple - naked save for their incongruous raincoats - perched in a tree are emblems of his generation. Tillmans has more recently expanded his practice to include found photography as well as large installations reminiscent of the collage techniques of the 1960s Conceptual artists.
American artist and theorist Peter Halley discusses with the artist his rapidly changing role, from mid 1990s Wunderkind to established master of the 'new photography' today. German critic Jan Verwoert surveys the artist's many genres and styles, spanning abstract and figurative imagery. Japanese critic and curator Midori Matsuri analyses in her Focus a single project, Concorde (1997), a room-size installation and artist's book which records the daily passing of this epoch-making aeroplane. Extracts from a nineteenth-century Quaker text by Caroline Stephen on divine inspiration comprise the Artist's Choice. In the Artist's Writings Wolfgang Tillmans' art is reflected in his diary entries, fragments of text from his installations and project notes.