Wolfgang Tillmans

This year’s big summer exhibition is dedicated to the artist Wolfgang Tillmans. It is the first comprehensive engagement with the medium of photography at the Fondation Beyeler, which some time ago added a considerable group of works by Tillmans to its collection. Around 200 photographic works dating from 1986 to 2017 will be on show from May 28 to October 1, together with a new audiovisual installation.

Tillmans first made a name for himself in the early 1990s through photographs that have attained iconic status for their evocation of the mood of an entire generation, with its carefree urge for freedom and its desire to seize life’s moments. Soon, however, he widened his focus, experimenting with the means of photography to develop a new visual language. He created his images with and without a camera and also using a photocopier.

In addition to traditional genres such as portraiture, still life and landscape, the exhibition presents abstract works that play with the limits of the visible. It will show how Tillman’s work is concerned with the creation of images rather than with photography in the conventional sense. The exhibition is being developed in close cooperation with the artist.

An Artist Talk with Wolfgang Tillmans will take place on September 7, as part of the series organized by the Fondation Beyeler and UBS.
The Fondation Beyeler will be communicating information and updates on the exhibition on social media under the hashtags #Tillmans and #FondationBeyeler.