Wolfgang Tillmans releases DJ mix for Apple Music's ‘Beats in Space’ series
The German photographer joins Tim Sweeney on the show to discuss his current exhibition
German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has released a new DJ mix on Apple Music's and Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space series.
Best known as the first photographer to be awarded the Tate annual Turner Prize, and for capturing the cover image of Frank Ocean's 2016 album ‘Blonde’, Tillmans speaks in his interview with Sweeny about his upcoming exhibition To Look Without Fear at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Running from January 1 at MoMA New York before heading to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition explores a huge collection of the artist’s work, including vibrant nightlife photo and images captured without a camera.
Read this next: Tim Sweeney: "It hurt when I heard WNYU didn't value me being on the station"
The iconic mix show relaunched in November 2021 on Apple Music after Sweeney announced the show would be cut in 2020.
The long-running show came about during Sweeney's time as a college freshman at New York University, having a late-night 1-4:AM slot on WYNU, and went on to host exclusive selections from the likes of Carl Craig, Andrew Weatherall, DJ Harvey and Four Tet.
“I love the human voice and the voice on dance tracks,” says Tillmans speaking on his exclusive mix. “And I guess that's also what came into the mix for today, that it's kind of a love letter to New York with love for London and Berlin as well.”
He continues: “[It's] Sort of book ended by two German tracks, Propaganda who are really from Düsseldorf and Tocotronic at the end, from Berlin, originally from Hamburg. And in between Nabihah Iqbal's ‘Zone 1 to 6000’, which is this amazing London song and of quintessential New York sounds like Freestyle by Noel, 'Silent Morning', and I guess Adonis, that's totally Chicago, no? And then I peppered it with a couple of, or three or so, of my own tracks and one remix Mark Crater and I recently did of Oliver Sims, ‘GMT’.”
Read this next: Wolfgang Tillmans took Frank Ocean to Berghain
Tillman also speaks on his upcoming exhibition saying: “I'm humbly grateful that it happened. But what I'm really happy about is that it turned out so beautiful. I'm so happy with it that because that's not guaranteed. Sometimes you get nervous, you don't have the sleight of hand, the touch of hand, especially with a place that important, one might lose the touch, which maybe got me there. And I think, well I feel like ... I went there last night and really wouldn't change a thing and that's really the best thing that could happen.”
Later in the show, Berlin-based French DJ and producer Jennifer Cardini delivers a guest mix and shares with Sweeney what people can expect from her in the next year.
Check out Tillmans’ mix here and his interview with Sweeny here.
Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Video and Editorial Assistant, follow her on Twitter