Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader, Edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor, 352 pages, published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2022

First album out now on all streaming and download platforms, CD and 12-inch vinyl: Moon in Earthlight  - Wolfgang Tillmans

Moon in Earthlight describes the phenomenon one can see in the first few days after a New Moon, when the slim crescent of the moon is completed into a full circle by a faint light that is not lit by sunlight but by the light reflected from Earth. It is also the apt title for the first album from an artist whose first love was astronomy. After 6 EPs over the course of 5 years, Wolfgang Tillmans now releases his first album, Moon in Earthlight, a singularly plural 53-minute piece comprised of 19 tracks.

Opening with more that connects us than divides us, ‘Celloloop / More That Connects Us’, a looped cello sets out a discursive path for a bright keyed melody to flirt with while the sounds of the organ and synthesizer build their supporting roles, all along a bouncing four-to-the-floor beat punctuated with bright electronic chimes and the rhythmic tempo of a shaker. The invitation is hard to resist as a yearning voice opens up to let us know he’s left his 'place in security'. And, 'you’re shining … All the way down to this glittering place … you’re shining'. Where voices and laughter are then overheard in the background of another field recording sounding water dripping from a ‘Rain Gutter’ later caught by the soft, warm rhythmic bounce between two synth notes on ‘Fourth Floor’ where chime-like and percussive timbres resonate from the metal tine keys of the kalimba creating a meditative acuity, which Tillmans peppers with arpeggiated synth riffs.

A composition of multiplicities, Tillmans’ album debut is a collage of sounds, field recordings, words, studio jam sessions and live recordings, voice, soundscapes, and instrumentation scored with audible space to breathe along the way. Keeping pace, the first ‘Kardio Loop’ is a vocal callisthenics contemplating ‘the possibility of a happy life’ and/or the propositional properties of its semantic constructions backed by the recording of a heartbeat from a cardiogram. This movement is gradually accompanied by a set of orchestral synth pads that build to a crescendo before the soft, twirling melody of ‘Stonerella’ carries us along a carousel-like melodic, pop, instrumental timed in the percussive clapping of pebbles.

Not knowing where one leaves off and the other begins is part of this album’s enigma, as we move in and out of these aural spaces choreographed with the slightest, open hand, where we can float through ‘Don’t Kill It by Naming It’ before dancing along ‘Insanely Alive’ all the while contemplating the inherent, fragile complexities of language and being.

This enigma also stems from the raw vulnerability of Tillmans’ voice. Whether lyrically playful or introspective, it is always giving: intimately unfolding as in the surprising take on Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘El Condor Pasa’ or shapeshifting in ‘Can’t Escape into Space’ or fully naked as raw material expression in ‘Kantine’ and ‘Ocean Walk’.

Whether it’s Tillmans' voice or voices overheard, a field recording or a pop synth melody, these sounds defy track listings, audibly held together as one of many in an aural space that becomes a reflective cycle that develops over the course of the album. The accumulative effect of which (reminiscent of the artist’s installations), drives the singularity of each of the album’s elements into a complete, unconsolidated whole. Like a phenomenon that marks time, Moon in Earthlight is the shadow and the reflection, fifty-three minutes in time.

Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile, Museum for Science and Technology, Accra, Ghana, 8 October – 14 November 2021

It is the interpersonal with all its shortcomings that fascinates Wolfgang Tillmans. He sees the acceptance of the fragility that defines us as individuals and our interpersonal relationships as a strength. He uses failures, ruptures and fragility as an impetus to develop new processes. They point to the imperfect nature of our lives and reveal unsuspected perspectives on life's materiality. In this sense, 'Fragile' refers to the precious moments of life and the value of social and family ties, especially in times of social and political instability.

Tillmans's artistic work is based on an irrepressible curiosity, intensive preparatory research and continual engagement with the technical and aesthetic potential of the medium of photography. His visual language is characterized by a close observation that opens up a deeply humane approach to our surroundings. Familiarity and empathy, friendship, community and closeness can be seen and felt in his pictures.

