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

As a palace of French classical art, the Louvre will open its doors to fashion for the first time and hold its first fashion-themed exhibition in history in 2025, displaying the museum's art treasures alongside classic fashion works and works by young designers. The exhibition will display 65 classic fashions, 30 high-end accessories and dozens of works by contemporary young designers in a space of 9,000 square meters, engaging in dialogue with the art from the Byzantine to the Second French Empire period treasured by the Louvre. Hundreds of fashion works resonate with the historical style and cultural connotation of decorative art in an academic, moving and poetic way, illustrating the real close connection between fashion and decoration. Important exhibits include fashion designed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and masterpieces by well-known fashion brands such as Yohji Yamamoto. At the same time, a special tribute is paid to Parisian fashion pioneer Ms. Marie-Louise Carven.

From January 17 to June 30, 2025, the Galerie du Patrimoine, located in the boutique at 20, place Vendôme, in Paris, is hosting the exhibition “Nuances de Bleu par Van Cleef & Arpels”. A selection bringing together nearly 60 jewelry and watch creations from the Heritage Collection and nine original archives, offers an immersion into the heart of the blue palette deployed by the House since its founding in 1906.

At the invitation of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca (b. 1961) has created a site-specific work in the chapel of the Hôtel Salé. Since his intervention at the Venice Biennale in 2007, Kuitca has developed a new language, echoing the architecture, which the artist calls ‘cubistoid painting’, in which a set of intersecting lines, like so many folds in the plane, is deployed directly on the walls, forming a new pictorial space.

L'Atelier des Lumières takes us into the rich and iconic world of Pablo Picasso, the essential artist of the 20th century. From February 14 to June 29, 2025, don't miss the exhibition Picasso, Art in Motion. Considered one of the fathers of modern art, he revolutionized the art world of the 20th century. Loved and hated alike, Pablo Picasso and his works leave no one indifferent. L'Atelier des Lumières is devoting a major exhibition to the Spanish painter and sculptor, from February 14 to June 29, 2025.Breaking all the codes and stylistic rules of the time, Picasso wanted to reinvent his way of seeing reality, representing it and magnifying it. Particularly renowned for his work on cubism, the artist left an indelible mark on the art world. The Picasso, Art in Motion exhibition plunges us into the many works of this painter, who was also a sculptor, engraver, ceramist and theater designer...

From the creation of the journal Présence Africaine to Revue Noire, "Paris Noir" traces the presence and influence of Black artists in France from the 1940s to the 2000s. The exhibition highlights 150 African and Afro-descendant artists, from Africa to the Americas, whose works have often never been shown in France. All contributed to a cosmopolitan Paris—a place of resistance and creativity—that fostered a wide variety of practices, from identity awareness to the search for transcultural artistic languages. Their impact is particularly significant in the redefinition of modernities and postmodernities.The exhibition explores half a century of struggles for emancipation, from African independence movements to the fall of apartheid, including battles against racism in France.

The Centre Pompidou dedicates a monograph to Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938), an iconic and bold artist, one of the most important of her generation. On the fringes of the dominant movements of her time—cubism and abstract art were emerging while she ardently advocated for the necessity of painting the real—she placed the nude, both female and male, at the center of her work, depicting bodies without artifice or voyeurism.

This exhibition reviews the prosperity and integration of natural science and natural painting under the rule of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612). Rudolf II was an avid lover of art and science. Under his encouragement, a large number of European scientists and artists gathered at the Prague court to jointly promote the development of new research and new ideas. The first part of the exhibition presents the intersection of science and art. At the court of Rudolf II, scientists carried ancient knowledge and used new methods of observation, experimentation, research and measurement to explore nature; at the same time, artists used scientific observation perspectives and depiction techniques to use their brushes to establish artistic archives for the animals and plants around them. The second part focuses on how natural research stimulated the innovation of Prague's artistic creation, and how artists developed new techniques, perspectives and ideas under the joint action of plein-airism and scientific research.

