Le Best of/de Paris - May 2026
This selection is drawn from more than 30 exhibitions visited across Paris this month.
List below.
I would be lying if I said this month was like the others in matters of art. Like many colleagues, collectors, co-friends and co-appreciators of art, I have overindulged in exhibitions and events during our biannual pilgrimage to the Serenissima. Should you be interested in reading my thoughts on the Venice Biennale, they were published in Zéro Deux.
So, after seeing more than 50 shows over the course of 5 days — one of them being the Scrovegni Chapel painted by Giotto, no less, the proto-Renaissance precursor to our all-over/immersive exhibition — my return to Paris was marked by everything except the desire to go see more art.
Exhibition view, Dan Graham & Ettore Spalletti, Marian Goodman Gallery, 2026
Later in the month, however, I overcame the overdose and went to explore what was going on in the galleries. As if by an act of God, the three shows that struck a chord happened to take place within a radius of about 100 meters from each other. Marian Goodman organized a duo presentation of Dan Graham and Ettore Spalletti in a combination both predictable and successful. Graham’s transparent architecture was juxtaposed with Spalletti’s geometry, incorporating unexpected curves into expected angularity and vice versa.
Katja Schenker, Could Be You, Still (6228), 2025
Across the courtyard, Mitterrand is exhibiting Katja Schenker with a solo show called French Vermilion. The gestures are very simple: red pigment spread onto the canvas in a 1:1 scale between the artist’s body and the surface. The traces of her fingers ground the pieces in our own perceptive reality. Schenker’s works in this series impose themselves as obvious oppositions to Yves Klein’s nudes (perhaps obvious only to me), not only through the clear negative of red versus blue, but also through their genesis as intentional female gestures rather than a result of following the directions of a male artist.
Installation view, Cheyney Thompson, Decomposition. Emanuela Campoli. Photo : Pauline Assathiany. Courtesy of the artist and Emanuela Campoli Paris/Milan. 2026
Noa Eshkol. Exposition Noa Eshkol © Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme / Thibaut Chapotot
Finally, on the perpendicular rue de Braque, Emanuela Campoli exhibits Cheyney Thompson for the eighth time at the gallery. The post-Biennale talk of the town seems to be that systems are taking over artistic creation. Should that be true, Thompson has been indulging in this modus operandi for over 20 years. The paintings presented in the show were all conceived for the occasion, following the precise measurements of both the upstairs and downstairs spaces of the gallery, as well as correspondences between pigment quantity distributions and translations of complementary shades and light spaces from digitally produced images into good old paint. If you go to see it, arm yourself with the exhibition text — otherwise the works will read as riddles.
Exhibition view, Chechu Álava, The Hall of Mirrors, Xippas , 2026
I was looking forward to Noa Eshkol’s show at the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, which left me with mixed feelings. Many of the quilts look better in photographs than in reality, no doubt because much of the fabric used has a variety of textures that isn’t so obvious in images. On the contrary, Chechu Álava at Xippas comes across with very delicate paintings of female characters inspired — or even borrowed — from classical paintings, charming the viewer through their blurry finish.
On this note — à bientôt in June with a denser version of this monthly letter.
—g
Seen this month:
Thaddaeus Ropac, Adrian Ghenie, ROMAN CAMPAGNA New Paintings and Drawings
Thaddaeus Ropac, Robert Mapplethorpe, Objects
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Lydia Ourahmane, 1752 Photos
David Zwirner, Mamma Anderson, Œuvres sur papier
Xippas, Chechu Álava, The Hall of Mirrors
Ruttkowsky;68, Ellen Antico, Sirens
Emanuela Campoli, Cheyney Thompson, Decomposition
Galerie Allen, Third Person
Art concept, Michel François
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme, Noah Rashkol, 1924-2007. Danse et compositions
Marian Goodman, Ettore Spalletti & Dan Graham
Mitterrand, Katja Shenker, French Vermillion
Sabine Bayasli, Karolina Orzelek
Galerie C, Robin Wen, Dancing on a volcano
Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Nancy Brooks Brody, As if it wasn’t there
Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Richard Nonas
Marcelle Alix, Signal, Marie Voignier
Spare Room, Clémentine Bruno & Matthias Odin
Le Best of/de Paris - April 2026 Digest
This selection is drawn from more than 30 exhibitions visited across Paris this month.
