Exhibitions
Wolfgang Tillmans takes over the Pompidou library
The entire floor of the Centre Pompidou's Bibliothèque Publique d'Information is dedicated to the exhibition Rien ne nous y préparait - Tout nous et préparait by Wolfgang Tillmans. Until September 22, 6,000 square meters, the space has been emptied for a large, site-specific curatorial installation curated by Florian Ebner, Chief Curator of the Pompidou.
A dialogue and transformation of the German artist's work with the Parisian museum space, questioning it both as architecture and as a place of knowledge transmission. Without a classical chronology, Tillmans' exhibition is more a journey through the architecture and memory of space than a traditional retrospective that so characterizes temporary exhibitions in Paris.
Lacanau (self), Wolfgang Tillmans, 1986
Over 25 years of Wolfgang Tillmans' work, featuring photographs, portraits, still lifes, abstract works, texts, sounds, and music, are displayed alongside the placement of original library elements such as rugs, bookshelves, reading booths, and posters. Highlights include iconic works by the Remscheid-based artist, such as Moon in Earthlight from 2015, featuring large panoramic seascapes, rodent portraits from the 1990s, and anti-Le Pen and anti-Trump photographic publications.
This is the last major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou before its five-year closure for major renovations and Tillmans' first in Paris since his intervention at the Palais de Tokyo in 2002. More than ever, the artist will demonstrate his gift for intervening in space, a quality that has distinguished these exhibitions since 1993.
Junger Hausrotschwanz, Wolgang Tillmans, 2022
The museum tour highlights the dialectics that have been sweeping the world since 1989: social progress and freedoms once established, now in danger, new forms of community building, and even the evolution of popular cultural expressions and ways of disseminating information.
