Installation view, "Henry Taylor" at Hauser & Wirth Paris, 14 October 2023 – 7 January 2024.
Photo: Nicolas Brasseur; Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
5 Must-See Exhibitions Not to Miss in Paris This Month
From modern masters to medieval mashups, here are five shows to see amid Paris + par Art Basel
While Paris has long been an unparalleled cultural capital, the city has been witnessing a bit of renaissance when it comes to its contemporary art scene. From a boom in top-tier private collections and foundations reinvigorating the the historical institutional landscape to an influx of major international galleries in the wake of Brexit, the French metropolis is a buzz with new energy. The return of Paris + par Art Basel for its second year as well as the inaugural Design Miami Paris means that crème-de-la-crème of the art and design world has alighted upon the city of lights, and Parisian galleries are pulling out all the stops.
Mark Rothko, Self Portrait, (1936). Photo: © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko - Adagp, Paris, 2023
1. Fondation Louis Vuitton | Mark Rothko
Fondation Louis Vuitton is known for securing big-ticket loans and this vast exhibition is no exception. Included in his retrospective are 115 works, among them all nine of the abstractionist’s iconic paintings made for the Seagram building in New York which comprise the entirety of the Tate’s “Rothko Room” in London. Other works hail from esteemed collections such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. These trace the artist’s career from early figuration to his signature color field paintings. The artist’s only self-portrait, dating from 1936, opens the show; the work is drawn from the collection of Christopher Rothko, the artist’s son, who also co-curated the exhibition.
8 Av. du Mahatma Gandhi, 16th arrondissement. October 18, 2023 through April 2, 2024
Installation view of "Zuzanna Czebatul: The Lunatic Fringe" at Sans Titre Paris. Photo: Aurélien Mole and Thomas Krüger
2. Sans Titre | “Zuzanna Czebatul: The Lunatic Fringe”
Berlin-based Polish artist Zuzanna Czebatul uses feet as a symbol of patriarchal power—she previously reproduced the foot of the sculpture of the Bismarck national monument in Berlin’s Tiergarten—and she looks to medieval tapestry now for her latest foot fix. The artist enlarges the lower portions of decorative tapestries dating from the Middle Ages to the 17th century and integrates the images into her own textiles, creating absurd and slightly disturbing works on a grand scale. This is Czebatul’s second show with the gallery, which started as a nomadic space in 2016, bouncing around between parking lots, hotels, and even a shipyard before permanently installing in its current location, a former Restoration-era bar steps from the Centre Pompidou.
13 rue Michel Le Comte, 4th arrondissement. October 14 through December 2
Installation view, "Henry Taylor" at Hauser & Wirth Paris, 14 October 2023 – 7 January 2024. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur; Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
3. Hauser & Wirth | “Henry Taylor: From Sugar to Shit”
Hauser & Wirth’s much-anticipated launch in Paris follows a slew of high-profile gallery openings in the city over the last few years, among them David Zwirner, Gagosian, and White Cube. To christen their new space near the Champs-Élysées, which occupies an entire hôtel particulier dating from 1877, Hauser & Wirth shows a suite of 30 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by the Los Angeles-based artist, Henry Taylor. Combining figurative, landscape and history painting, Taylor’s vibrant and often unfiltered commentary on art history and culture will certainly make a splash in the French capital—the exhibition’s title alone, “From Sugar to Shit,” is unmissable, stretching the entire length of the new space’s elegant neoclassical windows. The Paris show coincides with the recently opened survey of the artist’s work at New York’s Whitney museum.
26 bis Rue François 1er, 8th arrondissement. October 14, 2023 through January 7, 2024
Lee Lozano, No title (Toilet Lid), (1962-1963). Photo: Courtesy of the artist
4. Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection | “Lee Lozano: Strike”
Mid-century American painter and conceptual artist Lee Lozano probes issues of gender and the body in her energetic and sometimes comedic paintings and drawings that are littered with disembodied lips, cartoonish grins, and suggestive hardware (think: hammers, screws). Though her work was largely overlooked in her lifetime, the artist’s posthumous renown has grown and this show—which debuted first at Turin’s Pinacoteca Agnelli this spring—marks her first-ever exhibition in France. The Bourse’s founder, luxury magnate François Pinault, is a deep Lozano collector, and the exhibition features many works from his own holdings.
2 rue de Viarmes, 1st arrondissement. September 22, 2023 through January 22, 2024
Installation view, "Peter Uka: The Triumph of Being" (2023) at Mariane Ibrahim. Photo: Fabrice Gousset; Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim
5. Mariane Ibrahim | “Peter Uka: The Triumph of Being”
Known for his rich photorealistic paintings that blur the lines between family history and imagined pasts, Peter Uka’s works are rooted in his childhood memories of Nigeria. The sumptuous details of his backgrounds—bold colors, specific textile designs and fashions, old cars—add a sense of luxury to his created worlds. In his newest works, women come to the fore, but so too the disjunctive elements of his paintings, like anachronistic radios and floor tile patterns he found on Pinterest. The results are as alluring as they are uncanny.
18 Av. Matignon, 8th arrondissement. October 13 through December 2
Cover: Installation view, "Henry Taylor" at Hauser & Wirth Paris, 14 October 2023 – 7 January 2024.
Photo: Nicolas Brasseur; Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