The Musée d'Orsay's exhibition devoted to Norwegian artist Christian Krohg is the artist's first-ever retrospective outside Scandinavia, following several exhibitions in Oslo and Lillehammer in 2012, and Copenhagen in 2014. By highlighting Krohg's naturalistic and committed works, the museum offers a new perspective on Norwegian art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Louvre’s Department of Near Eastern Antiquities is hosting ten major works from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art is currently closed for renovation. The Louvre and The Met have created a unique dialogue between these two collections, which is displayed in the Louvre’s permanent galleries. These ‘special guest’ artworks from The Met, dating from between the late 4th millennium BC and the 5th century AD, show some remarkable connections with the Louvre’s collection. In some cases, a pair of objects has been reunited for the first time, while in others, pieces complement each other by virtue of specific historical features of their respective collections. Representing Central Asia, Syria, Iran and Mesopotamia, this dialogue between collections is (re)introducing visitors to these extraordinary, age-old works of art and the stories they tell.

The Musée national Picasso-Paris collection is the fruit of an extraordinary history, made possible by the dation procedure - today it is the largest public collection of works by Picasso, the "Picassos of Picasso". Coming from the artist's studios, this collection gives us a better grasp of the aesthetic explorations of a Picasso who was by turns disconcerting, plural, contradictory, reflexive, gestural and conceptual, an aesthete and a committed activist, a tinkerer and a poet. Is he symbolist, cubist, classical, surrealist or simply figurative and political?

French post-Impressionist female painter Suzanne Valadon was the first female member of the French Artists Association. She served as a model for Impressionist masters such as Renoir, Degas, and Modigliani of the Paris School. Legend has it that she taught herself to become a professional painter from a painter's model. She walked from behind the drawing board to the drawing board, cleverly and harmoniously, brightly and powerfully, and was not influenced by any school or style. The exhibition will display more than 100 works, covering oil paintings, sketches and prints, plaster and bronze sculptures, etc. The relevant documentary materials play an auxiliary role in our review of the career of a female artist who played an important role in Paris, including her multiple interactions with the avant-garde art circles at the time.

From January 30, 2025,throughJanuary 4, 2026, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech invites you to experienceYves Saint Laurent: The Hamish Bowles Collection, fifty-three odes to elegance, brought to life through an outstanding loan that will enthral visitors.

The exhibition "Golden Thread. The art of dressing from north Africa to the far east", on show at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac until 6 July 2025, focuses on gold in the textile arts from Antiquity to the present day. This plunge into the history of this fascinating and precious metal takes visitors on a journey around the globe, from North Africa to the Middle East, via Japan, China and India. The exhibition also highlights the richness, technicality, inventiveness and expertise of the weavers, embroiderers and craftsmen who have been sublimating fabrics and silks since the dawn of time. This is a unique opportunity to admire a selection of traditional and ceremonial outfits, festive and wedding dresses from North Africa and the Orient, drapes and sparkling costumes from Asia and India, kimonos from the Edo period... and many other textile treasures. Modern creations by Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei are also on show.

When the mirror ball reflects thousands of stars, the Philharmonie de Paris is brewing a cross-century cultural carnival! This art palace famous for classical music is going to put on a gorgeous battle robe for disco music. Starting from Valentine's Day 2025, the six-month-long "Disco, I'm coming out" special exhibition will take you stepping on colorful notes and return to the golden age of freedom and rebellion. Here, every pair of dancing shoes hides a story, and every melody is a declaration of cultural revolution.

From February 18 to May 25, 2025, the Musée national Picasso Paris presents its new temporary exhibition: "‘Degenerate’" art. Modern art on trial under the Nazis". The first exhibition in France devoted to so-called "degenerate" art, it explores and puts into perspective the Nazi regime's methodical attack on modern art.