The exhibition presents the multifaceted art of Wolfgang Tillmans and shows about 200 works from the years 1986 to 2018. The exhibition includes large-format prints, smaller photographic prints, sculptural objects and table installations, and also video projections and publication projects.

A touring exhibition organised by ifa – Institut fu?r Auslandsbeziehungen

War Requiem is one of the greatest choral works of the twentieth century. Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the anti-war poetry of Wilfred Owen with the timeless ritual of the Latin Requiem Mass. The result is a passionate outcry against man's inhumanity to man. Joining the production team as designer and making his ENO debut is the Turner Prize-winning artist and Wolfgang Tillmans. Chien Wen-pin, Artistic Director of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), conducts this new co-production, along with Daniel Kramer's contemporary staging, seeking to examine and process the grief of the incomprehensible loss of life from wars past and present, and offering hope for the future. War Requiem is performed by the three soloists, the full NTSO Orchestra, a chamber orchestra and the combined forces of an 80-strong chorus, a children's choir of 40.

28 February and 1 March 2020
More information and tickets: https://www.npac-weiwuying.org/

Wolfgang Tillmans, Maureen Paley, London, 5 June – 21 July 2019

An experimental evening with DonChristian (live), Fragile/Wolfgang Tillmans (live) and Nedalot (dj)


Kantine am Berghain, Berlin, Sunday 16 June 2019, 7pm (doors) and Monday 17 June 2019, 7pm (doors)

Over the last four years Wolfgang Tillmans’ band project Fragile has come together for concentrated periods of time to write, play and perform, culminating in ambitious experimental concerts. These have included an audio-visual performance at Tate Modern, London in 2017 where light, music, field recordings and the artist’s videos were brought together in an immersive experience, Union Pool, New York (2017), as well as the bands biennial performances in Fire Island. This will be the band’s first concert in Berlin.

Tillmans’ ongoing musical collaborators are the Colombian visual artist Juan Pablo Echeverri, sound artist Kyle Combs and musician and visual artist Jay Pluck, from New York City. Berlin based musician and producer Tim Knapp, and Providence-based musician, academic and writer Thomas Roach.

Joining Fragile at Kantine am Berghain for his live debut in Germany will be the New York based visual artist, rapper, singer, songwriter and producer DonChristian Jones. His work spans musical and time based performance, rap mixtapes, video and public murals, blending genres of painting and hip hop, referencing classical and contemporary styles. Much of his work today is informed by his time spent painting murals on Rikers Island with youth inmates. Don has shown and performed at The Whitney Museum, MoMA Ps1, Webster Hall, Dancespace, Center for Performance Research, and was an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva, Florida. “Where There’s Smoke”, released in July 2018, is DonChristian’s first studio album.

Before and after the live programme on Sunday 16 June, Berlin based DJ, producer and artist Nedalot will put on some music.  

Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, English National Opera, London Coliseum, London, 16 November – 7 December 2018

War Requiem is one of the greatest choral works of the twentieth century. Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the anti-war poetry of Wilfred Owen with the timeless ritual of the Latin Requiem Mass. The result is a passionate outcry against man’s inhumanity to man.

Joining the production team as designer and making his ENO debut is the Turner Prize-winning artist and designer Wolfgang Tillmans. ENO Music Director Martyn Brabbins conducts this new production created to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. ENO Artistic Director Daniel Kramer’s contemporary staging seeks to examine and process the grief of the incomprehensible loss of life from wars past and present, offering us all a hope for the future.

War Requiem is performed by the combined forces of an 80-strong chorus, a children’s choir of 40 from Finchley Children’s Music Group, the full ENO Orchestra, a chamber orchestra, and three soloists.
More information: https://www.eno.org/whats-on/war-requiem/

Qu'est-ce qui est différent? , Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, N?mes, France, 4 May – 16 September 2018

Wolfgang Tillmans, David Zwirner Hong Kong, 26 March  – 12 May 2018

CALL FOR IDEAS:

Forum on European Culture invites you to contribute to:

Eurolab – New ideas to communicate the EU

In the run-up to the European elections in May 2019 artists, writers and creatives who feel passionate about the European project come together during the Forum on European Culture in Amsterdam from May 31- June 3. During the 4-day Eurolab, they examine what has gone wrong in the communication of, and about the EU and how to make a new and powerful beginning.

