Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing Could Have Prepared Us – Everything Could Have Prepared Us

Explore over three decades of groundbreaking photography and spatial experimentation with Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing Could Have Prepared Us – Everything Could Have Prepared Us, the illustrated catalogue accompanying his immersive 2025 exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. This 272-page volume (Spector Books) transforms the artist’s journey into an intimate dialogue with architecture and the archive.

When Tillmans reclaims the second floor of the Public Information Library (Bpi), he not only displays his diverse photographic genres, but also challenges conventions of knowledge and space. The catalogue juxtaposes fine-art work with evocative installation shots—revealing how Tillmans reconfigures space and vision.

Complementing the visual narrative, incisive essays from a younger generation of writers offer fresh perspectives on themes central to Tillmans’s art: exposure, identity, perception, and the social force of images. Whether you're a photographer, art historian, curator or collector, this book captures the intensity and reflection of an artist at the height of his creative powers.