Observer’s Guide to the Must-See Shows During Paris Art Week
Since Brexit and the aftermath of the pandemic, Paris has experienced a surge of galleries and art players relocating to or setting up shop in the city. The arrival of Art Basel—now officially rebranded as Art Basel Paris from Paris+ par Art Basel—has fueled excitement and elevated expectations, reestablishing France’s capital as Europe’s leading hub for art and culture. With Paris Art Week kicking off and Art Basel energizing the entire city with its third edition, these are the exhibitions you shouldn’t miss.
“Pop Forever, Tom Wesselman &…” at Fondation Louis Vuitton
Centered around Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004), the new exhibition at the Frank Gehry-designed Louis Vuitton Fondation in Paris delves into the lasting impact of Pop Art across generations—bridging the past, present and future. The show features 150 of Wesselmann’s paintings and works in various materials, alongside seventy pieces by thirty-five artists from different generations and nationalities, all of whom critically engaged with the pop culture of their time. Their explorations trace the movement’s Dadaist roots and its contemporary expressions through appropriation and collage strategies. Spanning pop culture and art from 1920 to today, this exhibition includes works by Derrick Adams, Ai Weiwei, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Evelyne Axell, Thomas Bayrle, Frank Bowling, Rosalyn Drexler, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvie Fleury, Lauren Halsey, Richard Hamilton, David Hammons, Jann Haworth, Barkley L. Hendricks, Hannah Höch, Jasper Johns, KAWS, Kiki Kogelnik, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Claes Oldenburg, Meret Oppenheim, Eduardo Paolozzi, Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse, James Rosenquist, Kurt Schwitters, Marjorie Strider, Do Ho Suh, Mickalene Thomas, Andy Warhol and Tadanori Yokoo.
“Pop Forever, Tom Wesselman &…” is on view at Fondation Louis Vuitton through February 24, 2025.
“Arte Povera” at La Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection
Fondation Pinault is celebrating the groundbreaking Italian movement Arte Povera with an expansive exhibition curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. The show features more than 250 works from the movement’s leading figures, alongside thirteen contemporary artists whose practices resonate with Arte Povera. These include works by David Hammons, William Kentridge, Jimmie Durham and Anna Boghiguian from the 1980s; Pierre Huyghe, Grazia Toderi and Adrián Villar Rojas from the 1990s; and Mario Garcia Torres, Renato Leotta, Agnieszka Kurant, Otobong Nkanga, Theaster Gates and D Harding from the 2000s. At the heart of the exhibition are iconic works from the main Arte Povera pioneers, including 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. It also showcases rare items and documents tracing the critical phases of the movement’s formation.
The artists of Arte Povera embarked on experimental practices, blending material and philosophical research with radical engagement in energy and mediums. They sought an alternative model of co-creation, working with elements that activated flows of physical, chemical, and psychic energy. Emerging in the 1960s as a reaction to the rapid industrialization of Italy and the disintegration of its rural traditions, Arte Povera embraced everyday objects and natural materials, often engaging with the inherent processes of matter to explore new, life-rooted forms of artistic expression.
“Arte Povera” at La Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection is on view through January 20, 2025.
Marianne Boesky in Paris and Ghada Amer at the Domaine National du Palais-Royal
Coinciding with Art Basel, the American dealer is hosting a pop-up in Paris, showcasing a selection of works by some of the top artists in their roster. Featured artists include new gallery addition Thalita Hamaoui, alongside Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Danielle McKinney, the Haas Brothers, Sarah Meyohas, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Suzanne McClelland, Hannah van Bart and Ghada Amer. Amer is also presenting a series of public installations, Paravent Girls (2021–2023), as part of the public programs for Art Basel Paris. The three monumental bronze sculptures—Suzy Playing (2021), Jennifer and Barbara (2022), and L’étonnement d’Amélie (2022)—on view at the Domaine National du Palais-Royal, evoke oriental screens despite being made of solid bronze. These pieces conceal the gaze, protecting the subject while simultaneously triggering a voyeuristic allure, inviting viewers to reflect on the boundaries between public and private life. Amer’s work navigates dualities—feminine and masculine, craft and art, abstraction and figuration, East and West. In the Paravent series, she embarks on a material journey that begins with drawings on cardboard, manipulated by hand in clay, and ultimately cast in bronze, as she delves into the dynamics of looking and the complexities of the gaze.
“Boesky in Paris” will be on view through October 23 at 24 Rue de Penthiévre, Paris.