List below.
End of April and I’m almost late with le best of. This month was particularly busy with institutional shows in Paris, or is it every month? I read somewhere that all in all about 200 exhibitions open in Paris every month. Competition is fierce! Though not all shows are worth a visit.
Lets go.
I know I was complaining about the Centre Pompidou — nowadays mostly (read that as only) doing their temporary exhibitions in a wing of the Grand Palais, despite promising to partner up with different organisations during the time of its closing for renovation — anyhow, I know I was complaining about them choosing to throw a major show of Matisse, the second in 6 years, as if there are no other artists worth the attention. Well, I was wrong. Not that there aren’t other artists, there are plenty! But the show is in fact very comprehensive, focusing on the last 15 years of the painter’s career, and therefore, life. The birth of paper cut-outs, the Jazz book with my favorite Icarus, the Blue Nudes — que du bonheur. I was lucky to be given a tour by the curator Claudine Grammont and her associate Alix Agret and get valuable insights about the presentation.
Henri Matisse, Acanthes, 1953. Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, collection Beyeler / Photo © Robert Bayer
Speaking of places that were closed for renovation and who did do a lot of projects all around France over the last 3 years, the Centre Culturel Suisse finally opened its doors. Shout out to the co-curators of the opening shows, Claire Hoffmann and Tadeo Kohan, for selecting three generations of women artists to welcome the visitors in the newly renovated space: Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, Mai-Thu Perret and Ingeborg Lüscher.
Ingeborg Lüscher, Feueraktion, 1971 © Hans Nolte
Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897, 129.5 cm × 200.7 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York City
I had a particular affection for the exhibition Flammes signed by Lüscher, who has been active since 1969, but only minimally in France, which is a shame for her fire burns strong and bright. One of Ingeborg Lüscher’s leitmotifs is fire (pun intended), and the show at CCS turns around it. Too bad it couldn’t be deployed on a larger space to give her works more oxygen to consume.
On other fronts, the lovers of Douanier Rousseau (me) got a treat with his solo at the Musée de l’Orangerie, but do expect large crowds. Works from collections around the world made their way to Paris — run to see MOMA’s Sleeping Gypsy, but also his jungle tiger paintings.
I personally live on a different wave length with Nan Goldin and her nostalgic monotony of drugs-and-AIDS-drenched portrays of New Yorkers in the 80s so I did not appreciate any of the hype around her retrospective at the Grand Palais. I didn’t go to see the second part on display in the Chapelle Saint-Louis, can’t tell.
I am also not a fan of stuffed toys, so Annette Messager’s appropriation of the Musée de la Chasse was quite hard to bear. Pun intended again. That said, the setting is mesmerising as always, and I must admit despite my dislike, her work did fit well in the context.
© Nan Goldin, Nan Goldin, Untitled, 1982
Exhibition view, Annette Messager, Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps, Musée de la Chasse, 2026
Lastly, Lafayette Anticipation seems to thrive well in contrasts, going from one of the best events in town this fall (the outstanding Meriem Bennani, I still can’t get over how much I loved that installation), to the current Diego Marcon show/installation Prom, one of the most tedious events of spring. The whole mise en scène is a set up consisting in a movie screen and cinema chairs, and yet the actual films mostly lack action and completely lose the viewers. This is the typical case where the exhibition text (…The characters, often ambivalent, evolve in grotesque, sometimes violent situations that provoke both discomfort and empathy. However, the artist imposes neither morality nor conclusion, avoiding any form of resolution. … ) are more interesting than the work itself. While Marcon insists that it is through repetition that emotion or reaction can be achieved — imagine two moles counting in the same unvaried voice until 53 —, it seems he only achieves to tire his audience, especially judging by the lack of visitors on site.
