Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us

The retrospective exhibition explores over thirty-five years of artistic practice across various photographic genres, including portraiture, still life, architecture, documentary images and abstraction. His work is displayed in a wide variety of ways, making use of the verticality of the walls and the horizontality of the tables in a manner that resists categorisation. In addition to his photographic work, Tillmans incorporates moving images, music, sound and words into this extensive installation, alongside contributions from performance artists.

In recent years, Wolfgang Tillmans is the subject of major retrospectives in leading institutions, notably at Tate Modern in London in 2017 and MoMA in New York in 2022. He also presents a major exhibition entitled “Fragile”, which tours the African continent (2018–2022 in Kinshasa, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Yaoundé, Accra, Abidjan and Lagos). The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou is his first solo exhibition at an institution in Paris since his ambitious installation at the Palais de Tokyo in 2002. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue and the publication of an expanded version of Tillmans’ Reader, translated into French. This book is a collection of writings by and interviews with the artist.