Jean Marie Appriou and Lynn Chadwick at Galerie Perrotin
The French dealer has embraced this art week with two ambitious exhibitions, each focused on the sculptural practices of visionary artists from different generations: contemporary French artist Jean-Marie Appriou and modernist British sculptor Lynn Chadwick. Both artists have pushed the boundaries of their medium to envision fantastical beings and natural evolutions, exploring the future possibilities of sculpture.
In his second show with the gallery, Jean-Marie Appriou’s sculptures transport viewers into a futuristic, outer-space realm while remaining deeply rooted in traditional materials and techniques like aluminum, bronze, marble, glass and lava. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations—ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology to sci-fi, fantasy literature, and film—Appriou transforms the gallery into an immersive mise-en-scène, a fantastical yet possibly prophetic universe. His works are populated by a strange array of creatures, half human and half nature, in a surreal blending of cultural references. From Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts to European spationauts and Chinese taikonauts, Appriou explores humanity’s shared aspiration to conquer new frontiers in space, connecting people across time and cultures. His cosmic mummies and chrysalis-like figures remain suspended between worlds—both present and future—appearing as hypothetical travelers witnessing the next evolutionary stage of the human body in space. As the press release notes, “exonauts are the explorers of the ultimate, beyond the horizon.”
Lynn Chadwick’s (1914–2003) sculptures, while abstract, are steeped in historical references and naturalistic echoes. His expressive yet geometric figures in bronze and steel follow an organic evolution that played a critical role in liberating sculpture from direct representation. Critics have described Chadwick’s work as embodying an “existentialist gravity,” with its angular geometry creating expressive forms and a sense of precariousness that reflected the anxieties of the post-war era. Guided by Chadwick’s belief that “art must be the manifestation of some vital force coming from the dark,” his sculptures seem like fossils stripped of their bodies or chrysalises harboring new life, fantastical beings caught between worlds.
Coinciding with Art Basel, Galerie Perrotin’s Rue de Turenne location is hosting the first chapter of “Hypercycle,” a series of exhibitions dedicated to Chadwick across multiple sites on three continents from 2024 to 2026, curated by art historian Matthieu Poirier. This ambitious project celebrates Chadwick’s role as a groundbreaking modernist who redefined sculpture, moving beyond the traditional pillar and monumentality to explore more abstract and expressive forms. The exhibition, held at both Perrotin and the Centre des monuments nationaux–Hôtel de Sully in Paris, features sixty key works from 1947 to 1962—a pivotal period during which Chadwick defined his unique style and gained international recognition. This marks the first major presentation of Chadwick’s work in France since his 1957 exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, with loans from private and public collections worldwide.
Lynn Chadwick’s “Hypercycle, Chapitre I, Scalene” is on view through November 16 at Galerie Perrotin’s location in Rue de la Turenne as well as at Centre des monuments nationaux–Hôtel de Sully, Paris. Jean Marie Appriou’s “Exonaut Horizon” is on view at Galerie Perrotin through November 16.
THE PILL’s inaugural show with Apolonia Sokol
The fast-growing, woman-led Istanbul gallery THE PILL (established in 2016 by young dealer Suela J. Cennet) is making its Parisian debut with a solo show by Apolonia Sokol—remarkably, her first in France despite living in Paris. Of Danish and Polish descent, Sokol uses portraiture as a tool for political empowerment, celebrating trans identity and feminist solidarity. By queering the traditional canons of portraiture, she creates space to explore contemporary issues around feminism and queer identity within art history. Her works, characterized by a flat painterly style and striking, self-made pigments from natural materials, often appear at a 1:1 scale. Collaborating closely with friends and collaborators, Sokol celebrates alternative kinships, which become integral to her artistic process.
THE PILL Paris opens on 4 Place de Valois on October 15 with Apolonia Sokol’s solo show “ISLAWIO.”
Mimosa Echard at Galerie Chantal Crousel
With a captivatingly intricate approach to materials and imagery, Mimosa Ecchard delves into the erotics of contemporary flesh and its irresistible urge to transform into an image. Drawing from biological research, experimental cinema histories, and her own experiences, Ecchard creates highly tactile and sensual works that explore a unique interplay between sexuality, synthesis, and perception. In her new show at Chantal Crousel, she presents two bodies of work that embody the tension between the physical and psychological, between touch and thought, which she entangles in fascinating ways. One series features her oxidized metallic tableaux, made from electromagnetic shielding fabric and grids of domestic aluminum foil—both energy-conducting materials—brought to life through corrosion and liquid exposure, transforming into bleeding gradients of green and silver.
