Featured Events in Paris in April, 2025 (May Updated)

This project, labelled by the National Mission for the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation, was made possible thanks to loans from the following institutions: The Heritage and Photography Media Library (MPP), the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), the Contemporaine Library, the Communication and Audiovisual Production Agency for the Department of Defense (ECPAD), France Press Agency (AFP), the Liberation Museum, Hauts-de-Seine Départemental Archives, National Archives in Washington, the Liberation of Paris Museum –General Leclerc Museum –Jean Moulin Museum, and Gamma Rapho Keystone.

Gaza is home to a wealth of archaeological sites from all periods that are now in peril. The IMA is therefore offering an exceptional collection in more ways than one, made up of highly valuable pieces that the vagaries of history have saved from disaster and which reveal the depth of its history, a priceless treasure whose complexity is reflected in this exhibition. Since 2007, the Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) has become the museum-refuge for an archaeological collection of nearly 529 works belonging to the Palestinian National Authority and which have never been able to return to Gaza: these amphorae, statuettes, funerary steles, oil lamps, figurines, mosaics, etc., dating from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman era, form a collection that has become a reference in light of the recent destruction.

The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris presents the first retrospective in France devoted to the German artist Gabriele Münter (1877-1962). Co-founder of the Munich circle of the Blue Rider (Blaue Reiter), Gabriele Münter is one of the most eminent female artists of German Expressionism. In an artistic world dominated by men, she was able to create an extremely personal and diverse body of work that spans six decades.

Adéla Janská’s practice is a meditation on form and perception, a delicate unravelling of selfhood tracing contours of femininity with an ethereal hand. Her subjects, often female figures - unyielding and imbued with a spectral grace - exist within a liminal space where their very stillness exude a sense of mystery and enigmatic depth. With their impenetrable surfaces concealing layers of meaning beneath the fragile gleam of porcelain glass skin, these delicate effigies, drawn from her childhood memory of playing with paper dolls, or inspired by from her collection of Bohemian and Bavarian figurines, serve as symbols - untouchable, eternal, their surfaces unmarked by time or physicality.

The exhibition "Agnès Varda's Paris, Here and There" explores the work of Agnès Varda (1928-2019) from a unique perspective. It showcases the artist's still little-known photographic oeuvre and reveals the pivotal role of the courtyard-studio on Rue Daguerre (Paris 14th arrondissement), a space where she lived and created from 1951 to 2019. More generally, it demonstrates the importance of Paris in a free and abundant oeuvre that never takes easy paths and wonderfully creates a dialogue between documentary and fiction.

Since the Renaissance, the book in art has symbolized knowledge, with the codex—both as an object and a concept—becoming a metonym for scholarship and learning. In the digital age, where text is increasingly detached from its printed medium, Tornabuoni Art Paris presents The Book. Object Between Memory and Symbol, a project bringing together a selection of Italian and international artists who have explored the book not only for its literary content but also for its symbolic value. Aiming to offer a broad international panorama of the use of books in contemporary art, the exhibition features works by Vincenzo Agnetti, Alighiero Boetti, Jean Boghossian, Pascal Convert, Chiara Dynys, Emilio Isgrò, Anselm Kiefer, Giulio Paolini, Claudio Parmiggiani, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Yinka Shonibare, and Chen Zhen.

Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris, presents Tableaux en Laine, Pierres en Bronze, a solo exhibition by Sarah Crowner, uniting a new series of embroideries, bronze sculptures and canvases. This is the artist’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery, and her first presentation in Paris.

