Featured Events in Paris in December, 2024(January Updated)

This is an opportunity to get to know this Italian artistic movement through the collection of works by thirteen of its main protagonists. Arte Povera is an Italian artistic movement that emerged on the international stage in the 1960s. From October 9, 2024 to January 27, 2025, this magnificent monument in the heart of Paris will host a major exhibition that traces the birth of this artistic movement in Italy and its international impact. Artists closely associated with this movement include Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Ioannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Plini and Gilberto Zorio. These artists, mainly from Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Milan and Rome, have truly changed the language of contemporary art by expanding the fields of painting, sculpture, drawing and photography.

This exhibition, titled "Eye", brings together 21 Chinese artists and selects a series of recent works including video, painting, installation, photography and new media. These artists, born between the late 1970s and early 1990s, witnessed the rapid economic development and drastic social changes in China after the reform and opening up. In their works, it is not difficult to see their profound thoughts on globalization, cultural heritage, social changes and technological progress.

On 9 October 2024, the Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection will host a major exhibition devoted to Arte Povera. Between legacies and influences, the exhibition comprises more than 250 historic and contemporary works, as well as pieces that have taken their inspiration from this major Italian artistic movement of the 1960s. This exhibition explains both the Italian birth and the international emanation of this movement through works by the thirteen main protagonists of Arte Povera: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, and Gilberto Zorio. Situated within the unique architecture of the Bourse de Commerce, transformed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the exhibition has been conceived as a landscape that one traverses and which becomes the terrain in which the infinite poetics of Arte Povera are rooted. Envisioned by the curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, an internationally recognised specialist of this artistic movement, the exhibition « Arte Povera » features some fifty historic, emblematic works from the Pinault Collection which have been placed in relation to pieces from other prestigious public and private collections.

This collective exhibition shines a spotlight on the upcoming contemporary Chinese art scene with works by 21 artists, drawing a subjective portrait for the first time in France. The opening of China to the world, environmental upheavals and the transformation of lifestyles in Chinese society are all topics that have been addressed in the contemporary creative output by this young generation of artists, born in the late 1970s through to the early 1990s, as China experienced a great economic boom. Under the theme of the character 目 (mù), meaning “eye”, with reference both to vision and the eye’s capacity to organise reality, the rich selection of works picked out by the Sino-French curators covers a broad spectrum of practices — video, painting, sculpture, installations, photography and new media — with emphasis on creations in recent years. In the post-Covid international scene, these works have not enjoyed much visibility abroad, but the Centre Pompidou has bolstered ties with this art scene during this period, thanks to the Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project partnership in Shanghai. Amid this teeming diversity, the exhibition homes in on salient themes regarding the artists’ practices. Core issues explored in the works of many of these artists include Chinese interaction with the rest of the world, thoughts about globalisation and global challenges, especially environmental breakdown. This generation of creators has also tapped into fertile themes such as the major changes in Chinese society, especially incessant transformations in lifestyle in ever-sprawling, urban agglomerations and the shifting paradigm of regulation of various flows and activities. A sense of China’s extraordinarily rich cultural and aesthetic heritage provides structure to the work of certain artists, who strive to place it in perspective and give it a fresh twist in a contemporary context. Lastly, the exhibition devotes a large section to new media, a particularly dynamic field in a country that has undergone swift, massive and intense digitisation of both its economy and society. Artists exhibited:Aaajiao,Alice Chen,Chen Fei,Chen Wei,Chu Yun,Cui Jie,Hao Liang,Hu Xiaoyuan,Li Ming,Liu Chuang,Lu Pingyuan,LuYang,Miao Ying,Nabuqi,Qiu Xiaofei,Shen Xin,Xun Sun,Wan Yang,Yao Qingmei,Yu JiandZhang Ding. After the exhibition, a considerable number of works representative of this generation of artists will be added to the Centre Pompidou collection.

Adrian Sutton presents “Curiosa Continua”, an exhibition of textile works and drawings by Serbian artist Emilija Radojicic, the artist’s first solo show with the gallery.

The collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, one of the three largest art museums in the Netherlands, will soon be exhibited in France, presenting 120 classical Italian paintings at the Custodia Foundation. The exhibits were created in the 15th and 16th centuries AD, and are from talented painters of the Italian Renaissance, such as Pisanello, Léonard de Vinci, Raphaël, Michel-Ange, Véronèse, Corrège, etc. A group of Renaissance paintings that were recently confirmed to belong to painters such as Pontormo, Federico Zuccaro, Aurelio Lomi, Pellegrino Tibaldi, etc., which were jointly studied by the two museums, will also be on display at the same time.

