This summer, the Centre Pompidou hands over its Public Information Library to Wolfgang Tillmans, inviting the artist to transform the space with Nothing Could Have Prepared Us – Everything Could Have Prepared Us exhibition, on view from June 13 to September 22, 2025.
ART
Occupying the entire Level 2 of the library, Tillmans has conceived a sweeping curatorial experiment across 6,000 square meters. Far from a traditional retrospective, the exhibition challenges architectural norms and the conventions of knowledge transmission, using the library’s structure as a framework to revisit nearly four decades of artistic exploration. The space becomes a dynamic field where walls, tables, and even ambient surfaces serve as staging grounds for his works, pushing against categorization and inviting visitors into an ever-shifting experience.
At the heart of the exhibition is a rich dialogue between medium and environment. Alongside his renowned photographic works, Tillmans introduces video, music, sound, and text elements, embracing a multi-sensory approach that echoes the information flows of a library. His instinct for spatial intervention, a hallmark of his exhibitions since the early 1990s, is given full scope, emphasizing fluidity, proximity, and unexpected encounters between pieces.
Drawing from his extensive archives while unveiling new works created specifically for this project, Tillmans navigates the pivotal transformations shaping the world since 1989. Themes of societal progress, the fragility of freedoms, shifting community formations, and the evolving nature of popular culture and information dissemination all surface in this layered installation. Through this lens, the exhibition proposes an urgent reflection on how knowledge, perception, and memory are constructed and challenged.
An expanded French edition of the Tillmans Reader accompanies the exhibition, compiling key texts and interviews that offer deeper insights into his practice. A dedicated catalogue further documents the project, capturing the scope and resonance of this Paris intervention.
With Nothing Could Have Prepared Us – Everything Could Have Prepared Us, Wolfgang Tillmans surveys his own artistic journey and tests the capacity of public space to foster critical thought, emotion, and collective awareness.
