NOTES FROM PARIS July 2025

To start, let me say July is not the ideal time to visit Paris - nor anywhere in Europe - unless you are braced for a bit of crowdsurfing. That said, there is incredible art to be found in Paris any time of year, and peak tourist season is no exception. Read on if you are planning to be in France. Or if you prefer to just take an armchair voyage of contemporary culture alongside me - welcome aboard.

Below is my list of the top 12 exhibitions, art spaces and institutions that are shaping the narrative of culture today. That may sound like hyperbole, but mark these words - Paris is having (another) renaissance.

Paris has had many chapters as a cultural leader, so this is a position the city knows well. That said, I would be remiss in not mentioning a crucial fact about culture in France today, which is that of its main benefactor - the fashion industry.

Some of the best shows, and architecture, are being facilitated by the biggest names in luxury fashion; Chanel, Dior, LVMH, Cartier, Pinault, and Lafayette. Even museums, including the Musée d’Orsay, are acquiring new works due to the generosity of these large fashion houses. Art and fashion are increasingly in a mutual admiration society. Together, they are melding audiences and helping to bolster a greater awareness for art by bringing it to a much wider population than acting independently would allow (Miu Mui’s partnership with the newly established Art Basel Paris last October is a case in point).

This also allows us as viewers, due to the nature of private funding, to hear from artists in a more unfiltered way at this critical time. The artist perspective is, and always has been, of utmost importance to our understanding of the world. It is exactly this expansion of privately funded art foundations descending on the French capital therefore, that is creating this cultural renaissance in Paris in the first place. This shift is driven by several factors, including the monopoly moving away from New York and London (partly due to Brexit), the opening of Paris outposts by major commercial galleries, and the city’s relative affordability which is attracting international artists.

The forerunner to all of this was when the Fondation Cartier opened their private collection to the public for the first time in 1984. The Fondation Cartier played a pioneering role in promoting contemporary art in Paris, and will soon move into a new Jean Nouvel-designed headquarters across from the Louvre at 2 Place du Palais‑Royal in central Paris on October 25, 2025. Book your tickets in advance, this will surely be one of the hottest venues to land in Paris during the art fair frenzy this fall.

TOP 12 BEST SHOWS TO SEE IN PARIS NOW
(or to mark on your Paris To Do List for the future):

INSTITUTIONAL

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, an aquatic and musical installation titled "clinamen"

Bourse de Commerce

• Francois Pinault’s 10,000 piece collection (one of the most significant collections in the world) turned museum - designed by Tado Ando and opened to the public in May of 2021. Leave yourself time, and just see everything. This was one of the more sensational spaces and an explicit example of why Paris matters now.

• Pro-tip: if you are travelling with children, send them on a mission to find the secret artwork by Ryan Gander (a Hitchcock-like cameo where his art can be found hidden at the trifecta of Pinault galleries across France and Italy.

• Also for kids (and adults who will see the work differently): I’ve long admired the work of Duane Hanson for the sheer wow-factor, but this is a deeper, and more personal expression from anything I’ve seen from him before (a reflection of the time we are living in, as many artists are trying to figure out their place in the world)

Lafayette Anticipations

• “Design Disco Club” an exhibition to coincide with Paris Design Week opens September 6th, 2025.

Niki de Saint Phalle “Mythologie” (water fountain) at Galerie Mitterrand)

Grande Palais

• A remarkable example of Art Nouveau created for the 1900 World’s Fair, recently restored, and the new home of Art Basel Paris

• The “Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hulten” exhibition is a must-see to truly understand contemporary French culture (this is a Pompidou satellite exhibition space during their renovation). Note: Niki de Saint Phalle has a major retrospective at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City until January 2026.

• Don’t miss the elaborate Philippe Servent-designed curtains commissioned by Chanel as part of “Le 19M” - a cultural incubator of more than 700 artisans, founded by Chanel in 2021 (an exhibition in their gallery space will open on September 24, 2025).

Jeu de Paume in the Jardin des Tuileries

Jeu de Paume

• Jeu de Paume is a renowned art center and museum dedicated to photography and contemporary image-based art currently hosting an exhibition titled “The World Through AI”.

• Fascinating, and certainly a perspective on this heady topic best seen through the minds of artists. This was a buzzy exhibition that a number of curators I spoke with mentioned as a must-see. To September 21, 2025.

• Artists to watch out for; Agnieszka Kurant and Julian Charrière

Fondation Cartier de l’art Contemporain (Opening Fall 2025)

• the gallery will open with a survey of artworks from their collection, ticketing to the venue will open on September 23).

