London Olympics

  • 2012
  • Wolfgang Tillmans
  • Inkjet print
  • 207 x 138 cm

Since 1986, self-portraits have regularly appeared in Wolfgang Tillmans' work. London Olympics (2012), is one such example, a complex composition that seems, on first glance, to capture a fairly mundane moment. Tillmans is present twice in this self-portrait: the blurred image of his leg can be seen in the foreground, and in the background, he is lying on a bed, aiming his camera at the mirror, which reflects the scene out of shot. The monumental size of this image allows the spectator to immerse themselves in the scene.

© Wolfgang Tillmans/ Photo © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Martin Argyroglo

Hangs

Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans emerged at the beginning of the 1990s as a photographer of a libertarian post-punk youth who listened to techno music.

Since the late 1980s, Wolfgang Tillmans has developed a body of work that stretches the limits of photography and image making. His photographs which he presents taped to the wall, hung from clips or framed, revisit the traditional genres of portraiture, still life and landscape. Tillmans has also worked with the photocopier and has created abstract photographs made in the darkroom without a camera.

The Foundation has more than thirty works by Tillmans acquired since 2007 and, today, is pleased to be showing select works from that collection in Tokyo.

In 2000, Tillmans was the first non-British photographer and artist to receive the Turner Prize awarded annually by Tate in London. The Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna hosted a major Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition in 2021. The Museum of Modern Art in New York devoted a major retrospective to him in the fall of 2022. In Osaka, Japan, the National Museum of Modern Art showed his work in 2015.

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