Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén
Grand Palais
Until January 4, 2026

‘Niki told me “you’d better put feathers on your stuff!”’ wrote Jean Tinguely to Pontus Hultén in 1972. In this exhibition, the colorful and joyful forms of Niki de Saint Phalle meet the vibrant machinery of her companion Jean Tinguely; both artists were tirelessly supported by their friend Pontus Hultén, a mischievous museum man – and the first director of the Centre Pompidou. This trio gave birth to extraordinary projects, including joyful artistic processions, monumental feminist works, and ghost trains. No madness seemed too great for the three friends, united by a palpable love of art and life. Their collaboration is celebrated in this show organized jointly by the Centre Pompidou and GrandPalaisRmn, unfolding in the same building as Art Basel Paris.

‘Rick Owens: Temple of Love’
Palais Galliera
Until January 4, 2026

Monastic and paired down, yet deeply unorthodox and provocative, Rick Owens’s fashion follows its own rules. Supported by his partner Michèle Lamy, the American designer has used recycled raw materials from the beginning, cultivated unisex fashion, and had stepping performers – Afro-American percussive dancers, using the body as an instrument – walk his runways. Inspired by underground culture, his transgressive collections rise against all forms of oppression, reflecting the ills of their times. Through more than 100 designs and rare documents, the Palais Galliera tells the story of Owens from his childhood to the Paris catwalks.

ʻJohn Singer Sargent: Eblouir Paris’
Until January 11, 2026
ʻBridget Riley: Point of Departureʼ
October 21, 2025 – January 25, 2026
Musée d'Orsay

The American painter John Singer Sargent, whose sumptuous depictions of late 19th-century abundance have cemented his place in the pantheon of painting, is the subject of a first monographic exhibition in France. Among the more than 90 artworks on view is the celebrated Portrait of Madame X (1884). Dubbed the ʻMona Lisa of the Metropolitan Museum of Artʼ, it has been loaned by the New York museum, who co-organizes the exhibition. This is the first time the painting has been shown in Paris since it was presented at the Salon of 1884, just after its creation, where it caused a scandal due to the subject’s bare arms and shoulders. Running concurrently, the British contemporary artist Bridget Riley will take over spaces at the Musée d'Orsay with her hypnotic works. A leading figure of Op Art, Rileyʼs career took a decisive turn when she encountered the work of Post-Impressionist master Georges Seurat, who became known as a major advocate of Pointillism. Titled ʻPoint of Departureʼ, the exhibition explores the Riley’s interest in the Seurat’s techniques and pictorial language.

‘Minimal’
Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection
From October 8, 2025 to January 19, 2026

In the 1960s, Minimalism sparked an artistic revolution with its stripped-down works, changing the viewer's relationship to space and the artwork-object. Through seven thematic sections, this exhibition, curated by Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia Art Foundation, traces the diversity within the movement. Agnes Martin, Lee Ufan, Lygia Pape, Rasheed Araeen and many others gather under the dome of the Bourse de Commerce for a dive into a movement that is as radical as it is influential.

Jacques-Louis David
Musée du Louvre
From October 15, 2025 to January 26, 2026

The French painter and leader of the Neoclassical movement created images that inhabit our collective imagination: The Death of Marat (1793), Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800-1803), and The Coronation of Napoleon (1805-1807), among others. All these paintings mark milestones in history, representing the great moments of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. On the occasion of the bicentenary of his death, the Louvre honors David with an exhibition, highlighting the inventiveness and expressive power of the great master, as well as his influence on today's artists.

George Condo
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
From October 10, 2025 to February 8, 2026

Cubism, classical painting, abstraction, and even cartoons: George Condo spares no genre from his incisive strokes. The American painter is the subject of a major retrospective that invites total immersion in his bewildering universe. A connoisseur of European art and master of several disciplines, Condo has drawn inspiration from the greats of the past, from Rembrandt to Picasso, integrating their lessons into his delirious imagination. The artist succeeds his friends, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, who were each the subject of retrospectives in 2010 and 2013, to close out the museum’s New York trilogy dedicated to the emergence of a new generation of painters in the 1980s.