COMMERCIAL SPACES

Paris outpost of Hauser & Wirth

Hauser + Wirth

• The first ever Paris outpost by this mega-gallery housed in a 19th-century hôtel particulier near the Champs-Élysées. Note the installation in the stairwell by the artist Martin Creed, “Work No. 3839”

Taryn Simon McDonald’s French Fries, Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, 2024

Almine Rech, Matignon

• “Taryn Simon, The Game”. They transformed the gallery space into a work of art in itself. It will have ended by the time you’re reading this, but any gallery will facilitate a private viewing (reach out if you want me to arrange that for you).

• Also, if you’re there, pop into Christie’s across the street and ask them to show you the Rachel Marks installation fashioned entirely out of paper; they’ll take you right into the window (to August 26th).

Paul Cocksedge, Bourrasque

Dior Flagship Store

• An excellent example of the obscuring lines between art and fashion (I especially appreciated the brass plate QR codes). Sit down and read about the art over a cafe au lait in one of their gorgeous gardens designed by Belgian landscape architect Peter Wirtz in collaboration with architect Peter Marino - surely one of the hidden gems of Paris.

• Pro tip: the hidden bathroom on the second floor is fun for selfies 📸 😉

Marian Goodman Paris

• Walking into Marian Goodman Feels like you’re entering into a private universe behind those fabulous Parisian doors, “Steve McQueen, Bounty” was on at the time of writing. A good example of a mega-gallery that has the funds to do something immersive with their exhibitions (and bonus, commercial galleries are always free).

Huma Bhabha, Distant Star

David Zwirner

• “Huma Bhabha, Distant Star” Critics are calling this Pakistanian-American artist Huma Bhaba “the new Picasso” and are praising her ability to “recook the many cultures of our ever‑shifting world to deliver an urgently resonant, new universal language” (The Guardian). Her work is gaining international recognition based on her being selected for major museum commissions—from the Met’s rooftop to the Hirshhorn in Washington DC.

• Exhibition closes July 26, 2025. If you miss it, ask me to book a private viewing.

Daniel Firman, Nasutamanus (past exhibition at Perrotin)

Perrotin

• This is the flagship location (among several global outposts) of Perrotin founded by Emmanuel Perrotin in 1990. Spanning over 1,600 square meters across three historic buildings, the gallery has played a pivotal role in the early careers of now-renowned artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Takashi Murakami, Sophie Calle and Daniel Arsham. As far as Paris' resurgence as an art capital, Perrotin stands out as a homegrown Parisian institution that helped set the stage for the city’s renewed global prominence in the art world.

BONUS

Here are two additional exhibitions I would recommend you get to before they close:

Phílharmonie de Paris

• L’Expo Disco: “I’m Coming Out” at the Jean Nouvel designed Phílharmonie de Paris (to August 17, 2025)

Centre Pompidou

• Wolfgang Tillmans “Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us” (to September 17, 2025). This show at the Pompidou had everyone buzzing - go if you can.

MAJOR THEMES

Being immersed in art allows me a certain lens, where I’m able to see general narratives developing not just in Paris, but in major art centers around the world. This is not like a trend, but rather a window into a collective consciousness that artists are creating about the world, and our understanding of it.

• Ceramic is reinventing itself as a contemporary medium that is being celebrated as an art form in and of itself, but also as it is incorporated into paint and being applied directly onto the canvas, the frame, the floor.

• Textile and beadwork feature heavily, in ambitious new works that are sometimes massive in scale.

• Western art is no longer a thing as the art world has globalized and we now see everyone from small galleries to major museums across the world attempting to address the diaspora in their curation. This is one of the contributing factors to the themes I’ve mentioned above.

• Artists are increasingly focused on the environment, and an oftentimes dystopian view of the world is being exercised through their work.

• Another recurrent theme I’m seeing are artists who are increasingly weaving spirituality into the narrative, and trying to make sense of what they are witnessing. This makes for a very personal and intimate connection and I’m seeing it done in beautiful ways.

• You will also notice as you wander the gallery district, particularly in the Marais, a number of upscale vintage stores. Perhaps not surprisingly as this neighbourhood defines the future of consumerism and as more and more of the next generation are seeing ways to redefine fashion in a more sustainable way. After all, art is fashion and fashion is art, certainly in Paris.

This is the tip of the Eiffel Tower on the many exciting facets of Paris today. Thanks for being in my corner.

Emily

p.s. If you want these shows organized by location send me a note, I can text you my Paris 2025 google maps folder which handily shows their location based on where you are standing.