Wolfgang Tillmans on his upcoming Hong Kong exhibition, and creating a timeless body of work that captures the cultural pulse

Tillmans puts as much care, consideration and deliberation into the images he produces as he does into staging his exhibitions. “What you’ll see in the gallery in Hong Kong are objects of a real scale and dimension that you can’t see anywhere other than in that place.” The impact of viewing his work cannot be reproduced on a phone or computer screen; you need to stand in front of his prints to get a sense of the environment and moment they project. “Now everybody is constantly taking pictures and missing out on living in the moment with our own eyes rather than the projection of what they hope it looks like through the camera lens.”

There is an authenticity in Tillman’s intention, a genuine curiosity that underlies his work, coming from a desire to capture moments. “There is something slow and stubborn about art that [means] you have to see it where it actually is; you have to go it,” he says. “It’s interesting that art is always a step ahead, even though everything else is becoming ever more available and fluid, and people expect everything to be at their disposal and free of charge.”

From simple, seemingly ordinary scenes such as a pair of jeans hanging on a banister in grey jeans over stair post (1991) or a collection of ceramic sculptures as seen in Vessels (2019), Tillmans “waits for a specific moment that seems right” to take a photograph. “I live with them [the objects he depicts] and contemplate, and then they become a picture.”

He cites another example, a still life he took in Los Angeles in 2001 depicting a playful array of oranges and an LA newspaper, that will be on view in Hong Kong; the piece reflects a time where he slowed down to observe and soak in his surroundings, and frame the present. “I really try to keep a sense of normality and attentiveness, no matter how busy my life is.”

While the artist’s life has always been busy, the 2000s was when things really kicked off: he won the coveted Turner Prize in 2000, the first photographer and first non-British artist to do so. The years that followed saw him stage numerous solo exhibitions at galleries and museums. He was also the first artist to have solo exhibitions at both London’s Tate Britain (2002) and Tate Modern (2017). Most recently, last autumn, he put on a solo show, Fold Me, at David Zwirner New York, following To Look Without Fear at New York’s MoMA in the autumn 2022.

The MoMA show was a particularly important moment in Tillmans’ career, reflecting on a body of work that spans almost four decades. Among the works on view, there were images from his iconic series that documents nightlife, as well as underground and queer culture, taken from the 1980s onwards. He explains that he doesn’t agree with the categorisation of his nightlife images as a “body of work” because it’s ongoing. “I still go out and photograph places. From day one, I’ve photographed nightlife in order to be a witness to what went on, in particular to feel the liberation, freedom and spirit I experienced,” of witnessing openly queer culture, he says. “I realised that 50 years ago, or even 200 or 500 years ago, it wasn’t possible; and when you look around globe, it’s probably still not possible in many places.”

When he started photographing scenes of nightlife, the experience was novel. There was a sense of freedom and reflection in the raw expression of capturing those images. He still feels the urgency to rapidly document and publish images to share with the world. His creative output throughout his career has been constant and prolific. In 1995, when Tillmans was just 26, he published a monograph of his work with Taschen. It was an unconventional opportunity for a young artist who ran the risk of being labelled and categorised too early by the art world, but according to Tillmans, “I just wanted it out in the world, disseminated across the globe, because then it just cannot be undone.”

While many of Tillmans’ photographs chronicle significant cultural and sociopolitical subject matter, he has also turned his lens onto topics more personal in nature, including places that were significant in his past. Glimpses of these will be on view in the Hong Kong show, such as the house he grew up in Germany and a 2011 shot of his old studio in London, which viewers see first as they enter the gallery. Although mementos of his past constantly feature in exhibitions, Tillmans doesn’t quite like the idea of indulging in nostalgia. “Philosophically, I like to think of myself as being very much of the moment, living life in the here and now,” he says. “But I think what I’m doing all my life is coping with nostalgia and learning to let go.”

Among the oldest work in the exhibition is Badehose, photocopy II (1994), which depicts a pair of red Adidas swimming trunks. “Sometimes I punctuate an exhibition of new work with something that is 20 years older,” he says. This allows viewers to draw their own connections across time and place through the images, similar to how to the artist views exhibition spaces as extensions of his studio space, and perhaps why he chose to include the snap of his old London studio from more than a decade ago.

After almost 40 years of capturing moments, Tillmans continues to strive to make his work timeless. “I need to see if that continuity really exists, which is something that you will see if your work is in fact relevant.”

The ability to connect with viewers across multiple generations and places shows the enduring nature of his work. But there’s no room for complacency when you’re leaving the kind of mark Tillmans has. “There’s never safety, I’m never comfortable, and it’s [the work] never done”.

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