Wolfgang Tillmans brings a performative edge to bibliophilia at the Centre Pompidou’s library

Wolfgang Tillmans’ ‘Rien ne nous y préparait – Tout nous y préparait’ (Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us) spreads out across the entire 6,000 sq m of Centre Pompidou’s Bibliothèque Publique d’Information. The library has mostly been cleared, its contents relocated for the restoration process that will see the Pompidou close for five years once Tillmans’ exhibition ends.

The artist embraced the opportunity to consider the setting as part of his project, as is consistent with his site-specific practice, spending the first year of planning the exhibition thinking about the architecture, visiting the library, and making a scale model of the space at his Berlin studio. Although the contents of the library are mostly in storage, their traces remain, along with a few pieces of furniture – some tables, booths, and shelves – and selected books and magazines.

The Centre Pompidou’s characteristic piping, a design feature of both the interior and exterior of the Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers building, stretches across the ceiling. Delineations of where the bookshelves stood are marked out by the gaps in stretches of carpet, with chair marks and years-old stains dappling the grey and green carpet that still covers most of the floor. Tillmans also kept the library’s photocopying room, a symbolically and practically important space for his practice, which began with photocopied and scaled-up reproductions of photographs from newspaper articles.

The exhibition is his first solo show in Paris in over two decades, and while it takes in works from throughout his career, Tillmans approached the curation of works as more of a spatial narrative, his works in conversation with the library, than a traditional retrospective.

Huge prints are hung beside postcards, some framed, some clipped to the wall, I don’t think there’s Blu-Tac but it somehow wouldn’t be a surprise if there was – just as there could be chewing gum on the underside of the tables. Tillmans’ approach to his work, both in how he makes pictures and exhibits his practice, balances a deep sense of care and observation with a lightness of touch that invites people in and destabilises the formality of the gallery. Showing his work in a former library, a place for research and sharing knowledge intended as a public space that’s open to all, makes sense conceptually as well as in terms of the potential for a sort of spatial theatre.

Formal portraits and chance encounters are shown alongside pictures of cows, the sea, bags of fruit, palm trees, plays of light, and stacks of paper, with tables and display cases laid out with research material, contact sheets, smaller prints, and large-scale photocopies. Tillmans’ engagement with the principle of the archive, here shown in context, has always felt like an effort to make as wide a record as possible of his life and how and where it overlaps with the world – an emphasis on connection rather than establishing a sense of clarity and order. Computer booths, one of the remnants of the library, show a selection of videos, and there are a few tables scattered with magazines he has worked on, monographs and photo books set up with reading lights.

The site-specific mode of the exhibition makes it feel like a sort of performance of the library, making use of the nature of that setting as a place that people might recognise – in terms of behaviour, and what you hope to gain – more than they might a gallery. Tillmans has long been engaged in politics, particularly in terms of how it relates to community, and this effort to establish a setting that not only shows his work in a thoughtful way, but invites people in to understand what goes on around it, and really spend time in the space – as you would with a library – feels like an important part of the atmosphere of the show.

The title of the exhibition, ‘Rien ne nous y préparait – Tout nous y préparait’ (Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us), came to him as a principle that related to his feelings about his own life, and his perspective as time passes.

Like much of his work, it became something that resonates as both personal and political, an observation that probably passed through his mind in a way that for many would go unnoticed, but as he does through his pictures, he caught the moment like a flash of light.

The exhibition is open until 22 September 2025.

Celine is partnering with the Centre Pompidou and Wolfgang Tillmans, collaborating with the gallery on the ‘Accès Libre par Celine’ initiative, which offers four free days of admission to the public – on 13 June, 3 July, 28 August and 22 September.

centrepompidou.fr