This monographic exhibition is dedicated to Austrian architect Hans Hollein (1934-2014), most commonly associated with the postmodernist movement following his participation in the inaugural Venice Architecture Biennale in 1980 and his colonnaded façade proposal for the Strada Novissima project. Bringing together the most emblematic pieces from an œuvre spanning over fifty years, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on the coherence of his artistic and critical approach, viewed through the lens of his engagement with various movements that shaped the post-avant-garde from the 1960s to the 1980s—from informal art to conceptual art, including radical architecture.

Housed in the classic rotunda structure of the Paris Stock Exchange, the Pinault Museum presents Corps et âmes, a selection of about a hundred works from the Pinault Collection, exploring the representation of the body in contemporary art as a response to the huge panorama of paintings that surround the building's glass dome. The exhibition explores the meaning of the body in contemporary thought through works by about forty artists from the Pinault Collection. Freed from all constraints of mimesis, the body - whether photographed, sculpted, painted, photographed or drawn - constantly reinvents itself, thus giving art an essential organic quality that allows it to feel the pulse of the body and the soul, like an umbilical cord.

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.

The Jacquemart-Andre Museum hosts a retrospective of the works of Italian female painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c. 1656), looking back on her fearless life and creative career and exploring her position in the history of 17th century painting.

Before its five-year hiatus, the Centre Pompidou presents Paris Noir, an exhibition focusing on African artists active in Paris between the 1940s and 2000. African artists have received much attention in recent years, and they have practiced and explored various fields from international abstractionism to African and Atlantic abstractionism, from surrealism to free painting, in order to seek identity recognition. However, many of their works have never been exhibited in France before. The exhibition includes works by 150 artists from the United States and Africa. Five contemporary African artists have specially created five art installations for the exhibition, interpreting the memories of African artists in Paris from a contemporary perspective.

A pioneer of Neo-Impressionism and a pillar of anarchist and libertarian circles, Maximilien Luce (1858-1941) marked his era with a profound artistic and political commitment. A painter of urban and rural landscapes and the human condition, he captured the social and industrial transformations of his time with a unique sensitivity. The first Parisian retrospective since 1983 dedicated to this major Neo-Impressionist painter, the exhibition is held just steps from where Luce resided from 1887 to 1900, on Rue Cortot. Rooted in the history of Montmartre and the contradictions of his time, the painter's work is highlighted in this exhibition, which aims to reaffirm his importance and introduce his often overlooked oeuvre to the general public. Besides the humanist character that made the man's heart beat and distinguished his entire oeuvre, landscape was the other dominant theme that animated his painting throughout his life. Luce captures light and color, revealing the beauty of urban and rural landscapes with a persistent social sensitivity. For the exhibition "Maximilien Luce, the Instinct for Landscape," the Musée de Montmartre has chosen to present his work through the prism of landscape, taking visitors on a retrospective journey between the two essential centers of his life: Paris and Rolleboise. Visitors are invited to follow the artist's wanderings from Montmartre, where he lived from 1887 to 1900, through the bustle of the Parisian streets, and through his travels from Saint-Tropez to the Pays-Noir of Charleroi, via the Netherlands, Normandy, and London.

Jean Chatelus, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 82, was a Lyon-born historian and lecturer at the Sorbonne. Throughout his life, he amassed a collection unique, driven more by an impulse to accumulate than by a traditional collector’s approach. Comprising nearly 400 pieces—sculptures, installations, paintings, photographs, drawings, votive and vernacular objects—the collection explores themes of the body, death, and the fleeting nature of life.Presented almost in its entirety, the collection reflects Chatelus’s evolving tastes: from an early fascination with Surrealism and repurposed objects, to a later focus on body art. It also reveals his keen interest in non-Western ethnographic artifacts, folk traditions, and the works of contemporary art’s outsiders and enfant terribles, including Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, Christian Boltanski, Yayoi Kusama, Michel Journiac, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Filliou, Nam June Paik, Joana Vasconcelos, Andres Serrano, and Wim Delvoye.

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.