Wolfgang Tillmans
Nothing could have prepared us - Everything could have prepared us
- ArtistWolfgang Tillmans
- PhotographerExhibition views: Wolfgang Tillmans, Jens Ziehe
- PhotographerTable reproductions: Alizée Gousset and Corinna Kranig
PETER FUNCH The exhibition at Pompidou is a monumental showcase blending art, knowledge, optimism, and freedom.
This expansive exhibit takes over the former Pompidou library, transforming a space once dedicated to silent research into a provocative venue for reflection on political chaos, environmental collapse, and changing cultural perceptions. Tillmans doesn’t offer comfort or simple stories. Instead, he reveals the raw mechanics of image creation - how photographs fracture reality, influence beliefs, and force viewers to confront the unruly present.
Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us
With “Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us,” Wolfgang Tillmans transforms the Centre Pompidou’s Public Information Library into a living artwork. On view from June to September 2025, the exhibition is both a retrospective and a farewell, marking the Pompidou’s final major show before its five-year closure for renovation.
Spread across 6,000 square meters, the installation unfolds like a labyrinth of images, sounds, and texts. Photographs range from intimate snapshots to monumental prints, casually pinned to walls, laid out on tables, or paired with archival material. Everyday details - desks, carpets, computer terminals - remain in place, blurring the line between library and gallery, memory and reinvention.
Tillmans’ work resists chronology or hierarchy. Instead, it pulses with the rhythms of lived experience: portraits of queer communities, urban landscapes, still lifes, club culture, political activism. Each fragment resonates with themes of fragility, freedom, and connection.
By weaving his practice into the architecture of the library itself, Tillmans creates more than an exhibition - he creates an environment. It is at once personal and political, ephemeral and monumental, echoing with the sense of an ending and the promise of renewal. As the Pompidou prepares to close its doors, his installation becomes a poignant reminder of the institution’s legacy, and of art’s capacity to hold both memory and transformation in a single frame.
