Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced a younger generation more than Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968). Since the early 1990s, his works have epitomized a new kind of subjectivity in photography, pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique and the persistent challenging of existing values and hierarchies. Through his seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies, he has expanded conventional ways of approaching the medium, and his practice continues to address the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world.

The portrait occupies a prominent position within Tillmans's oeuvre, but its repeated appearance throughout his works is far from uniform. While some are spontaneous, others are staged; some involve a full face, others just an ear or a neck. Tillmans has mentioned that he approaches the genre with the same level of experimentation that he uses for his abstract pictures, and his subjects are sometimes presented in contexts that seem to approximate still lifes.

This work depicts Tillmans's friend Olly Shinder in the artist's Berlin apartment.

(includes all editions)

Paris, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Wolfgang Tillmans: Lumière du matin, May 22 - June 12, 2021.

Los Angeles, Regen Projects, Wolfgang Tillmans: Concrete Column, November 6 - December 23, 2021.