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<\/p>\n\u201cDo you mind if I smoke?\u201d asks German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans with a laugh during a recent video call from his home in Berlin.<\/p>\n
As he lights his cigarette, he looks every bit the renegade artist he is known for being. At 57, Tillmans is in the midst of staging his 10th exhibition in Los Angeles since the mid-1990s at Regen Projects. He is one of the most celebrated photographers of his era, with a practice that collapses the distance between fine art and the pulse of street culture, spanning epic abstractions and the familiar textures of contemporary life.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Tillmans has another life as a serious electronic musician, recording a series of experimental albums, including his most recent, 2024\u2019s \u201cBuild From Here.\u201d He is deeply connected to the music world, and photographed the cover for Frank Ocean\u2019s acclaimed \u201cBlonde,\u201d making him a rare artist to be in major museums while genuinely engaged with popular music and the club scene \u2014 a bit of a rock star in his own right.<\/p>\n
The official opening of his Regen show, \u201cKeep Movin\u2019,\u201d attracted a line that wrapped around the building. Fans are drawn to his varied strands of work, which move instinctively between disparate approaches and subject matter, from famous faces to images sensitive to light and shape, in subjects as simple as the curve of paper folded softly over itself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A security guard, right, stands near the work \u201cRobin Fischer, Dirostahl, Remscheid 2024\u201d in German-based photographer Wolfgang Tillmans\u2019 current exhibition, \u201cKeep Movin\u2019,\u201d at Regen Projects.<\/p>\n
(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
During an early walk-through for a few dozen invited guests, Tillmans held forth on his personal cosmos, surveying pictures from the experimental to the deeply intimate. Portraits, politically charged tabletop collages and quiet photographs that capture the simple vibrance of daily life are strewn across Regen\u2019s 20,000 square feet of gallery space.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see my work evolve more in evolutions, rather than in revolutions,\u201d Tillmans said, gesturing to a conceptual wall-sized image created with a photocopier.<\/p>\n
His Regen show, through March 1, also features short video works and the abstractions of camera-less images he considers \u201cpure photography,\u201d created in the darkroom by shining light directly onto photosensitive paper. There are pictures relating to human sexuality and images from nature. Each subject and approach is an ongoing concern left intentionally open-ended, and never contained within a single project, title or grouping. They are all inseparable in his own mind, free from categories or a finite series of pictures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am aware that these art historical categories exist in my oeuvre, but I\u2019m not seeking them out,\u201d Tillmans explained after the walk-through. His practice is not about \u201cworking through one series or genre and then moving on to another.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans\u2019 \u201cKeep Movin\u2019\u201d at Regen Projects.<\/p>\n
(Evan Bedford \/ Regen Projects)<\/p>\n
On his trip to Los Angeles, Tillmans made a long-planned visit to the Mt. Wilson Observatory to satisfy his lifelong interest in astronomy. He used the giant telescope to capture the twinkling of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. This preoccupation resurfaces at Regen in a large-scale print of 2023\u2019s \u201cFlight Honolulu to Guam,\u201d revealing a star field above the clouds.<\/p>\n
Tillmans\u2019 interest in stargazing goes back to his adolescence, and images of the moon and cosmos recur in his work. \u201cIt gave me a sense of not being lonely, seeing the infinite sky and universe,\u201d he says. \u201cI always felt it was a very grounding experience that all humans share. I always got something from this \u2014 besides the beauty and the formal marvel of it all \u2014 this sense of location and locating myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
His depiction of the heavens is just one of many threads and themes that run through his decades of work.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771400773_952_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A piece of work personally hung by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in his current exhibition, \u201cKeep Movin\u2019\u201d at Regen Projects. <\/p>\n
(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Early in his career, Tillmans began shooting for the British street style magazine i-D, creating portraits of the famous and unfamous, while also documenting club life and gay culture. In 1995, Taschen published his first book, which made a stir with portraits of soft, indirect illumination, emphasizing naturalness. By avoiding the dramatic lighting and exaggerated special effects often seen in pictures of youth culture, he landed on a distinctive visual style.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt the heaviness of life and the joy of life,\u201d Tillmans says. \u201cI saw myself as a multifaceted complex being, not just as young. So I experimented with lighting and film \u2014 how can I photograph my contemporaries in a way that approximates the way that I see through my eyes? And that was stripping back anything effectful, almost taking away the camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continues to do assignment work for magazines, which he considers part of his artistic practice. Several recent portraits are at Regen, including a foundry worker in Tillmans\u2019 hometown of Remscheid and another of actor Jodie Foster. The editorial work brings him into contact with people and places he might not otherwise meet.<\/p>\n