Exhibition view, Diego Marcon, Prom, Lafayette Anticipations © Aurélien Mole
Arcangelo Sassolino - Aux Abords du Séisme - exhibition view, Galleria CONTINUA, Paris (C) Hafid Lhachmi - ADAGP Paris
In the galleries things were rather on the calm side, although some spots stood out. Arcangelo Assalino’s Au bord du Séisme at Galleria Continua, still on view until May 30, is messing with our perception of the physical limits of materials. Elastic glass, almost solid oil and a self-erasing marble sculpture play in a dangerous tandem, 0.1 gram or degree away from destruction. In a completely different direction, Jean-Luc Verna’s show at Ceysson & Bennetiere defines an outstanding example of a good artist. There is no better answer to the question “What kind of ____ (fill in as pleased: music, film, art etc) do you like best ?” Other than the good kind. There is nothing specific in Verna’s work that I like, but the totality of it. In his latest SOLOSHOW, Verna hangs his iconically drawn portraits of people known and unknown, clowns, stars and monsters, punctuated at times with leather jackets (white and black) adorned in poems and images. The space is a collage of paper, frames and objects creating an immersive experience within the mind and thoughts of this artist.
Arcangelo Sassolino - Aux Abords du Séisme - exhibition view, Galleria CONTINUA, Paris (C) Hafid Lhachmi - ADAGP Paris
Elsewhere, in the upscale part of the Champs-Elysées, Paul McCarthy takes over Hauser and Wirth’s space pushing the boundaries as usual, this time a little further. He presents a series of drawings created in collaboration with Lilith Stangenberg and as a result of their unrehearsed yet filmed “liquid theatre” where McCarthy incarnates a horny Santa Claus and Stangenberg is a sexed up naked elf. Their ongoing risqué interaction is conflated with the act of drawing - on themselves or on paper. It’s refreshing to see these frankly unpretentious and messy drawings hanging unframed, scotch tape still on, on the spotless walls of the most luxurious gallery in Paris (on rue François 1er nonetheless), not to mention the projection of Santa fetish porn. Jean-Charles de Quillacq’s intervention on the last floor of the same gallery is not disappointing either, nor does it stir far from McCarthy’s provocation. You have until de 9th of May to see the resin cast of a naked male lower body adorned with what looks like an extract from a homoerotic magazine about sexy Texan cowboys. Amongst other things.
Arcangelo Sassolino - Aux Abords du Séisme - exhibition view, Galleria CONTINUA, Paris (C) Hafid Lhachmi - ADAGP Paris
Lastly Shirley Jaffe at Natalie Obadia (this exhibition has ended on April 25th) revealed a comprehensive selection of a dozen paintings showing the evolution of her work. A safe and sober presentation of an artist who should be a household name.
And now, prepare for the art world Olympics : the Venice Biennale.
Arcangelo Sassolino - Aux Abords du Séisme - exhibition view, Galleria CONTINUA, Paris (C) Hafid Lhachmi - ADAGP Paris
Seen this month:
Galeria Continua, Arcangelo Sassolino, Aux Abords Du Séisme
Galeria Continua, Manuela Sedmach, Guardatori
Centre Culturel Suisse, Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, No Flowers
Centre Culturel Suisse, Ingeborg Lüscher, Flammes 👌👌👌
Centre Culturel Suisse, Mai-Thu Perret, Othermothers
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Melik Ohanian, ALTERATION, For a long time in Time
Drawing Now, 19th Edition
Galerie Poggi, Anna-Eva Bergman, Oeuvres gravées
Galerie Poggi, Virginie Ittah, Oceanic Feeling
Galerie Joseph × POUSH, Duoshows
Lo Brutto Stahl, Group show, Where It Doesn’t Reach
Musée de l’Orangerie, Henri Rousseau, l’Ambition de la Peinture 👌👌👌
Templon, Jitish Kallat, Point of Incidence
Galerie Allen, Emmanuel Van Der Meulen, Praxis
Art concept, Miryam Haddad, Le Sel d’un Songe
Emanuella Campoli, Valerio Nicolai, Ex Sorella
Galerie Perrotin Danielle Orchard, Borrowed Chord
Galerie Perrotin, Paola Pivi, Live again
Balice Hertling, Daniel Blumberg, Silverpoint Drawings
Derouillon, Anastasia Bay, Night Mother
Petrine, Jessica Wilson, The Attic
Lafayette Anticipations, Diego Marcon, Prom
Lafayette Anticipations, Ladji Diaby, Who’s Gonna Save The World ?
Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, Helen Anna Flanagan, Ugo Woatzi, Shervin/e Sheikh Rezaei, ArtContest
Ceysson & Bénètière, Jean-Luc Verna, Soloshow👌👌
Galerie Obadia, Shirley Jaffe 👌👌
Galerie Obadia, Romana Londi, VEIN! VAIN! VANE!
Templon, Abdelkader Benchamma, Signs and Wonders
Max Hetzler, Frederick Kunath, On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever
Galerie Olivier Waltman, Group show, Traits communs👌👌👌
David Zwirner, Rose Wylie, Henri, Egypt...Bette, Bear
Mendes Wood, Kishio Suga
Hauser & Wirth, Paul McCarthy, SS EE SAINT SANTA EVA ELF
Musée d’Art Moderne, Brion Gysin, Le Dernier Musée
Grand Palais, Matisse, 1941 – 1954 👌👌👌
Grand Palais, Nan Goldin, This Will Not End Well
Mennour, François Morellet, Géométrie Dans Les Spasmes
Musée de la Chasse, Annette Messager, Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps
Musée des Impressionistes, Giverny, Avant les nymphéas. Monet découvre Giverny, 1883-1890
Le Best of/de Paris - March 2026 Edition
This selection is drawn from more than 30 exhibitions visited across Paris this month.
List below.
The exhibition unfolds within an instability: a present longing for the future. Now is not a moment that exists as such, it is instead a process, a transformation, a liquid environment where we physically move through time-space and constantly become. The works seem to be driven by a form of urgency, almost a thirst. Liquid is everywhere, materially or metaphorically. Photographic silver prints emerge through chemical baths. Tin must be heated to become malleable in Daniel Cheruzel’s mouth jewel. In (LA)HORDE / Mouth Fist (2025), bodies merge through saliva and movement, fingers entering mouths in a choreography that is both intimate and disquieting.
And more.
Ariana Papademetropoulos’s Glass Slipper at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais invites us into a contemporary surrealist experience. An aquarium placed in the center of the space, calling the viewer to see the world through the eyes of fish, but also, a clam like telephone booth upstairs letting you phone ring our to the see. The dreamy mermaid landscape bubble is bordered nonetheless but a series of burning microwaves, heating up the atmosphere.
Leonora Carrington
Musée du Luxembourg
18.01.2026 → 19.07.2026
The surrealist topic continues with the outstanding oeuvre of Leonora Carrington shown at the Musée du Luxembourg. If a surrealist artist deserves a pedestal, it is her, higher than Dali, Breton and Magritte. The exhibition claims to present Carrington as a “Vitruvian Woman”, and it is successful at that, to say the least. Carrington is the embodiement of a life of work, of continuous discovery and transformation.
Video is both an established and an underrated format in the art world. It is difficult to show to viewers who are unwilling to devote time and attention, and therefore difficult to sell. Few galleries dedicate their entire space to moving images. I do not know whether this context influenced my perception, or was it because of the strength of the works themselves, but I found this show full of magic. The programme is curated by François Bonenfant, and his selection is impeccable, the films connected by a shared fascination with childhood imagination and myth-making.
Group show
Clair-Obscur
Bourse du Commerce
→ 24.08.2026
As always, the Pinault Collection brings out a group of outstanding solo presentations within the overall theme of the season: Clair-obscur / the light and dark. Victor Man’s paintings fascinate in their greenish hue, as if painted in a post-apocalyptic space, and Laura Lamiel occupies the vitrines on the ground flour with installations touching our senses, albeit through the glass : the touch, the sight, the smell.
