Lines of Sight, Layers of Sound
*The Total Language of Wolfgang Tillmans
written Amanda Mortenson
A library breathes differently when an artist takes over. Pages stay still, but the light shifts. The Centre Pompidou hands over 6,000 m² to Wolfgang Tillmans, and the result is neither retrospective nor installation, but something in between—an unfolding.
Rien ne nous y préparait – Tout nous y préparait. The title of the exhibition stretches like a refrain, unresolved and cyclical. From June 13 to September 22, 2025, the Public Information Library (Bpi) becomes the surface of this phrase. And Tillmans, in his full fluency, draws a language across it—photographic, sonic, sculptural, political.
Moon in Earthlight, 2015
Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, Maureen Paley, London, David Zwirner, New York
Echo Beach, 2017
Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, Maureen Paley, London, David Zwirner, New York
The exhibition arrives at a rare juncture. The Pompidou prepares to close for major renovation, and this final show is summation and offering. In a space usually devoted to silent reading and public access, Tillmans constructs a new form of visibility—one that includes what is seen and how.
The selection spans four decades of practice. Photographs are placed without chronology. Stillness meets print meets rhythm. The work is assembled with and against the building’s original structure, transforming the library into an environment that breathes with energy and tension. Archival material sits beside new compositions. Laser light pulses. Loudspeakers relay sound works. A sense of immersion replaces the convention of looking.
This is about an artist choosing a place with high foot traffic, open structures, and constant flux—and turning it into a medium.
What emerges is an exhibition as summary and space. The Bpi becomes a working model for how images live among us. The ceilings, walls, carpets, and shelves are absorbed into the visual syntax. Tillmans’ “Truth Study Center” unfolds across tables. Posters, zines, and publications are stacked with intention. HIV education materials rest beside press photographs, club ephemera beside celestial charts.
Tillmans brings all media. Music plays a constant role. His sonic compositions occupy the same register as his images—cut, repeated, looped. Film works are arranged in rooms that stay open to the larger pulse of the building. There’s only the ambient flow of ideas moving through form.
Wolfgang Tillmans à la Bpi, janvier 2025
(c) Centre Pompidou
At the core of this gesture is a belief in space as knowledge. The Bpi, a place of shared information and open presence, aligns with the artist’s long-standing interest in visibility, collectivity, and also intimacy. His work has always layered personal and public registers: bodies, cities, protests, pages, light. Here, those layers reach architectural scale.
CELINE enters the frame not through clothing or installation, but through Accès Libre par CELINE, a rare gesture of sponsorship that expands access. Four days of open admission stretch across the exhibition’s life—offering time, and plenty of it, to wander, stay, return. This collaboration moves with clarity. CELINE enters the art space through gesture. The house aligns with the architecture of presence and steps forward with precision. As a partner, the house marks its first-ever project with the Centre Pompidou. The exhibition unfolds under the creative direction of Michael Rider, who took on the role of artistic director in January 2025.
Tillmans returns to Paris with a wide-spanning institutional presence. Photographs travel across tables, suspend from ceilings, glow through projection. They live among books and browsers, headsets and desks. Artwork and infrastructure move as one, folding into a shared spatial rhythm.
The architecture of the Bpi becomes part of the work. In close collaboration with scenographer Jasmin Oezcebi, the exhibition develops its own spatial logic. Library furniture shifts position. Walls open new lines. Light acts as a tool for memory.
Every visual element follows a larger score. Materials speak together. The viewer moves through atmosphere, guided by rhythm and tone. The Pompidou moves toward transition. Tillmans shapes a moment with weight. The building gathers light. Images echo. Colors shift. Layouts change. Each element stays present.
Banner Image
(c) The State We’re In, A, 2015
Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, Maureen Paley, London, David Zwirner, New York
its only love give it away, 2005
Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, Maureen Paley, London, David Zwirner, New York