Adrian Sutton presents “Curiosa Continua”, an exhibition of textile works and drawings by Serbian artist Emilija Radojicic, the artist’s first solo show with the gallery.

Olga de Amaral is an internationally renowned artist whose bold style has left its mark on contemporary art, receiving praise and admiration around the world. The Fondation Cartier will present an unprecedented retrospective of the Colombian artist from October 12, 2024 to March 16, 2025. In this eponymous exhibition, Olga de Amaral takes us into her unique world of textiles, where her giant creations break away from traditional artistic norms. These abstract works can be paintings, sculptures, installations, and more. They draw on elements from the worlds of architecture and textiles to create unique and fascinating works. Olga de Amaral experiments with different textiles (linen, cotton, horsehair, gesso, gold leaf or palladium) to combine threads and give life to monumental installations. She varies the color, technique and size of her works according to her desires and explorations. Visitors will find themselves drawn to these organic, shimmering pieces that are almost alive.

Gagosian is pleased to announce Maison Ancart, an exhibition of new paintings by Harold Ancart, opening on October 14, 2024, at 4 rue de Ponthieu. The paintings in Maison Ancart are conceived in conversation with the spirit of radical freedom and innovation put forth by pioneering abstractionists, from the Post-Impressionists and the School of Paris to postwar American artists, among others. The trees, meadows, ponds, mountains, and other features operate as archetypal forms that Ancart revisits throughout this body of work. According to the artist, these subjects serve as an “alibi” for painting, providing a platform through which he can experiment with paint. Ancart develops his paintings with the medium of oil stick, using saturated colors and boldly defined forms to picture imagined places abstracted from landscape motifs. He emphasizes the primacy of his artmaking process, defining his subjects to alternately anchor the compositions and disrupt their stability. The viewpoints established are from below or straight on, emphasizing their scale and the artist’s negotiation of surface and depth, abstraction and representation. Made with attention to the boundaries between forms and their contours, the paintings are unified by Ancart’s articulation of horizons through juxtapositions of color, offering through lines across the canvases.

Works by 17 Perrotin artists have entered the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne–Centre Georges Pompidou through a joint donation by the gallery and its artists. 23 exceptional artworks have been given by Perrotin and Jean-Marie Appriou, Genesis Belanger, Sophie Calle, Maurizio Cattelan, Johan Creten, Elmgreen & Dragset, Lionel Estève, Bernard Frize, Laurent Grasso, JR, Bharti Kher, Klara Kristalova, Takashi Murakami, Jean- Michel Othoniel, Paola Pivi, Tavares Strachan, and Emma Webster to the Musée National d’Art Moderne–Centre Georges Pompidou.

What is intimacy and what are its limits? To whom can we confide our innermost thoughts, to whom do we want to show ourselves and our world? Over the centuries, intimacy has evolved in social revolutions. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs tells this fascinating story and invites us to look through the keyhole (literally) to discover intimacy through the ages. This major exhibition will be on view in the nave and side galleries of the museum from October 15, 2024 to March 30, 2025. It will bring together 470 pieces of decorative arts, paintings, everyday objects, photographs and historical artifacts. We will take a journey from the 18th century to the present day to discover the secrets and hidden lives of others. Intimacy can take many forms. The Museum of Decorative Arts explores 12 different themes, each revealing a facet of our times.

The great Scandinavian troublemakers of contemporary art, Elmgreen & Dragset are invited to place their poetic sculptures in dialogue with the iconic Nave of Sculptures of the Musée d’Orsay. Their exhibitions are always situated at the crossroads of performance, space and sculpture. The presentation they have created specifically for the Musée d’Orsay will shake up the gaze of visitors, invited to dive into a museum turned upside down.

