German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans’s massive retrospective, “To Look Without Fear,” on view at SFMOMA, could just as easily have been titled “To Live Without Fear.” That’s partially because of the radical verve his subjects emote. It’s also because, for Tillmans, living and photographing are synonymous.

The roughly 400 pictures in the show span 35 years of the artist’s career and 10 rooms, hung floor-to-ceiling in several ways, from traditional frames to tape, pins, clips, nails and by directly affixing them to the walls.