Jesse Zuo & Tess Mallavergne
Youth Will Always Win
Long Story Short
14.03.2026 → 11.04.2026
[…] Entering the Long Story Short gallery in Paris feels almost like stepping into a tunnel. Fairly small-format paintings hang on both sides at eye level. You’re absorbed inside, guided by the characters. The paintings are figurative, showing details of body parts: hands, backs, knees, faces. At some point, a subtle feeling of confusion creeps in. There is a lack of consistency in subject choice, palette, technique. Like a glitch in a digital rendering. Except this is still, thankfully, the real world. This is when it dawns on you that these might be different artists—and they are. Jesse Zuo’s works occupy one wall, Tess Mallavergne’s the opposite. The paintings mirror one another across the room. […]
Also seen this month:
All Parts Of Us, Drawing Lab
Pharmakon, Galerie Chantal Crousel
Nina Mae, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve
µm, Backslash
Roxane Gouguenheim, By Lara Sedbon
Moffat Takadiwa, Sémiose
Paul Gondry, Sémiose
Stefan Rinck, Sémiose
Françoise Pétrovitch, Sémiose
Guillaume Pinard, Anne Barrault
Tornike Robakidze, Lo Brutto Stahl
Cédrix Crespel, Rabouan Moussion
Pablo Reinoso, Xippas
Dessins Sans Limites, Centre Pompidou au Grand Palais
Ersatz, Les Jardiniers
“1+1=3 : une exposition où l'art se fait dialogue”, Loevenbruck
Tout en Jambes, Vallois
Leandro Katz, Galerie du Crous
Elsa & Johanna, La Forest Divonne
Da capo sine fine, Wolff Abraham
Özlem Altin, The Pill
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Mor Charpentier
Yoon Hyup, Ruttkowski;68
Visages d’artistes, Petit Palais
Le Best of/de Paris - February 2026 Edition
This selection is drawn from more than 30 exhibitions visited across Paris this month.
List below.
Florence Jung
Galerie Allen
31.01.26 → Closing date to be advised.
Since 2011, Florence Jung creates scenarios. In the absence of images, these script-based situations circulate through the personal, evolving, and sometimes contradictory narratives of viewers and witnesses. Yet none of this is !ctional; each scenario is real.
Susana Pilar
Not Alone
Galleria Continua
16.01.2026 → 10.03.2026
Not Alone explores issues related to gender, race, and family heritage - recurring themes in the artist’s practice. The thirteen works on view, including seven new pieces created specifically for the exhibition, are presented in the form of a performance, videos, paintings, drawings, photographies, and installations.
Melanie Smith
An Age of Liberty When the
World Had Been Possible
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
10.01.2026 → 07.03.2026
A multidisciplinary artist whose exhibitions consistently explore drawing, painting, performative film, and installation, Smith enjoys drawing from the vast fields of painting and art history, intertwining them with moving images.
Victoire Inchauspé’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Jousse Entreprise is entitled Armoires vides (Empty Wardrobes). The title implicitly evokes a sequence of gestures and actions: it presupposes a wardrobe that was once full and has since been emptied of its contents. But what compels one, one morning, to empty it? What urgencies, necessities or obligations prompt such a gesture?
Group show
A hundred years of chess
Galerie Perrotin
31.01.2026 → 28.02.2026
Based on an original idea by R.Jonathan Lambert, the gallery is pleased to present A Hundred Years of Chess an exhibition showcasing the influence of chess on contemporary art.
Giangiacomo Rossetti
Résurrectine
Mendes Wood DM
24.01.2026 → 14.03.2026
In Résurrectine, Giangiacomo Rossetti creates an atmosphere of self-enclosed, mausoleum-like entombment.
Group show
Le syndrome de Bonnard
Frac IDF
14.02.2026 → 19.07.2026
Le Syndrome de Bonnard (Bonnard Syndrome), exhibited at Le Plateau in Paris and Les Réserves in Romainville from 14th February to 19th July 2026, will reveal the evolving and open nature of artworks. Through reworkings, reactivations and recycling, the works continue to evolve after entering collections. Inspired by painter Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) and his habit of endlessly modifying his works, the exhibition, curated by the collective Le Bureau/, brings together over thirty French and international artists to explore the impermanence of works, the malleability of narratives, and the ever-evolving dialogue between creation and institution.
