The most powerful gallerist alive and one of the world’s most famous photographers unveil their most ambitious collaboration yet—an exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans’ works at David Zwirner’s new gallery in Hong Kong
On the count of three, David Zwirner and Wolfgang Tillmans rush into the middle of Queen’s Road Central, dodging pedestrians and gamely pulling poses for Hong Kong Tatler’s photographers. The lights turn green, a taxi beeps and the two men dart back to safety. The scene repeats itself two, three, four times. Between takes, Zwirner and Tillmans—respectively, the world’s most influential gallerist and one of its most famous photographers—chat in rapid-fire German.
They have a lot to catch up on.
The two friends were born just a few years apart in the 1960s in the same area of western Germany, but they didn’t meet until 1993, when they were in their 20s and taking their first tentative steps into the art world. After that initial meeting, it was two decades before they finally started working together, in 2014. “That was not my fault,” Zwirner explains, laughing. “Wolfgang had another gallery, but he had a standing invitation to work with me for many years.”
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Zwirner was so impressed when he discovered Tillmans’ work that he bought a print for his personal collection. “In 1995, I went to [New York art dealer] Andrea Rosen, who represented Wolfgang at the time, and I bought a fantastic portrait called Smokin’ Jo,” Zwirner explains. “That was when I had just opened my gallery [in New York] and had very little money, so it was one of my earliest art purchases and it was a Wolfgang Tillmans.”
When the stars finally aligned and Tillmans signed up to be represented by Zwirner, he joined a starry roster of more than 40 leading artists, including Yayoi Kusama and Jeff Koons. “Wolfgang is one of the defining artists of his generation and those are the people I want to work with,” Zwirner explains.
But even in such distinguished company, Zwirner believes Tillmans stands out. “I think it’s fair to say that right now, at this moment of time in our gallery, there’s no other artist who has a broader audience than Wolfgang,” he says.