In an increasingly interconnected world voices that create division between people and peoples, have gathered momentum and try to unravel the achievements of cooperation and solidarity. Europeans in particular are challenged by nationalist and divisive language from outside and from within the EU. 

Eurolab is a fact-finding mission of what went well and what went wrong in the last 25 years of communicating Europe. In workshops and interview sessions we aim to compile a comprehensive toolbox of arguments, strategies, and ideas that can be applied to campaigns across different demographics and used by different professional groups (e.g. ‘Teachers for Europe’ ‘Scientists for Europe’ ‘Farmers for Europe’). Eurolab wants to collect ideas about how cooperation and solidarity can be spoken for in a fresh and compelling way to large audiences. How can the European Union be valued by its citizens and be recognized as a force for good, rather than as a faceless bureaucracy?

We understand that the EU is not perfect and that some of its problems are of its own making. However we are convinced that today’s Europe is the best there ever was, and that the European Project should be protected in these unstable times.

The brief for this open-call is to send us proposals for communicating the advantages of cooperation and friendship amongst people and nations. Please send drafts, designs, photos, poems, words and short film scripts that can be developed and contribute to a clear yet multi-faceted campaign. Across all media. We need messages, how the Union works and how life would be without it; - how it was without it. And we need ideas how to challenge the organisation itself, how to make it better. Alert us of the failings of the EU. Alert us of the successes of the EU. Also welcome are ideas that are not focused on the EU itself, but on its values, and how they play out amongst people in everyday life in non-political ways.

Each entry will be considered by a panel chaired by Rem Koolhaas and Wolfgang Tillmans, and will contribute to the pool of ideas to re-brand Europe. Eurolab operates on an open source model and we are not looking for one ‘winning’ idea. We don’t want to ‘sell’ anything. We believe the idea of the EU is good, and want to present it clear and open. Eurolab aims at building a network across the EU member nations from South to North, from East to West. We will stay in touch with you should your ideas be taken further.

We look forward to inviting a selected number of contributors to Amsterdam in June to investigate Europe’s potential and to find new language and visuals for it. The ambition of the workshop in Amsterdam is to further develop the proposals together with communication and media experts, and turn them into a real and effective campaign. 

We are looking forward receiving your contributions in our mailbox This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible and no later than April 18. Please send files as PDF, maximum 15mB, with files named as ‘Surname_Name_Eurolab2018’. For more information on the Forum on European Culture, click here.

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Eurolab respects the intellectual property rights on the contents of the submissions of the participants. You will retain the rights to it, however you agree that they will become part of larger body of work and broader community and not exclusively yours. At any stage you will be given opportunity to ensure you are correctly represented in the larger framework of the project.

About the Forum on European Culture:

After a successful edition in 2016, De Balie and DutchCulture organize the second edition of the Forum on European Culture from May 31st until the 3rd of June 2018. During this 4-day festival, leading international artists and philosophers will come together at various locations in Amsterdam to share their ideas about the future of Europe. The second edition of the Forum is titled ‘Act for Democracy!’ More info on www.cultureforum.eu. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

 

Wolfgang Tillmans, Fest, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne, Germany, 2 February 2018 – 7 April 2018

Wolfgang Tillmans - Heute Will Ich Frei Sein EP (five videos)

Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragile, Musée d'Art Contemporain et Multimédias, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic Of The Congo, 13 January – 18 February 2018

Out now: Was ist anders?, Jahresring 64, Edited by Wolfgang Tillmans and Brigitte Oetker on behalf of Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI e.V. Published by Sternberg Press, 228 pages.

The English edition will be available in January 2018.

Texts by Philipp Hübl, Jonas Kaplan, Joe Keohane, Michael Seemann and interviews with Lionel Barber, Carolin Emcke, Sigmar Gabriel, Bianca Klose, Stephan Lewandowsky, Brendan Nyhan and Wolfgang Sch?uble.