With Just Bees, and Things, and Flowers, Maude Maris presents a collection of her recent paintings at the Les Jardiniers art center in Montrouge. Taking advantage of the long walls and industrial feel of the venue, she displays both large-format works and a few smaller canvases, allowing visitors to appreciate the latest developments in her work, which is inspired by her travels between the Paris region and the Normandy countryside, her epicenter.
Also seen this month:
Nathalie Jouffre, Wilde - Le lieu
José Yaque, Galleria Continua
Jorge Macchi, Galleria Continua
Giorgio Petraci, Le Sentiment des Choses
Anaïs Boudot, Galerie Binôme
Jean Alain Corre, Betonsalon
Katherine Fiedler, Sorbonne Art Gallery
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Centre Culturel Irlandais
Bettina Samson, Sultana
Martial Raysse, Templon
Columbia Global Paris Center
Matthias Odin, Peter Kilchmann
Yudith Levin, Dvir Gallery
Marius Buet, Galerie Polaris
Abime, Alain Gutharc
Kathia St. Hilaire, Galerie Perrotin
Yoan Mudry, Galerie Frank Elbaz Maureen Gallace, Galerie Massimo de Carlo
Marlon Wobst, Galerie Maria Lund
Frank Perrin, Galerie Michel Rein
Ali Kaeini, Nika Project Space
Group show, air Topographie de l’art
Véronique Bourgoin, Juli Susin, Royal Book Lodge, Air de Paris
Caroline Delieutraz, Victoire Marion-Monéger, 22,48 m2
Alix Boillot, 22,48 m2
Ruoxi Jin, Frac IdF
Salon de Montrouge
Le Best of/de Paris - January 2026 Edition
This selection is drawn from more than 30 exhibitions visited across Paris this month.
List below.
Magdalena Abakanowicz
The Thread of Existence
Musée Bourdelle
20.11.25 → 12.04.26
Fibers, threads and lines — Magdalena Abakanowicz’s new show at Musée Bourdelle in Paris provides an intimate glimpse into a life of work. Compressed into a relatively small space — small only in relation to Abakanowicz’s volumes, of course — the exhibition presents few yet strong pieces that coherently explore the different phases the artist has traversed.
Gerard Richter
Fondation Louis Vuitton
17.10.2025 → 02.03.2026
In Richter’s show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, I found myself returning again and again to one specific work I discovered: Large Curtain (1967). It is not the loudest work in the exhibition, nor the one most often reproduced, yet it struck me with an unexpected physical intensity.
Meriem Bennani
Sole Crushing
Lafayette Anticipation
22.10.2025 → 08.02.2026
If the premise of the show was to create a work about togetherness, Meriem Bennani absolutely nailed it. The object she chooses is radically democratic: worn by everyone, by choice or necessity, indoors or outdoors, across cultures and classes. Sole Crushing is joyful but not naïve, accessible without being simplistic. It operates on multiple levels at once, and it is difficult to imagine any viewer leaving it unmoved.
I am not going to pretend neutrality here: Berlinde De Bruyckere’s Need quietly restores hope that commercial exhibitions do not necessarily have to compromise visual or intellectual intensity.
Alain Biltereyst
Magenta
Xippas
17.01.2026 → 28.02.2026
Every painting is its own little discovery, like a visual firework—compact, precise, but bursting with ideas. Just when you think you’ve seen everything that can be done within this framework, the next work opens up a new possibility.
Also seen this month:
Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hulten, Centre Pompidou x Grand Palais
MINIMAL, Bourse de Commerce
Claire Tabouret, Grand Palais
Edward Weston, MEP - Maison Européenne de la Photographie
Jacques-Louis David, Musée du Louvre
Boris Michailov, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve
Berthe Weill, Musée de l'Orangerie
ECHO DELAY REVERB, Palais de Tokyo
Exposition Générale, Fondation Cartier
Georges de La Tour, Musée Jacquemart-André
George Condo, Musée d'Art Moderne
Martha Jungwirth, Thaddaeus Ropac
Otobong Nkanga, Musée d'Art Moderne
Josef Albers, David Zwirner
Emily Mason, Almine Rech
Lux Miranda, The Pill
Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Hauser & Wirth
Beatrice Bonino, Fondation Ricard