Tillmans' second major mid-career retrospective (the first was at the Tate Britain in 2003) toured the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of Washington, D. C. in 2006.

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Although many of Tillmans' images are rooted in his own experience, the photographer cautions that they are not to be read as a diary of his life or even of the lives of those close to him.

In an interview with Peter Halley, Tillmans explains how a viewer should experience his work: "The viewer should be encouraged to feel close to their own experiences of situations similar to those that I've presented to them in my work. They should enter my work through their own eyes, and their own lives--not through trying to piece together mine." Tillmans thus emphasizes the role of art in helping each viewer create and affirm his or her own identity, even as he denies his own presence in his images.

Tillmans has published twenty-one collections of his photographs. He has overseen the image order and design of nineteen of these collections. He is currently represented by the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York.

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