In 2000 Tillmans became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the prestigious Turner Award. Tate Britain staged his mid-career retrospective in 2003 and the Hammer Museum in Westwood mounted his first major U.S. retrospective that same year, which traveled to Chicago\u2019s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Coming after major retrospectives at the Pompidou Centre in Paris last year and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in 2022, the Regen show dispenses with the retrospective frame while quietly performing a similar task \u2014 taking in the main currents of Tillmans\u2019 work over the past two decades, and a few images dating to the late \u201880s. His relationship with the gallery began with his first Los Angeles exhibition.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Visitors walk through photographer Wolfgang Tillmans\u2019 exhibition, \u201cKeep Movin\u2019,\u201d at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
As ever, the images are displayed in a startling range of shapes and sizes: framed and unframed, huge wall-size prints hang alongside tiny, snapshot-scale pictures. One of the largest, \u201cPanorama, left\u201d (2006), spans nearly 20 feet and hangs only from bulldog clips. Smaller pictures are simply taped to the wall, but nothing is meant to indicate hierarchy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest may not be the most important, and the smallest might be overlooked,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit like projecting the way that I look at the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first decade of exhibitions, he had no frames at all. \u201cI taped those photographs to the wall, not as a gesture of disrespectful grunginess, but as a gesture of purity,\u201d he adds. \u201cThat sense of immediacy \u2014 and not imbuing something with outside signifiers of value \u2014 lets the fragile piece of paper speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the current show\u2019s larger conceptual pieces, \u201cMemorial for the Victims of Organized Religion II,\u201d fills a corner with 48 rectangular portrait-sized photographs, all of them solid black or dark blue. It\u2019s a near-replica of a work shown at the Pompidou with the same solemn title, created to recognize those \u201cphysically maimed or mentally harmed\u201d by doctrine and intolerance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI myself have a spiritual side,\u201d says Tillmans, still grateful for positive experiences attending a Lutheran church in his youth. \u201cBut over the years I\u2019ve become ever more distrustful of organized religions and seeing the role of religion in government. I find it incredibly immodest for humans to tell other humans what God wants.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he\u2019s not exploring his spirituality and creativity visually, he focuses his energy on the music world. It\u2019s a natural setting for Tillmans, who is increasingly active releasing his own electronic-based pop music. He\u2019s occasionally worked as a DJ, and has been involved in acid house, techno and other electronic music. Despite his notoriety in the art world, he has no concern about hitting the charts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is part of my work. I\u2019m doing it the same way that I\u2019m doing a photograph. I\u2019m not doing a photograph to be peak popular in two months\u2019 time,\u201d Tillmans said. \u201cIt\u2019s there and it\u2019s still there in 24 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolfgang Tillmans, \u201cKeep Movin\u2019”<\/p>\n
Where: Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles<\/p>\n
When: 10 a.m.\u20136 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday<\/p>\n
Info: (310) 276-5424, regenprojects.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDo you mind if I smoke?\u201d asks German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans with a laugh during a recent video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,143411,308,93,76736,61,15185,60,143414,5399,42449,18376,17634,40057,143413,143410,143412,143409,15722,1962],"class_list":{"0":"post-303905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-contemporary-life","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-hammer-museum","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-image","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-lifelong-interest","20":"tag-los-angeles-times","21":"tag-paper","22":"tag-picture","23":"tag-portrait","24":"tag-practice","25":"tag-quiet-photograph","26":"tag-regen-show","27":"tag-subject-matter","28":"tag-tillmans","29":"tag-way","30":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}