Wolfgang Tillmans: Conor Donlon
Text by Alex Needham
In Conor Donlon, Wolfgang Tillmans (born 1968) chronicles East London’s art scene and nightlife of the early 2000s, as well as his friendship with collaborator and artist Conor Donlon. The book sees Donlon’s appearance and style changing, as well as his backdrops: a 2003 demonstration against George W. Bush’s state visit; a picnic at the park after an opening at Tillmans’s exhibition space Between Bridges; the bright yellow walls of Tillmans and Donlon’s home; long-gone LGBT clubs The Ghetto and The Joiners’ Arm; and quieter moments spent talking in the studio and around town.
Tillmans’s photographs are at once intimate and emblematic of a flourishing arts era, where both artists’ work gained momentum. The Guardian’s culture editor Alex Needham introduces the work with an essay about Donlon’s initial role as Tillmans’s assistant, contextualizing the artists’ collaboration and the inception of London independent bookstore Donlon Books in 2008.
Publisher: Walther König, Cologne
Artists: Wolfgang Tillmans
Contributors: Alex Needham
Designer: Wolfgang Tillmans, Paul Hutchinson
Printer: Druckerei Bloch, Berlin
Publication Date: 2016
Binding: Softcover
Dimensions: 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 in (16.5 x 24.1 cm)
Pages: 192
Reproductions: 185 color
ISBN: 9783863359416
Retail: $29.95 | £23
Status: Available
Wolfgang Tillmans
Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced a younger generation more than Wolfgang Tillmans. 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 questioning 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.
All Wolfgang Tillmans books