The Centre Pompidou is about to close its doors for a five year renovation. But, before this long pause, the Parisian museum has a final blockbuster show for visitors to enjoy. This summer an entire level of its public information library will be taken over by Wolfgang Tillmans. Titled “Nothing could have prepared us–Everything could have prepared us,” the expansive exhibition sees Tillmans transform the 6,000-square-meter space into a massive installation informed by the building’s iconic architecture. In this show, Tillmans places his work in the library’s open layout, which follows the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers’s idea of a museum without walls or borders.
To prepare for the exhibition, Tillmans spent a year studying the library’s architecture and even creating a scale model in his Berlin studio. The works span his 40-year career, but this is not a retrospective—there’s no strict chronological order or attempt to show all of his well-known pieces.
Photographs are presented dotted across the open-plan layout: Some are traditionally framed, others casually taped or pinned to the temporary walls. For the artist, the way he displays the images—how they’re arranged on the wall, their size, the materials used, and their relationship to each other—is just as important as the image itself.
A key figure in contemporary photography, Tillmans became known in the 1990s for his innovative visual language and his active engagement in social and political issues. Notably, he was the first photographer, as well as the first non-British person to win the Turner Prize, and he is also known for his activism, especially around LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, and fighting misinformation. Ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum, Tillmans launched a pro-EU campaign in the U.K., where he was then based. He created posters and visuals to encourage young people to vote and to highlight the risks of leaving the European Union.
Here, Artsy highlights seven key photographs in the show that trace Tillmans’s evolving relationship to photography.
Suzanne & Lutz, white dress, army skirt, 1993
Emerging as a defining voice in photography during the 1990s, Tillmans became known for his intimate documentation of youth culture and queer life. Rather than working with professional models, he turned his lens toward his close circle of friends. He created an atmosphere where his subjects’ inhibitions could dissolve, yet their self-awareness remained intact. These early portraits often blur the line between direction and spontaneity—they’re composed but not overly staged, raw but not exploitative.
Suzanne & Lutz is typical of Tillmans’s portraiture during this time. The contrast between the two subjects’ outfits hints at gender play and rebellion, but nothing feels forced. Although Suzanne’s arms are crossed, the pose is relaxed in its peculiarity, creating an unguarded atmosphere. As with much of his early work, the photo is less about telling a story and more about holding a space open—inviting reflection rather than offering a fixed narrative.
The Cock (kiss), 2002
Showing two men kissing, The Cock (kiss) is a photograph with a long history. Taken at The Cock, a gay night at the London club The Ghetto, the photo is raw, sweaty, and unfiltered. The artist captures the essence of human connection: sexuality pulses with intimacy—spontaneous, urgent, and charged with desire.
Since it was taken over 20 years ago, the artwork has become a symbol of love, pride, and resistance within the LGBTQIA+ community. During an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2006, the photograph was scratched with a key, a hateful act that only made the piece more meaningful.
The image entered the public consciousness again following the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were killed. According to his father, the gunman had been enraged by the sight of two men kissing. After the shooting, a sea of images of men kissing was shared online, creating a collective, defiant cry against hatred. Among them, Tillmans’s The Cock (kiss) re-emerged with particular force: a symbol of queer love and visibility.
It’s only love give it away, 2005
Tillmans began his “Freischwimmer” series in 2003, and it remains an ongoing body of work. The photographs are the result of an experimental darkroom process. Tillmans uses a flashlight as a controlled light source to expose photosensitive paper directly, without a camera or negative. Developed like color prints, these images reveal abstract forms and rippling colors that seem to flow across the surface.
From a technical perspective, these are photographs—yet they do not depict any concrete subject. The series of non-representational photographs invites viewers to think differently about what it means to experience photography. Rather than identifying objects, these photos are more expressive of abstract forms and impressions.
The title, “Freischwimmer” (“free swimmer”), references the German swimming certification earned by school students. It alludes to the freedom and movement created by the alchemical process of light and chemistry.
The State We Are In, A, 2015
Taken from the end of a pier in Porto, Portugal, using a high-resolution, full-format 35-mm digital camera, this work shows a wide, open view of the Atlantic Ocean, where different time zones and countries meet.
This work is part of Tillmans’ broader project “Neue Welt” (New World), which Tillmans began in 2009. Here, he set out to record what was around him and to create a more empathetic understanding of the world. Using a high-resolution digital camera—instead of the film format he previously favored—Tillmans captured images in an extreme depth of detail. These are images that are aesthetically compelling and reflective of the excess of information that defines today’s life.
In The State We’re In, A, Tillmans captures the restless energy of a rough sea, using nature’s turbulence as a metaphor for the chaos of our era. It captures the ocean as a natural wonder and a place where global borders and time zones come together, making it symbolically significant. The piece acts as a bridge between two facets of the artist’s practice. Here, he combines his lyrical, abstract sensibility with his keen eye for images in the tangible world. Through this tension, he reflects the intensity of social upheaval, political turmoil, and deep ideological divides.
Lüneburg (self), 2020
Tillmans’s still lifes focus on fleeting fragments of everyday life—incidental moments that feel almost accidental at first glance. Yet, beneath the casual surface of these images, lies a precise attention to color, framing, and form. These photos aren’t the result of staging, but of a keen awareness of the visual rhythms embedded in the ordinary.
Lüneburg (self), which was taken during the pandemic, portrays a smartphone leaning against a water bottle. Its screen reflects a now-familiar form of connection: the artist’s own face on a video call, small and pixelated behind a giant camera lens in the top-left corner. In this understated scene, Tillmans emphasizes the layered nature of digital photography. Over the years, the physical connection between camera, body, and viewer has become increasingly significant in his work, bringing attention to how we not only look, but feel through visual narratives.
Paper drop (Star), 2006
Tillmans has long been fascinated by paper, not just as a surface for printing, but as a subject in its own right. “Everything I do is on paper. I started to look at the paper itself,” the German artist said during a talk he gave at French university Beaux-Arts de Paris before his exhibition opened. This shift in attention sits at the heart of his “Paper Drop” series, which he began in 2001.
In these photographs, sheets of paper curl under their own weight, caught in moments of suspension. At first glance, they might appear digitally rendered or sculptural, but their intrigue lies in their simplicity: a study in gravity, light, and form. Shadows pool in the folds, soft gradients sweep across the sheet. The paper plays the role of both object and image.
These works aren’t quite illusions, as they don’t try to trick the viewer into seeing something they are not. Instead, reflecting Tillmans’s ongoing interest in perception and materiality, Paper Drop (Star) offers a visual paradox—is it a figurative work or abstract?
Frank, in the shower, 2015
The reach of Wolfgang Tillmans’s photography extends far beyond the art world. In 2015, he photographed the musician Frank Ocean shortly after the musician publicly spoke about his sexuality. This portrait would become the cover of Blonde, Ocean’s 2016 album and an iconic cultural marker of the period.
In the photo, Ocean stands beneath the shower, his face partially obscured by his hand, dyed green hair damp, water tracing his bare skin. The intimacy feels unfiltered, yet the viewer is deliberately held at a distance.
Vulnerability, desire, ambiguity—qualities central to Tillmans’s visual language—quietly reverberate through the frame. The artist has caught Ocean at a moment between exposure and retreat, at once deeply personal and universally resonant.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/qXVnzmC
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