This exhibition deliberately makes such blurriness a key that opens another interpretation of a whole area of modern and contemporary visual creation. Initially defined as “loss of distinctness”, blurriness has shown itself to be the favourite means of expression in a world where instability reigns and visibility is clouded. It was on the ruins left by the Second Word War that this out-of-focus aesthetic took root and began to deploy its inevitably political dimension. The Cartesian principle of discernment, which had prevailed in art for so long, now appeared altogether inoperative. With the erosion of visible certainties and in the face of the range of possibilities available to them as a result, artists came up with new approaches, shaping their works out of the transitory, disorder, movement, incompleteness and doubt… Taking note of a fundamental shift in the world order, they opted for the indeterminate, the indistinct and allusion. This distancing from naturalistic clarity went hand-in-hand with a quest for polysemy, expressed by a permeability of mediums and more importance being assigned to the beholder’s interpretation. Instrument of sublimation as much as manifestation of a latent truth, blurriness became both symptom and remedy of a world in search of meaning.

World-renowned for its stone monuments, Khmer art also produced significant bronze statuary, knowledge of which has undergone spectacular advances thanks to recent excavations. The Guimet Museum is dedicating the exhibition Royal Bronzes of Angkor: An Art of the Divine to bronze. The highlight of this exhibition is the statue of the reclining Vishnu from the Western Mebon—an 11th-century sanctuary west of Angkor—discovered in 1936, which originally measured over five meters in length. This Cambodian national treasure will be exhibited for the first time with its long-separated fragments, after benefiting from a scientific analysis and restoration campaign in France in 2024, with the patronage of ALIPH (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage). It will be accompanied by more than 200 works, including 126 exceptional loans from the National Museum of Cambodia, whose presence allows for a chronological journey of bronze art in Cambodia, from the 9th century to the present day, through a journey leading the visitor to the major sites of Khmer heritage.

Guillaume Bottazzi a réalisé un tableau fruité en face du parc Montsouris. Il est visible de l’extérieur, au 34-36 avenue Reille, à Paris dans le 14ème arrondissement. Ce tableau apporte l’art ou on ne l’attend pas forcément et accompagne le quotidien des habitants. Cette huile sur toile de lin mesure 0,90m de haut par 1,80m de large. Elle a été conçue pour habiller l’entrée d’un bâtiment et dialogue avec les éléments qui l’entourent. L’artiste a déjà créé plus de 65 œuvres dans des espaces publics, comme un polyptique de 100m² à Paris La Défense, à Hong-Kong ou au Japon où il est l'auteur de la plus grande peinture du Pays, commandée par le Musée International d'Art Miyanomori. Ses œuvres font partie de collections muséales, notamment en Asie et aux Etats-Unis.

Guillaume Bottazzi a réalisé un tableau fruité en face du parc Montsouris. Il est visible de l’extérieur, au 34-36 avenue Reille, à Paris dans le 14ème arrondissement. Ce tableau apporte l’art ou on ne l’attend pas forcément et accompagne le quotidien des habitants.Cette huile sur toile de lin mesure 0,90m de haut par 1,80m de large. Elle a été conçue pour habiller l’entrée d’un bâtiment et dialogue avec les éléments qui l’entourent. L’artiste a déjà créé plus de 65 œuvres dans des espaces publics, comme un polyptique de 100m² à Paris La Défense, à Hong-Kong ou au Japon où il est l'auteur de la plus grande peinture du Pays, commandée par le Musée International d'Art Miyanomori. Ses œuvres font partie de collections muséales, notamment en Asie et aux Etats-Unis. Site internet de Guillaume Bottazzi : https://www.guillaume.bottazzi.org

