Wolfgang Tillmans: Things Matter

Edited by Dennis Brzek and Hilke Wagner. Conversation between Dennis Brzek, Hilke Wagner, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Very few artists mirror our recent past as profoundly as Wolfgang Tillmans in their work. On the occasion of his exhibition «Weltraum» at the Albertinum in Dresden, Tillmans has created a unique artist’s book that places his four decades of artistic practice in a thoughtprovoking dialogue with the past and present of East and West Germany. Things matter, Dinge zählen intertwines excerpts from a 1987 Dresden inventory catalogue with Tillmans’ 2003 catalogue «If one thing matters, everything matters» for Tate Britain, in which he devised a speculative catalogue raisonné of his early work. The resurgence of these two out-of-print titles is combined with a conversation in which Tillmans reflects on his artistic beginnings and analyses their aesthetic and social implications today.