The Centre Pompidou is giving German artist Wolfgang Tillmans carte blanche from June 13 to September 22, 2025. The artist will take over the 6,000 m² of the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi) for a final exhibition before the emblematic building closes for five years of renovation. Expect an unprecedented artistic experience in which the architecture and functions of the library become the terrain for exploration by a committed artist.
Carte blanche is given to Wolfgang Tillmansfrom June 13 to September 22, 2025. This is the Pompidou Center ‘s last exhibition before it closes for renovation. Spread over 6,000 m² of the Bibliothèque publique d’information(Bpi), level 2, this retrospective looks back over 35 years of creation by the German artist, combining photography, moving images, music, texts and performances. In dialogue 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 catalog and an expanded version of Tillmans’ Readeroffering a fresh look at contemporary art and the emblematic site.
Wolfgang Tillmansa contemporary artist born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany, is renowned for his innovative approach to photography and his ability to question our relationship with images and information. In this ambitious retrospectivethe artist revisits over thirty-five years of creationmixing portraits, still life, abstractions and documentaries. His work, marked by the spirit of the 1990s counter-culture, is a response to technological and social transformations, while proposing new ways of perceiving the world and building 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 original installation highlights contemporary tensions: the evolution of media, changing freedoms and the dissemination of knowledge in the digital age.
Highlights include an exploration of post-1989 dialectics, marked by social and cultural upheaval, as well as an expanded catalog and the publication of an expanded version of Tillmans’ Readerfeaturing essential texts and interviews.
This exhibition, Tillmans’ first institutional monograph in Paris since 2002, follows major retrospectives at Tate Modern (2017) and MoMA (2022), as well as his touring project “Fragile”, presented in Africa between 2018 and 2022. For the Centre Pompidou, welcoming Tillmans for this mothballing is a powerful symbol, combining artistic avant-garde with the memory of the place.
In short, this is a wonderful exhibition not to be missed before the museum closes for 5 long years, hop hop hop!