En 2024, pour la 8e édition des prix AWARE, deux prix seront attribués : le prix Nouveau Regard, récompensant une artiste en milieu decarrière et le prix d’honneur, attribué à une artiste justifiant de plus de 40 ans decarrière. À nouveau cette année, quatre rapporteur·euse·s – professionnel·le·sengagé·e·s du monde de la culture – présélectionneront chacun·e un duo d’artistes, nommées respectivement au prix Nouveau Regard et au prix d’honneur, et présenteront et défendront leur travail devant un jury composé de sept figures majeures du monde de la culture. Les quatre rapporteur·euse·spour l’édition 2024 sont Simona Dvorák, Antoine Idier, Noelia Portela et Olivier Zeitoun. Simona Dvorák Simona Dvorák est curatrice et historienne de l’art basée à Paris. Elle s’intéresseà des pratiques performatives, sonores, radiophoniques et vidéo, en mettanten valeur un travail collectif à long terme. En tant que curatrice au sein de l’Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, elle étudie la manière dont nous pouvons créer des espaces communs et solidaires dans la sphère culturelle. Son travail souligne l’importance des « processus d’exposition » qui anticipent les futurs possibles : antisexistes, antiracistes, inclusifs. Plus récemment, elle a été boursière du programme Art et éducation à la documenta fifteen à Kasselet a collaboré sur la conception du programme public Walking with Water, imaginé en relation avec le pavillon serbe de la 59e Biennale de Venise. Elle a été également chargée de programmation au Centre Pompidou à Paris ouelle a notamment travaillé sur le programme Cultures d’avenir. Actuellement, Dvorák est curatrice invitée, avec Tadeo Kohan, pour le programme « actes delangage » à la Maison populaire de Montreuil. Parallèlement, elle développe un projet de recherche sur la politique des archives au Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, en collaboration avec Merv Espina. Antoine Idier Antoine Idier est maître de conférences en science politique à Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, où il coordonne les enseignements « Art & culture » et dirige le Master Politiques de création. Il a publié de nombreux ouvrages, dont Les Vies de GuyHocquenghem. Politique, sexualité, culture(Fayard, 2017), Archives des mouvements LGBT+ (Textuel, 2018), Pureté etimpureté de l’art. Michel Journiac et le Sida (Sombres torrents, 2020) ou encore Résistances Queer. Une histoire des cultures LGBTQI+(avec Pochep, Delcourt/La Découverte, 2023). Il a édité des écrits de Guy Hocquenghem (Un journal de rêve, Verticales, 2017) et de yann beauvais (Agir le cinéma, Presses du réel, 2021). En 2022-2023, il a été commissaire de l’exposition Dans les marges. Trente ans du fonds Michel Chomarat à la bibliothèque de Lyon. Pour un projet en cours d’écriture, il a également reçu une bourse de recherche de la fondation Robert Rauschenberg. Noelia Portela Noelia Portela est commissaire d’exposition indépendante et coordinatrice de projets culturels basée à Paris. Noelia Portela est diplômée de l’école d’Architecture et de Design de l’université Victoria de Wellington en Nouvelle-Zélande. En 2017, elle fonde Persona Curada, un projet curatorial itinérant et expérimental à but non lucratif qui vise à promouvoir l’art contemporain latino-américain, mis en perspective avec la scène artistique française. Avec Persona Curada, elle organise des expositions, des projections, des performances et des débats en collaboration avec des institutions et des espaces d’art contemporain. Ses textes ont été publiés dans des revues comme Artishock Magazine (Chile), Relieve Contemporaneo (Argentina) et Obra Latinoamericana (Suisse). Olivier Zeitoun Olivier Zeitoun est attaché de conservation au département Design et Prospective industrielle du Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, à Paris. Diplômé en philosophie, histoire de l’art et en sciences sociales, il est l’auteur de nombreux articles et essais sur les enjeux liés aux champs du numérique et du vivant, dans l’art et le design. Il a été co-commissaire des expositions « La Fabrique du Vivant » (Centre Pompidou, 2019), « Réseaux-Mondes » (Centre Pompidou, 2022), « Mimésis, un design vivant » (Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2022), avec Marie-Ange Brayer, et a co-dirigé les catalogues les accompagnant. Il poursuit ses activités de commissariat, d’enseignement, de recherche et de publications en tant que commissaire et critique indépendant. Il ouvrira prochainement au Huidenclub, à Rotterdam, avec Léo Orta, l’exposition « Design Sediments ».

