manual

manual is a 432-page artist's book in which Wolfgang Tillmans combines his own photographs and painterly works with texts and existing newspaper articles.

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König published it in Cologne in 2007. It is a clothbound volume of 21 by 29.7 cm, with a text by Tillmans in English and German. The publisher says it draws on work from the previous five years, much of it unpublished, and ties its method to the way Tillmans arranges pictures on long tables in his studio when preparing an exhibition or a book. The combined material is read as a dialogue with social and political themes, among them AIDS and the question of absolute truth. Tillmans's bibliography lists it as an artist's book that he edited and designed.

Tillmans was born in Remscheid in 1968 and won the Turner Prize in 2000. He lives and works in Berlin and London. His other books include truth study center (Taschen, 2005) and Lighter (Hatje Cantz, 2008).