The Center Pompidou gives carte blanche to the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans, from June 13 to September 22, 2025. The artist will take over the 6,000 m² of the Public Information Library (Bpi) for a final exhibition before the closure of the iconic building for five years of renovation. Expect a unique artistic experience where the architecture and functions of the library become the field of exploration of a committed artist.
Carte blanche is given to Wolfgang Tillmansof June 13 to September 22, 2025. This exhibition event marks the last exhibition of the Pompidou Center before its closure for renovation. Deployed on 6 000 m² of the Public Information Library (Bpi), level 2, this retrospective looks back on more than 35 years of creation by the German artist, mixing photography, animated images, music, texts and performances. By dialoguing with the architecture and functions of the library, Tillmans questions the transmission of knowledge and social upheavals since 1989. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue and an augmented version of Tillmans’ Readeroffering a unique look at contemporary art and the emblematic place.
Wolfgang Tillmanscontemporary artist born in 1968 in Remscheid in Germany, is recognized for his innovative approach to photography and its ability to question our relationship to images and information. In this ambitious retrospectivethe artist revisits more than thirty-five years of creationmixing portraits, still life, abstractions and documentaries. His work, marked by the spirit of the counterculture of the 1990s, is a response to technological and social transformations, while proposing new ways of perceiving the world and creating community.
The exhibition goes beyond traditional photography by integrating animated worksmusic, texts and performances. Tillmans exploits both the verticality of the walls and the horizontality of the library spaces to create a dialogue between architecture, shared knowledge and his own aesthetic universe. This unique installation highlights contemporary tensions: the evolution of mediums, changing freedoms and the dissemination of knowledge in the digital age.
Among the expected highlights, an exploration of post-1989 dialectics, marked by social and cultural upheavals, as well as an enriched catalog and the publication of an expanded version of the Tillmans’ Readerbringing together essential texts and interviews.
This exhibition, Tillmans’ first institutional monograph in Paris since 2002, follows major retrospectives, such as those at the Tate Modern (2017) and MoMA (2022), as well as his traveling project “Fragile”, presented in Africa between 2018 and 2022. For the Center Pompidou, welcoming Tillmans for this dormant event is a strong symbol, combining artistic avant-garde and memory of the place.
In short, this is a great exhibition not to be missed before the museum closes for 5 long years, hop hop hop!
