The Centre Pompidou in Paris is about to close its doors for roughly five years: there’s time to visit one last time until September 22, 2025, before a new architectural project will permanently transform the interiors of this vast and iconic building designed by Renzo Piano. It’s mid-August, and there’s no line at the entrance – incredible, but true – yet the young man at the ticket desk warns us: everything is already closed. The permanent collection, the temporary exhibitions, the Galerie des Enfants, the Kandinsky Library, even the gift shop. The only sign of life is at the Bpi (Bibliothèque publique d’information), where a massive retrospective of Wolfgang Tillmans, titled “Rien ne nous y préparait – Tout nous y préparait” (“Nothing Prepared Us for It – Everything Prepared Us for It”), occupies the entire 6,000-square-meter space.
The exhibition opens with the immense work “The State We’re In, A” (2015), immediately revealing the scope of the artist’s output and the surgical precision with which this vast constellation of photographs stretches along the walls and display cases, which have replaced the endless bookshelves that normally fill the space.
Among the works that bear witness to Tillmans’ political and social engagement, his most intimate series, and photographs documenting club culture, one piece caught my attention: on a large work table, protected under a glass plate, 83 photographs of musicians make up the series “Closer to Music, 1984–2024” (2025). Another version, titled “Closer to Music, 1983–2018”, had been shown in 2019 in a group exhibition in Hamburg. A veritable hall of fame spanning genres and generations, from Sven Väth to Grace Jones, Wu-Tang Clan to Yoko Ono, Kylie Minogue to Patti Smith, Miss Kittin to A$AP Rocky, and many more.
These portraits speak of artistic admiration and deep friendship, with some subjects appearing repeatedly in other photographic series, like Moby in a tender portrait with his parents.
Tillmans’ connection to music began in his teenage years, as the electronic scene was emerging as a global phenomenon – evidenced, among other things, by his early ’90s photographs of Kraftwerk. Sound has always been an integral part of his practice, whether through editorial assignments (Damon Albarn for Spex, Arca for Butt Magazine) and album covers (Frank Ocean’s Blonde, 2016), or as a musician himself: alongside his visual work, Tillmans has developed a prolific musical output.
This duality, this fluidity with which he navigates the two languages, is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of his practice – and right in front of me are photographs that you can listen to.
With this spirit, I created a playlist that functions a bit like an audio-temporal portal: here you can find tracks by some of the artists captured in the photographs, songs released or in progress in the year they were immortalized by their friend Wolfgang Tillmans. Enjoy.
Address and contact:
Centre Georges Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris
www.centrepompidou.fr