The exhibition also introduces a new body of work focused on photographic investigations into the meaning and stories of architecture, featuring a parade of mannequins, knick-knacks and other forms of dead stock accumulating at Les Arcades des Champs Élysées. As the exhibition title “Lies” suggests, Ecchard probes photography as a medium that is both vulnerable and deceptive—a surface both penetrated and projected upon.
Mimosa Ecchard’s “Lies” is on view at Galerie Chantal Crousel through November 16.
James Turell at Almine Rech
James Turrell, the master of light and space, is one of the standout stars of Paris Art Week. A dual exhibition spanning two mega galleries—Almine Rech and Gagosian’s Bourget location—marks the artist’s largest show in Europe in twenty-five years. Since the 1960s, Turrell has worked with perceptual phenomena, from sensory deprivation to optical effects, transforming the visitor’s experience of space while creating with one of the most elusive elements: light. His installations overwhelm the senses, often creating the illusion of infinite spaces as they explore the boundaries of human visual and psychological perception. At Almine Rech, the show features a new work from Turrell’s Glassworks series, alongside Passageways, a 1995 film by Carine Asscher, conceived as an introduction to Turrell’s work, inviting viewers to delve deeper into the artist’s oeuvre and its genesis, bridging hopeful cosmogony with a purposeful artistic agenda.
James Turrell’s “Path Taken” is on view at Almine Rech in Paris through November 16.
Jackson Pollock at Musée de Picasso
Coinciding with Art Week, the Musée Picasso is unveiling an exhibition dedicated to Jackson Pollock’s early genius, marking his first major show in France since 2008. Focusing on works from 1934 to 1947, the exhibition explores the diverse influences that shaped Pollock’s radical practice, blending Native American art with the primitivism of avant-garde artists like Picasso and Mexican Muralists. Featuring rarely exhibited early pieces, the show immerses viewers in the artistic context that informed Pollock’s development. It also emphasizes the connection between Pollock and Picasso, who was a key reference for the American artist. John D. Graham’s 1937 article “Primitive Art and Picasso” had a profound impact on Pollock, reinforcing his fascination with primordial, spontaneous expressions found in Native art. After seeing Picasso’s vast anti-fascist Guernica at the Valentine Gallery in 1939, Pollock later encountered Picasso’s full body of work at MoMA’s “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art” retrospective. Inspired by Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), Pollock created a series of drawings featuring hybrid creatures, merging Picasso-like forms with elements from Native American sculptures and masks.
“Jackson Pollock: The Early Years (1934-1947)” is on view at Musée Picasso in Paris through January 19.
Marina Perez Simão at Mendes Wood DM
The organic, vibrant abstract compositions of Brazilian artist Marina Perez Simão have captivated collectors, especially following her recent affiliation with Pace Gallery. In her new body of work at Mendes Wood DM’s Parisian gallery, Simão explores the possibilities of new states of matter beyond solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. Pulsating with the raw energy of a forest or ocean, her abstractions seem to expand into space, their undulating curves of color blurring the edges of each canvas, creating the effect of distinct voices harmonizing in a chorus. As the artist explains: “I often include more than one horizon. I break the composition [for] a change of state, in a way—a promise of something beyond the painting.”
Simão’s rhythmic waves of color embody the concept of “diffusion,” evoking the restless movement of particles and a perpetual state of flux that transcends categories of inside, outside, you, or me. Each piece in her work engages with a unique type of light, which she associates with a particular emotion. The waves and vibrations shift with the time of day, season, and weather. In this new show, the paintings capture a “10 am kind of light,” where changes in light depend more on whether it is sunny or cloudy than on the transition between day and night.
Marina Perez Simão’s “Diffusion” is on view at Mendes Wood DM through November 23.
Bracha L. Ettinger at High Art
With their dreamlike, almost amniotic atmosphere, Bracha L. Ettinger’s paintings unfold through multifaceted layers of pigment, ash, dots and fine lines, the result of a durational process spanning several years. Signs, traces, tears, and memories accumulate over time on the canvas, weaving a visual language that embodies both lament and wonder, suffering and joy, memory and erasure. Ettinger’s work delves deeply into a trans-generational feminine psychology, crafting an intimate yet universal narrative. Central to her oeuvre is the unique space of suspended individuality found in the mother-child relationship—an emotional and physical holding zone that offers a pathway to “transubjectivity,” where boundaries between selves dissolve. The exhibition at High Art, opening this week, marks Ettinger’s first solo show with the gallery, following recent presentations in New York with Andrew Kreps, at international fairs and a museum exhibition at Castello di Rivoli in Turin.
BRACHA L. Ettinger’s “Trust After the End of Trust” is on view at High Art through December 1.