`To see a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wildflower
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour'
- William Blake.

The Spanish art curator Rafael Doctor once wrote that London-based German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans had an amazing ability to see the whole in something small and mundane. Last year the judges of Britain's Turner Prize acknowledged this gift, making hTillmans the first photographer ever to win the Prize.

As an openly gay artist Tillmans's images have inspired fear and loathing among certain sections of the British press for some time, but subsequent to his Turner Prize victory the condemnations became more frequent and febrile. A photograph of a naked man urinating on a chair prompted such headlines as, `Turner Prize Winner is a Photographer Who Specialises in Shaved Private Parts.' He was labelled an amateur...