“Chaosmos” is an invitation to 12 artists to tell us about the cosmos and invent new ways of inhabiting the Earth. Welcome to Chaosmos, a world that deconstructs, in order to better reconstruct, in time and space, the place in the universe that we attribute to ourselves and the way in which we inhabit the world, the traces that we leave there, the links that we establish there. From this precariously balanced zone emerge the works of twelve contemporary artists, from several countries around the world: South Africa, Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Guyana, Japan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia. They evoke the relationship between our conception of the cosmos and our attitude towards the preservation of life on Earth.

The latest creation of the Atelier des Lumières takes you on the first steps of naive art in France. Spontaneous, dreamlike, sometimes childish, this new approach to painting is embodied in the works of Henri Rousseau. At the end of the 19th century, this self-taught painter and pioneer of naive art drew his inspiration from observing in detail the vegetation and animals from elsewhere, from the greenhouses and menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Mocked by his contemporaries, but admired by avant-gardists such as Delaunay, Apollinaire, Picasso and Kandinsky, his idealistic painting with bright colors and clumsy perspectives would later allow him to free himself from the academic standards of the time by opening the way to modernity in painting. Henri Rousseau makes you rediscover the Paris of the industrial era, populated by frozen characters who observe us under a sky where zeppelins and hot air balloons float. Without ever having left France, he also weaves the colorful story in the heart of a dense plant kingdom where the eyes of tigers pierce the foliage and the landscapes transport us to imaginary lands. In this parallel universe where the reality of everyday life is invaded by a profusion of dreamlike details, the one who was nicknamed "Customs Officer" because of his job at the Paris grant, invites us to escape by dreaming with our eyes wide open, from France to a jungle with the scent of Eden.

The latest creation by the Atelier des Lumières takes you back to the early days of Naïve art in France. Spontaneous, dreamlike, and sometimes childlike, this inventive approach to painting is embodied in the works of Henri Rousseau.

The Musée Delacroix presents a new display to explore the stages of creation and reflect upon the status of a painting, whether it is an original, a copy or a reproduction.

This new exhibition offers visitors a powerful journey through art and history, showcasing how artists and intellectuals in exile during World War II used their creativity to champion a ‘certain French spirit’ and the values of freedom.

This exhibition offers an exceptional insight into the artistic practice of Austrian architect, artist, designer, theorist and Pritzker Prize winner Hans Hollein (1934–2014). Famously declaring that ‘everything is architecture’, he pioneered an expansion of the very concept of architecture. The exhibition presents a selection of visionary architectural drawings and conceptual works, as well as objects and artefacts, that reimagine spaces, structures, cities and their communicative possibilities. Spanning the 1960s, the works are situated at a decisive period in Hollein’s early career that established him at the forefront of the international avant-garde.

Galerie Maria Wettergren presents the exhibition, Over The Rainbow, the first solo show of Finnish artist Camilla Moberg. The rainbow represents hope in many cultures, and Moberg’s large luminous sculptures, with their vibrant colors, radiate a particularly joyful beauty—despite their otherwise serious underlying message. Handcrafted in blown glass in Nuutajärvi, Finland’s oldest glassmaking village, Moberg’s sculptures reflect her thoughts on biodiversity and its preservation. Their totem-like structure is inspired by the stacking of natural stones observed throughout history and across various cultures, symbolizing unity and the connection between humans and nature.

Since the 1990s, he has been developing a body of work centred on the passage of time, largely consisting of videos and related drawings, studies, storyboards and dissertations on various projects. Claerbout invites the viewer to explore the plurality of the experience of duration through perception of often miniscule changes. His film Boom (1996), for example, is a slow, attentive observation of a magnificent tree in the countryside. Only the air flowing through its leaves tells us that the image is in motion, prompting us to view it with a demanding yet contemplative eye. The image, simple and beautiful, exerts an unaccustomed fascination by depicting the self-evidence of the tree’s existence in the world.