Otobong Nkanga
‘I dreamt of you in colours’
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
From October 10, 2025 to February 22, 2026

Otobong Nkanga’s work forces you to stop. The Belgium-based Nigerian artist presents her first solo exhibition in a Paris museum. In a show tracing the evolution of her practice, the notions of work, territory, property, and economy meet more visceral themes like memory, body, care, and physical contact. In constellations that invade the space, nature assumes a central role. Nkanga uses numerous mediums (painting, performance, installation, photography, and textile) to create ecosystems that give voice to the elusive force of the natural world, alluding to the possibility it offers for redemption.

Prix Marcel Duchamp
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
From September 26, 2025 to February 22, 2026

After 25 years at the Centre Pompidou, the Prix Marcel Duchamp is on the move: this year, it’s the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris that will host the four nominees' exhibition, due to the rennovations taking place at the Pompidou. The sensory installations of Bianca Bondi, the enigmatic paintings of Xie Lei, the hybrid compositions of Eva Nielsen, and the evocative paintings of Lionel Sabatté will be presented on the collections floor of MAM, freely accessible to visitors. The winner will be announced on October 23, during the Art Basel Paris week.

‘Philip Guston: The Irony of History’ and ‘Raymond Pettibon: Underground’
Musée Picasso-Paris
From October 14, 2025 to March 1, 2026

Philip Guston and Raymond Pettibon have much in common: a taste for satire, a deft stroke, and a mischievous pleasure in confronting American society and all its flaws. The latter has always admired the former, and the two master draftsmen are now brought together in two parallel shows at the Musée Picasso-Paris in an unprecedented dialogue. Guston subverted the codes of painting to create works whose fleshy palette only serves to amplify the violence they denounce. On the other hand, Pettibon’s acerbic drawings, with an expansive range of references (poetry, politics, punk-rock music, comics) deal a subtle blow to mainstream American culture.

Gerhard Richter
Fondation Louis Vuitton
From October 17, 2025 to March 2, 2026

A master of painting, Gerhard Richter has navigated his way through a multitude of techniques and genres throughout his 60 years of creation. It’s this unclassifiable journey that the Fondation Louis Vuitton proposes to uncover in this solo exhibition, curated by Dieter Schwarz (former director of Kunst Museum Winterthur) and Sir Nicholas Serota (former director of Tate). Unprecedented in its scope, the retrospective includes 270 works, creating an extensive encounter with one of the most revered living atists.

‘Meriem Bennani: Sole crushing’ and ‘Steffani Jemison; clear skies/troubled water’
Lafayette Anticipations
From October 22

For the autumn season, two young artists will take over the OMA-designed townhouse of Lafayette Anticipations. Meriem Bennani (b. 1988), nominated in the Emerging Artist category of the Art Basel Awards, presents ‘Sole crushing’, featuring a surprising orchestra of over a hundred flip-flops and clogs rhythmically beating the pavement. Whether reminiscent of a symphony, the sound of an uprising, or the Moroccan musical ritual, dakka marrakchia, the thunder of these abandoned shoes speaks to the power of the collective. In ‘clear skies/trouble water’, Steffani Jemison, winner of the Groupe Galeries Lafayette Production Grant at Art Basel Paris 2024, maps the geographies of violence and axes of liberation in mesmerizing immersive installations in her signature sky blue.

‘Echo Delay Reverb: American Art and Francophone Thoughts’ and ‘Melvin Edwards’
Palais de Tokyo
From October 22, 2025 to February 15, 2026

Offered free rein at the Palais de Tokyo, art historian Naomi Beckwith (deputy director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, as well as director of the next edition of documenta) proposes an artistic investigation into the influence of francophone philosophers and theorists on American Postwar and contemporary art. Around 60 established artists (including Renée Green, Cindy Sherman, and Lorna Simpson) rub shoulders with younger figures (such as Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Char Jeré) to map out little-known cultural exchanges. In the other spaces, Melvin Edwards’s abstract sculptures are like homages to those who fought for their rights. Replete with musicality, his works are impregnated with poetry, and jazz, and showcase his relationships with French thinkers such as Léon-Gontran Damas and Édouard Glissant.

‘Exposition Générale’
Fondation Cartier
From October 25, 2025 to August 23, 2026

The opening of the Fondation Cartier's new venue at Place du Palais-Royal is an opportunity to retrace 40 years of exhibitions, and explore the foundation’s artistic identity. The inaugural exhibition, called ‘Exposition Générale’, brings together more than 600 works that marked the foundation's history. Once again designed by Jean Nouvel, the venue, formerly a department store, aims to be a living, evolving, hybrid space and will undoubtedly be a new hub for contemporary art in the future.