Wolfgang Tillmans - Hamburg Süd / Nee IYaow Eow Eow, CD Digipack + 48 pages artist booklet, Kunstverein Hamburg / Fragile, 2017

Wolfgang Tillmans, Concorde, 128 pages artist book, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther K?nig, Cologne, 2017/1997

The first four editions of the book were printed from the same set of 1997 films, which in the end were no longer good to be used for another edition. After not being available for ten years, Wolfgang Tillmans decided to rescan the original photographs and make a 1:1 facsimile of the original book for its 20th anniversary. Available now.

Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017, 320 pages, exhibition catalogue edited by Chris Dercon and Helen Sainsbury with Wolfgang Tillmans, TATE Publishing, 2017

Download posters / more information ...

Wolfgang Tillmans: South Tank, 3–12 March 2017

Programme of live events: 

Fri 3 Mar, 20.00: Wolfgang Tillmans, Tim Knapp and Jay Pluck
Sun 5 Mar, 13.30 - 17.30: The 30 tracks that make ‘It’s a Sin’ by Pet Shop Boys
Wed 8 Mar, 20.00: Lori E. Allen with TEARS|OV, Thomas Brinkmann
Fri 10 Mar, 20.00: Othon featuring Wolfgang Tillmans
Sat 11 Mar, 20.00: Throwing Shade, Wreck & Reference

The Tanks, Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG
Admission: Free (Please arrive early to ensure entry. Once the Tank is at capacity Tate will operate a one-in-one-out policy)

...more information

Wolfgang Tillmans, Conor Donlon, 192 pages artist book with an essay by Alex Needham. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther K?nig, 2016

Please see below a recap of the pro-EU / anti-Brexit campaign in the form of a mail, which kept growing longer and longer as I was writing it, to Cornelia Parker, who sent me the attached photograph:

Dear Cornelia,

Thank you so much for the photo taken on referendum day in Chichester. It means a lot to me that our posters made it to outside London. It was an uphill struggle, Annett Kottek at my London studio literally wrote to fifty different student unions and just got three replies. One regional Labour Party office requested posters and said they would forward our email to relevant people but we never heard back. Charities and faith groups, like the Quakers, liked them a lot but said, because of their charitable status, they were not allowed to express a political opinion. The same went for many of the arts organisations and colleges we wrote to. However a good number of them across the country didn’t seem to be troubled by this and displayed and distributed the posters vigorously. Respect to you! There were many individuals who adopted poster tubes and distributed them. Volunteers Chester Kottek and John Cronin made endless runs to the post office mailing tubes. Martinspeed, the art shippers, did a great job storing the 21 industrial size pallets of poster tubes, and delivering them to Sebastian Street one by one, all free of charge.
The self-print and social media parts of the campaign were the most visible, but I’m glad I insisted on having old fashioned A1 posters. Thanks to the financial help of Evelyn Stern, David Chipperfield and Ruth and Richard Rogers we printed 25000 of them. Daniel Mason of Something Else Press handled the logistics of this printing job in London.
After having designed the first 25 online posters, released 23rd April, Paul Hutchinson and myself at the Berlin studio tirelessly kept texting and designing new and adapting existing posters, including specialised versions for different target groups. Also at the Berlin studio Armin Gerold Lorenz doubled up as website manager and together with Evelyn Marwehe as organisers of the numerous press requests. Freelance editor Graham Fallowes was available online to instantly copy-edit any new statements and poster texts.
In the run up to the 7th June registration deadline I realized the potential of T-shirts, which we then hastily produced thanks to Merch and Destroy. These then went to various famous people or people who know them, with mixed results – many did not respond, others did. Juergen Teller’s photo of Vivienne Westwood went viral, and so did the one of ‘James Bond’ on the last day of the campaign. David Cameron re-tweeted it two hours after I posted it on my Instagram account.
In the last ten days of the campaign a larger print run of T-shirts made in London were distributed around art galleries and book shops as well as through Lily Cole’s site impossible.com. i-D magazine and Dazed Digital held drop in online shoots with the shirts and the Boiler Room DJ site got strongly behind the cause.
Always in the good hands of Eugen Ivan Bergmann at the Between Bridges space in Berlin, we held events around Brexit and related subjects, the refugee crisis and the rise of populism and right wing extremism across Europe.
Needless to say almost all involved have a ‘migrant status’, are ‘immigrants' of some sort: three British living in Germany, two Germans living in London, a German born to an Irish father, an Austrian in Berlin, a Kazach born German and so on.
Also a big thank you to all at the studio who were working on my other projects and who found time to contribute greatly, through feedback and advice and by keeping a good spirit in the midst of the madness.
To all who consider getting involved in activism, I can only encourage you to do so. It was a great and rewarding experience, despite not reaching our goal. It brings people from different backgrounds together in unexpected and friendly ways and creates friendships that hopefully will last. For myself I plan to take this further and to other places as right wing populism and extremism will be with us for some time to come. Please get in touch if you would like to contribute in whatever way in the future. I was not the only artist generating messages and imagery: In the light of the dull official IN campaign it was great to see that artists can have a different and often more direct voice. Check out the eu-uk.info website.

