Dear Shaded Viewers,
As the Centre Pompidou prepares to close its doors for five years of renovation, Wolfgang Tillmans has been granted carte blanche to transform the 5,000-square-meter Public Information Library into the canvas for his largest solo exhibition to date. The library—emptied of its 430,000 documents—becomes a stage for Tillmans’s exploration of art, architecture, and the very act of seeing, offering a poignant farewell to one of Paris’s most iconic cultural spaces.
Tillmans, whose career emerged from the countercultural energy of the 1990s, is renowned for capturing the fragile beauty of the everyday and for challenging the boundaries of visual representation. In this exhibition, he reimagines the emptied library as a dialogue between memory and innovation, between the transmission of knowledge and the act of looking. Rather than relying on traditional gallery walls, Tillmans pays homage to the original architecture of the Centre Pompidou, using shelves and structures that once held books as the foundation for his display. Unframed prints, moving images, and installations rise and sprawl across the open space, blurring the lines between art and architecture.
My own journey with Wolfgang Tillmans’s work began in 2003 when I encountered his film Peas, a close-up study of peas boiling in a pot, filmed in Tillmans’s former East London studio. The work’s apparent simplicity belies its power, raising questions about authenticity and the staged nature of Tillmans’s images. This tension is central to his practice, as seen in iconic photographs like Lutz & Alex sitting in the trees (1992), where friends Lutz Huelle and Alexandra Bircken are depicted in a moment of playful, performative intimacy. While such images may at first glance appear spontaneous, they are in fact carefully constructed—an example of what might be called ‘staged authenticity.’
Lutz, a longtime friend and collaborator, is a recurring muse in Tillmans’s work, embodying the trust, freedom, and mutual self-expression that define the artist’s approach to photography. Their relationship, rooted in shared creative energy and a liberated, pansexual spirit, is emblematic of Tillmans’s commitment to community and the boundaries of representation.
I happened to be in New York in 2022, where a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art traced his evolution from the 1980s to the present. There, images were taped directly onto the walls—a signature gesture. Here, in Paris, the context is different: Tillmans exploits the verticality of the walls and the horizontality of the tables, playing with the structure of the space to defy easy categorization. Tillmans engages with the very essence of the space, creating an environment that is at once immersive and intimate.
The exhibition incorporates moving images, music, sound, text, and live performance. A dedicated section honors Between Bridges, the exhibition space Tillmans ran for eighteen years in London and Berlin, now a foundation committed to humanism, solidarity, and the advancement of democracy. Another space is devoted to his campaigns for the European elections, featuring the slogan “Let’s vote together, let’s vote for Europe”—a message that resonates powerfully in today’s geopolitical climate, as the European Union faces challenges from within and without.
Tillmans’s work is deeply rooted in the present moment—“Ici et Maintenant,” as the French press describes it. He draws from his archives and creates new works specifically for this venue, highlighting the dialectics of our time: the precariousness of once-secure freedoms, the evolution of community, and the transformations in how we share and consume culture. In doing so, he offers a panorama of the forms of knowledge and a sincere, open experience of the world.
This exhibition is more than a retrospective; it is a meditation on image-making, democracy, and the power of public space. As the Centre Pompidou prepares for its own transformation, Tillmans’s intervention feels both timely and timeless—a fitting farewell to a building that has long been a beacon of avant-garde art and a bold invitation to imagine what comes next. In an era marked by rapid change and uncertainty, Tillmans reminds us that art can be both a mirror and a compass. “Nothing could have prepared us,” the exhibition’s title suggests, but perhaps everything has—if we are willing to look, listen, and engage. To that point, outside of this exhibition you might want to read the book The End of America? A Guide to the New World Disorder by Alan Friedman.
For those in Paris, this is an unmissable opportunity to witness an artist at the height of his powers, bidding adieu to a landmark and welcoming the unknown with open arms.
Main partner of the exhibition, the CELINE house is offering four days of free access for the occasion on June 13, July 3, August 28, and September 22.
Later,
Diane