From October 15, 2024 to January 19, 2025, the Musée national Picasso-Paris presents a new temporary exhibition devoted to the American artist Jackson Pollock. First exhibition in France since 2008, it will focus on his early works, from 1934 to 1947. The exhibition "Jackson Pollock: The Early Years (1934-1947)" revisits the early career of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), marked by the influence of regionalism and Mexican muralists, right up to his first drippings in 1947. This body of work, rarely exhibited for its own sake, bears witness to the diverse sources that nourished the young artist's research, crossing the influence of native American arts with that of the European avant-gardes, among which Pablo Picasso figures prominently. Compared to the Spanish painter and the great names of European painting by the critics, Pollock was quickly established as a true monument of American painting, and in so doing, isolated from the more complex networks of exchanges of influences that nourished his work during his New York years. The exhibition aims to present in detail these years, which were the laboratory for his work, by restoring the artistic and intellectual context from which both were nourished. The exhibition focuses on several key moments in the young Pollock's artistic and intellectual development during these years of experimentation. By calling on key figures in his artistic career (Charles Pollock, William Baziotes, Lee Krasner, André Masson, Pablo Picasso, Janet Sobel...), the exhibition highlights the intensity and singularity of his work in its various dimensions (painting and working with materials, printmaking, sculpture).

The exhibition The Solo Globe, which will run from October 16, 2024 to January 26, 2025, looks back at the history, great heroes, explorations and special features of the Vendée Globe The Vendée Globe, held every four years since 1989, is a truly special event in world sailing. Dozens of competitors (33 in 2020) sail solo around the world in a monohull. No stops are allowed, nor any assistance: a long and arduous journey awaits the sailors. Many incredible stories, both glories and tragedies, have taken place during this epic journey. For this exhibition, the Oceanographic Museum has brought together nearly 300 special pieces and objects to tell and explain the story of this race, its pioneers and its challenges. Exhibits include sailing paraphernalia, models, clothing, artwork, books and archival documents, as well as audio-visual programmes and never-before-seen interviews with racers.

The French Revolution is a well-known event, but 1793-1794 is also an important year in our history. The Cannavaro Museum will host an exhibition from October 16, 2024 to February 16, 2025 that explores the history of this year. In the second year of the Republican calendar, the period from September 1793 to September 1794 was the year of revolution, the so-called Reign of Terror, a time of breaking with the past to create the new. Renowned worldwide, the Cannavaro's French Revolution Collection presents this contrasting legacy through 250 works, including paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, historical and memory objects, wallpapers, posters, furniture, etc. During this period, the capital was the birthplace of dreams and utopias, but also of collective fear and violence, a veritable fermentation of art, sensitivity and thought in times of crisis, works that reflect the life of Parisians at the time.

Fools are everywhere. But are the fools of today the same as the fools of yesteryear? This fall, the Musée du Louvre is dedicating an unprecedented exhibition to the myriad figures of the fool, which permeated the pictorial landscape of the 13th to the 16thcenturies. Over the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the fool came to occupy every available artistic space, insinuating himself into illuminated manuscripts, printed books and engravings, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, and all manner of objects both precious and mundane. His fascinating, perplexing and subversive figure loomed large in the turmoil of an era not so different from our own. The exhibition examines the omnipresence of fools in Western art and culture at the end of the Middle Ages, and attempts to parse the meaning of these figures, who would seem to play a key role in the advent of modernity. The fool may make us laugh, with his abundance of frivolous antics, but he also harbours a wealth of hidden facets of an erotic, scatological, tragic or violent nature. Capable of the best and of the worst, the fool entertains, warns or denounces; he turns societal values on their head and may even overthrow the established order. Within the newly renovated Hall Napoléon, this exhibition, which brings together over 300works from 90French, European and American institutions, brings us on a one-of-a-kind journey through Northern European art (English, Flemish, Germanic, and above all French), illuminating the profane aspects of the Middle Ages and revealing a fascinating era of surprising complexity. The exhibition explores the disappearance of the figure of the fool with the Enlightenment and the triumph of reason, and its resurgence at the end of the 18thcentury and all throughout the 19th. The fool then became a figure with which artists identified, wondering: ‘What if I were the fool?’

