Since the mid-1980s, Wolfgang Tillmans has reinterpreted representational genres from portraiture to still life to landscape through the medium of photography. He invented a presentational practice that engages the dynamics of space, varying the size of his photographs based on the specific spatial setting of a venue and producing them as large inkjet prints and large framed C-prints. First recognized in the early 1990s for photographs of friends and others in his immediate milieu, he has developed a highly distinctive style of image making that freely embraces a broad range of subjects—from profound experiences of the everyday to abstractions that result from experiments with the photographic process.

His ability to calculatedly create intimate and immediate images combined with his innovative exhibition strategies has changed the way in which photographic images are made, read and received.