Through an exceptional collection of nearly 230 works, "L'art est dans la rue" explores the spectacular rise of the illustrated poster in Paris during the second half of the 19th century. Organized in partnership with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the exhibition is the first of its kind on this scale. In fact, no major event in Paris has ever been devoted to this social phenomenon, bringing together so many outstanding works by the "Masters of the Poster". Bonnard, Chéret, Grasset, Mucha, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec... Conceived as an immersion into the visual universe of the 19th century city, the exhibition traces the golden age of the artistic poster, analyzing the social and cultural changes that favored its development, in dialogue with a unique collection of posters, paintings, photographs, costumes, sculptures and decorative objects that evoke the exuberant world of the street at the turn of the century.

Thanks to the cooperation of many important institutions, the exhibition "Tous Léger!" is on display at the Luxembourg Museum. The exhibition is curated based on the museum's existing collection, and the works of modern art pioneer Fernand Léger (1881-1955) are in dialogue with the works of European and American avant-garde artists from the 1960s to the present. The title of the exhibition has multiple meanings: on the one hand, it directly refers to Fernand Léger's name Léger, emphasizing his central position in the exhibition, while also implying the approachability and integration of art advocated by Léger and his new realism movement into daily life, suggesting a "light (Léger)" and unpretentious attitude.

The exhibition brings together more than 50 aphorisms by Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, dated from 1998 to 2025.

Congratulations to Galleria Continua artist Zhanna Kadyrova for winning the first Her Art 2025 Prize, launched by Marie Claire and Maison Boucheron during the 2025 Paris Art Fair. She was selected from 12 finalists and continues to inspire with her powerful works and dedication to art. Her new solo exhibition "Strategic Locations" is on view at Galleria Continua in Paris until May 28 this year. The exhibition brings together works created by the artist in specific locations deeply affected by war, including conflict zones, occupied territories and changing front lines. The new works presented by the artist explore nature as a battlefield, where the land becomes a devastated landscape and cities are reshaped as military strongholds, destroying human life while destroying ecology, and transforming nature into an economic and military strategic resource.

GALLERIA CONTINUA presents Descendencia (Descendance), the new solo exhibition by Cuban visual artist Osvaldo González, in its Paris space in the heart of the Marais. This exhibition offers a poetic exploration of time, memory, and inheritance, constructing a cartography of the artist’s most intimate universe.

Conceived in homage to Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition presents a conversation between works by artists who have challenged the conventions of form, material, and perception, highlighting the evolution of their practices. The exhibition gathers defining works by key postwar figures Walter De Maria, Lucio Fontana, Donald Judd, Piero Manzoni, Mario Merz, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol.

Mitterrand presents a new exhibition by Cuban artist Agustín Cárdenas.Featured in the Paris Noir exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Cárdenas is one of the three great sculptors of Surrealism, alongside Arp and Giacometti (1). While his work embodies his Latin-American and African origins, its strong symbolism and extreme liberty frees it from their respective references. Working with wood, marble, and bronze, Cárdenas developed poetic, curved, and sensual works in which organic generosity, elongated silhouettes, and abstract forms all mix together. The abstract nature of his volumes is almost always counterbalanced by a figurative representation, which is suggested by his chosen titles. Totems, shells, women, couples, horses, doors, stele: Cárdenas worked with an array of highly symbolic subjects providing him with the pretext to explore many facets of creation across various forms.

Bigaignon presents Thomas Paquet’s new solo exhibition entitled “Oh Light!”. The exhibition delves into the essence of light, uncovering its intricate nuances through a series of experiments in which the artist reimagines traditional darkroom techniques.

The French painter and sculptor Max Ernst and the Cuban painter Joaquín Ferrer are two important artists born on opposite sides of the Atlantic whose deep friendship and artistic exchange have been little known. In the 1960s, the two artists met for the first time during lunch at the home of the poet and writer Alain Bosquet. At that time, Ernst was already a well-known artist, and Ferrer was a young painter who had just arrived in Paris on a scholarship from the Cuban government. This unique encounter will be revived at the Galleria Continua Matignon during the Paris Spring Art Week.