Repeating patterns, bright colors, cultural symbols, codes from comic books or video games: for more than 60 years, the Pop Art movement has been known, admired and imitated around the world. The Fondation Louis Vuitton takes us back to the origins of Pop Art with a sensational new exhibition. From October 16, 2024 to March 3, 2025, the Fondation Louis Vuitton will present "Forever Pop, Tom Wesselmann and...", an exhibition that presents one of the most important art movements since the 1960s. The Fondation Louis Vuitton brings together 150 paintings, installations and other works, including many works by Tom Wesselmann, the artist regarded as one of the founders of Pop Art. He is joined by the unforgettable Andy Warhol, as well as Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Derek Adams, Jasper Johns, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Lauren Halsey, Marjorie Strider, Marisol, Kurt Schwitters... All the richness of Pop Art is represented. The exhibition even expands its scope, presenting 70 works by international artists from different decades and movements. From Dadaism to today's art world, the Louis Vuitton Foundation has chosen Pop Art to explore it from its earliest artistic roots to its lasting influence today. The exhibition also pays tribute to the famous American painter Tom Wesselmann. Tom Wesselmann, heir to a line of abstract artists, was drawn to the visual modernity of the 1950s and created a world of his own by combining classical practices with new genres. The exhibition includes his most famous installations and series, as well as works by artists inspired by him.

As part of its restoration project, the Louvre Museum wants to shed light on Watteau's painting "Le Pierrot, dit le Gilles". An emblematic work of the painter, this painting was not discovered until it was too late. Discover all the secrets of this figure and the influence he had on different fields of art from the 18th century to the present day. For this reason, the Louvre Museum will be organizing an exhibition around this painting of Pierrot, entitled "The Renaissance of Watteau", from October 16, 2024 to February 3, 2025. Watteau's painting is of course the centre of the exhibition, but it is not the only masterpiece in the collection. The exhibition also features several works by Watteau and his contemporaries, as well as paintings, photographs and drawings from more recent times. The Louvre Museum exhibits a total of 65 works, including seven paintings by Watteau. Piero was born on the comedy stage. Like Harlequin, Piero is a recurring character in comedy. Watteau was fascinated by this world of theater from an early age and drew inspiration from live performances to paint several scenes and portraits. However, it is unknown when the painter created Piero. The origin of this painting remains a mystery to this day, adding to the legendary nature of this fascinating work.

The MEP presents Science/Fiction - A Non-History of Plants. In development since 2020, this exhibition retraces the visual history of plants through art, technology, and science from the nineteenth century to the present day. Bringing together over 40 artists from different periods and nationalities, this exhibition juxtaposes historic photographic works such as Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes, Karl Blossfeldt’s inventory of plant forms and Laure Albin Guillot’s microscope experiments with creations by contemporary artists such as Jochen Lempert, Pierre Joseph, Angelica Mesiti, Agnieszka Polska, and Sam Falls.

This exhibition will bring together more than 70 works of trompe l'oeil from public institutions and private collections, spanning the 16th to the 21st century, and reviewing the development of the European trompe l'oeil art tradition. The exhibition will discuss some lesser-known aspects of trompe l'oeil art, such as its decorative use, its political influence in revolutionary history, and the interpretation of trompe l'oeil by modern and contemporary artists.

Jacques Prevert was known for his humor and imagination, but he also applied his imagination to the visual arts. More than 150 paintings, drawings, photographs, lithographs, manuscripts, film clips, objects and archives take us into the artist’s astonishingly surreal world. Texture, collage, color, eccentric characters in real scenes: Jacques Prevert uses contrast to createnew The originalreality. These works are poetic and dreamy, reflecting a worldview full of magic and wonder, almost childlike. The exhibition at the Montmartre Museum is divided into four chapters and traces the artist's life, the diversity of his works, his intimacy relationship and creative space, and the way he transforms everyday life into art.

The exhibition focuses on Stephen Jones’s creative process, the inspirations behind his work and the role of Paris in his work. There are nearly 400 works in the exhibition, including more than 170 hats, as well as Jones’ archive (preparatory drawings, photographs, runway show excerpts, etc.) and approximately 40 silhouettes with clothes and hats. These 'looks' bear witness to Stephen Jones' enduring loyalty to some of the world's leading fashion houses, not least Christian Dior, with whom he worked for nearly 30 years. This key figure has become the most 'French' of British milliners, bringing a bold energy and boundless creativity to Parisian fashion.

After Caravaggio, the Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera, who lived in Italy, established himself as one of the most fascinating interpreters of natural painting. An exceptional artist able to transcribe the almost tactile reality of individuals, flesh and objects, he interprets the dignity of everyday life and human tragedy with overwhelming acuity. Extremely radical, he favored raw realism, the violence of chiaroscuro and dramatic compositions. Unlike others, he used pictorial materials to reveal unprecedented roughness. His paintings, both brutal and poetic, offer an extremely personal interpretation of Caravaggio's revolution. The exhibition will also be an opportunity to present the artist's graphic work, including a large number of drawings and prints, which is rare among Caravaggio's major exponents. Recent discoveries have also added to his Roman corpus, including a group of paintings previously attributed to the Master of the Judgement of Solomon, shedding new light on the beginnings of his career. Ribera now establishes himself as one of the leading interpreters of Caravaggio's painting, one of the earliest and most radical.