My heartfelt thanks and respect to all supporters!

Below is the new Between Bridges programme which promises to be a strong series of events before the summer break. Please come by daytime, or on Thursday evenings and other dates advertised below.

Wolfgang

Please visit the archive section tillmans.co.uk/campaign-eu to see and download all parts of the campaign.

Wolfgang Tillmans, ?dónde estamos?, 2016
Sonora128, Mexico City, 1 Mar  – 31 May , 2016

Wolfgang Tillmans, On the Verge of Visibility, Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 30 Jan - 25 Apr 2016

Wolfgang Tillmans, Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1 Dec 2015 - 14 Feb 2016

Out now: What's wrong with redistribution?, 320 pages artist book with an essay by Tom McDonough, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther K?nig, 2015
(published in conjunction with Hasselblad Award 2015)

Wolfgang Tillmans, House of Art of ?eské Budějovice, Budweis, Czech Republic, 24 Nov - 28 Dec 2015

Various - Ostgut Ton | Zehn, 3xCD, compilation, 2015, cover artwork by Wolfgang Tillmans 

PCR, David Zwirner, September - October 2015, New York, USA

This exhibition in the context of QueerFest in St. Petersburg was closed by the police and is now looking for an alternative space.

QueerFest is a unique human rights event. It was invented and implemented in order to create in the city places for a dialogue between the various parts of society in order to develop tolerance to the invisible and stigmatized groups. To fight against homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and xenophobia in general, festival chooses a language understandable to everyone - the language of culture, art and beauty.
http://queerfest.ru/en/

i-D Magazine, the activist issue, no. 336, 2015

download pdf

Spex, no. 361, Fade To Mind, 2015

dowload pdf

Lignine Duress, Galerie Chantal Crousel, 18 Apr - 23 May 2015 

Abstract Pictures (Collector's Edition), Hatje Cantz, 2011

Sammlungspr?sentation / Collection display, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland, 2014

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Manifesta 10, The European Biennale of Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia, 28 Jun - 31 Oct 2014

Wolfgang Tillmans - Book for Architects. Two channel video installation in 'Elements of Architecture' Central Pavilion, 14th Architecture Biennale Venice, curated by Rem Koolhaas

8th Berlin Biennale, Ethnologisches Museum Dahlem, Berlin, 29 May - 03 Aug 2014

Now available:
Utoquai
artist book in a series of subscription books published by TBW Books, Oakland, California
www.tbwbooks.com 

Affinity, Wako Works of Art, Tokyo, 18 Jan - 15 Mar 2014

Silver, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, 28 Nov 2013 - 18 Jan 2014

central nervous system, Maureen Paley, London, 14 Oct - 24 Nov 2013

Wolfgang Tillmans at MAVI - Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago, Chile

Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 03 May – 22 Jun 2013

Wolfgang Tillmans "Kepler Venice tables – Edition für die Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen”

Pin-Up Magazine, Spring-Summer 2013

Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Perú, 19 Mar - 16 Jun 2013

The Plant 04, Spring 2013

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