Precious few days remain before the Centre Pompidou closes for five years of renovation work, leaving the Paris art scene without one of its crown jewels and main sources of gravity. The museum is open through this coming weekend before closing on September 22 and starting a long clock to mark its return.
That leaves three more days to see “Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us,” a photography show spread out over 65,580 square feet and conceived with the closure in mind. To mark the occasion, the Pompidou granted Tillmans the space in its Bibliothèque Publique d’Information, to encourage “a dialogue between his work and the library space, questioning it both as an architectural structure and as a place for the dissemination of knowledge,” per a show description.
When that’s over, the Pompidou’s activities will continue with its “Constellation” program, initiated in the spring, to disperse holdings from its collection to different institutions. Exhibitions under the aegis of “Constellation” include a Maurizio Cattelan show at Centre Pompidou-Metz, three-and-a-half hours away by car, through February of next year, as well as a “Highlights of the Pompidou” show at West Bund Museum in Shanghai and a Constantin Brancusi exhibition at H’ART Museum in Amsterdam. Other institutions involved include the Grand Palais and, beginning with its opening in a suburb of Paris next fall, the Centre Pompidou Francilien.
Material elements of the Centre Pompidou’s renovation work—awarded to the Moreau Kusunoki agency in collaboration with Frida Escobedo Studio—include asbestos removal from its distinctive facade (designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers), fortifying the building against corrosion, energy optimization, and work to improve accessibility. The work also encompasses what the museum calls “cultural aspects” including reconceiving its collection display and the layout of the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information, as well as “reconfiguring spatial organization to allow for greater emphasis on creation, and thereby reaffirming the Centre’s multidisciplinary identity.”