Art : Concept presents Geert Goiris’ solo exhibition.

Art : Concept presents Geert Goiris’ solo exhibition.

Art : Concept presents Geert Goiris’ solo exhibition.

This exhibition, co-organized by the Clark Art Institute of Williamstown and the Louvre Museum, is the first major monograph devoted to an artist who is now largely forgotten, but who was nevertheless "one of the great authorities of his time" (Charles Blanc). Born in Guadeloupe to a freed slave mother of African origin and a royal officer father, he was trained in Rouen and then in Paris under the Ancien Régime and had a brilliant official career; director of the Académie de France in Rome (1807-1816), elected member of the Institute in 1818, he was a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1819. He was also a major collector and advisor to Lucien Bonaparte. His production illustrates the journey of an artist confronted with the upheavals of his time and the succession of regimes from the Revolution to the July Monarchy. Most of his painted and drawn work has ancient history as its subject. He began in the triumph of Davidian neo-classicism and his perseverance in this path would cause his discredit at the end of the 1820s, while the young generation of romantic artists gradually established themselves. Ancient heroism inspired two immense canvases of nearly eight meters long preserved at the Louvre, Brutus condemning his sons to death, completed in Rome in 1811, and The Death of Virginia (1828). Lethière's most famous painting, singular in his work The Oath of the Ancestors (Port-au-Prince, Haitian National Pantheon Museum) manifesto against slavery and for the freedom of peoples, is honored in the itinerary. Most of the works will be presented in Paris for the first time since the 19th century and the new research, carried out both for the exhibition and the catalog, will allow a true rediscovery of this artist.

David Zwirner is pleased to announce two exhibitions of paintings by On Kawara (1932–2014), which will be on view concurrently at the gallery’s Paris and London locations. The presentations are organized in collaboration with the One Million Years Foundation, established by the artist during his lifetime to ensure the legacy of his work and fluid approach to his practice. These exhibitions are the gallery’s first presentations of Kawara’s work since his death in 2014 and offer a rare opportunity to view two significant bodies of paintings by the artist. The presentation in Paris will feature four rarely seen early paintings made by Kawara in Tokyo in 1955 and 1956. For the young artist, an active and vocal participant in the city’s avant-garde art community, painting provided an avenue for thinking through the palpable collective trauma that loomed over his native country in the postwar years. Kawara quickly distinguished himself from his peers; rather than depicting atrocities that remained fresh in the minds of Japanese citizens, the artist chose to evoke their psychological resonances, marshaling form and content in service of one another to channel the elusive feelings of unease, anger, and disillusionment. These enigmatic and highly accomplished works, which count among the earliest known instances of an artist working on shaped canvases, simultaneously seem to collapse and expand space, drastically unmooring the viewer’s understanding of perspective and testifying to the experience of a particular time and place. Kawara’s first exhibition with David Zwirner took place in 1999. During his lifetime, the gallery mounted five solo presentations of the artist’s work, with subsequent shows taking place in 2001, 2004, 2009, and 2012. Learn more about the upcoming presentation in London.

Galerie Mitterrand | Temple presents a new exhibition by artist couple Anne and Patrick Poirier. Entitled 56e Campagne de Fouilles, 1968/2024, this fourth exhibition at the gallery is an unprecedented exploration of their work, in which Anne and Patrick Poirier are the archaeologists. “They exhume and present works from diverse periods and expressions, dating back to the 1970s when they reintroduced the concepts of ruins and memory into contemporary art.”

A Night Out with Lariba in Paris, Kwaku Yaro’s second solo exhibition at SEPTIEME Paris, is a variation on his first solo show presented in Cotonou in February 2023. This exhibition proposed an imaginary evening, where Lariba and his friends met in the working-class neighborhood of Labadi, in Ghana, after his return to Accra following his studies abroad. In this Parisian iteration, Kwaku Yaro continues his exploration of community and memory, while deepening the themes of hybridization and multiple identity.