Something for everyone! Grand Palais, Napoléon, Julie Manet, Centre Pompidou, Georgia O’Keefe, Paris Philharmonic, Palais de Tokyo, Musée du Luxembourg, Cole Porter, Lido, and much more! From paintings and photography to music and magical objects, art in Paris is exploding now. Check out the list below of current and upcoming highlights.
Many cultural institutions in Paris are still developing, rearranging, and rescheduling events and exhibitions. Some have schedules that can help with making a plan. Or, you may find an event that you will plan a trip around.
- Be sure to check the websites ahead of going. Many places require reservations.
- From Paris Museum Pass: In accordance with government directives, online booking of a time slot is compulsory in most sites, for all visitors (paying, free, holders of a Paris Museum Pass), to limit the number of people present at the same time.
- This means that you cannot show up and expect to gain access even with a Paris Museum Pass!
- Arrive early for scheduled times because of additional precautions the venues may be taking. Bring a face mask – a comfortable one. Many places require them for entry.
- Do not bring suitcases or large bags, including large backpacks.
Also, many venues are requiring a “Health Pass” for entry:
- A certificate of vaccination older than 14 days, or
- A certificate of RT-PCR or antigenic test less than 48 hours old, or
- A certificate of recovery (positive test of + 15 days and – 6 months)
PLEASE CHECK WITH EACH INSTITUTION BEFORE GOING FOR CHANGES IN OPENING HOURS, REQUIREMENTS FOR VISITS, ETC….
**All information was current at the time the post was written.**
Grand Palais
The Grand Palais has a renovation underway. Scheduling shows partial completion in time for the Olympics in 2024. All remaining portions, including the galleries, are expected to be finished in 2025.
But, the Grand Palais is still mounting an exhibition! Take the Métro out to Porte de Pantin, in the 19th, to see a magnificent exhibition. The name alone fills up two football fields!
Napoléon
Marking the bicentenary of his death, the Napoléon exhibition explores the unlikely story of a complex character who was at once admired and controversial, victorious and conquered, heroic and tragic. A dramatic story that continues to fascinate our contemporaries to this day. It will highlight his political and cultural legacies that have profoundly impacted certain countries, chief among them France, as well as the mistakes he made. (From the official website.)
Napoléon
Through December 19, 2021
Grand Palais – Grande Halle de la Villette
211 avenue Jean Jaures
19th Arrondissement
Open everyday 10:00am to 7:00pm
Purchase reserved-time tickets in advance HERE.
Métro: Porte de Pantin
Official website: https://www.grandpalais.fr/en
Musée Marmottan Monet
It is always worth a trip to the Musée Marmottan Monet to admire the stunning house that the museum occupies as well as the collection of Monets. But, even more, a reason to visit is an exhibition of Berthe Morisot’s daughter.
Julie Manet, the Impressionist Memory
As the only daughter of Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet, Julie Manet was in a singular position to share her mother’s legacy with the world. Also, Julie Manet was the niece of Édouard Manet. She inherited plenty of genes that would contribute to her artistic sensibility. Not much information on the exhibit so far, but this is an interesting and little-known subject worth investigating.
Julie Manet, the Impressionist Memory
October 19, 2021, through March 20, 2022
Musée Marmottan Monet
2 rue Louis-Boilly
16th Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 to 6:00 pm
Open late Thursdays until 9:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: La Muette ou Ranelagh
RER: Boulainvilliers
Official website: https://www.marmottan.fr/en/
Centre Pompidou
A lot is going on at the Centre Pompidou. It is definitely fulfilling its role to present “a centre for art and culture capable of housing both the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, with an international dimension, a large public library…, a centre for industrial creation and a centre for musical research and creation…, all together in one and the same building situated in the heart of the capital.” (From the official website.)
Georgia O’Keefe
Georgia O’Keefe in the Pompidou Center could be super fun to see!
The first retrospective in France of a hundred paintings, drawings, and photographs of one of the greatest figures of North American art of the 20th century. Disappeared at the age of 98, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986) will have gone through most of the aesthetic adventures of the previous century: from the modernism of the 20s to the abstract painting “hard edge” in the 60s, through the search for identity that marks the United States in the 30s. (From the official website.)
Georgia O’Keeffe, “Inside Red Canna”, 1919 © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Adagp Paris 2021
Ettore Sottsass, Magic Objects
More than 400 works (drawings, paintings, design objects), 500 photographs, and 200 unpublished archival documents, from the 1940s to the 1980s: through this set and according to a chronological path, the exhibition highlights all the creative components of the Italian artist Ettore Sottsass (1917, Austria – 2007, Italy). It particularly highlights the emotional, ritual, symbolic, “magical” dimension of design that Sottsass has always claimed, quick to weave a new link between man and objects. (From the official website.)
Ettore Sottsass, “Maquette spatiale”, 1947
© Adagp, Paris. Photo : Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP
Georgia O’Keefe
September 8, 2021, through December 6, 2021
Ettore Sottsass, Magic Objects
October 13, 2021, through January 4, 2022
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou
4th Arrondissement
Open Wednesday through Monday 11:00 am to 10:00 pm
Exhibitions open 11:00am to 9:00pm
Open late Thursdays until 11:00 pm
Closed Tuesdays and major holidays
Métro: Rambuteau, Hôtel de Ville, or Châtelet
RER: Châtelet Les Halles
Panoramic restaurant: Restaurant Georges – prestige cocktails and dinner
Official website: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/
Paris Philharmonic
Installed in its new home, the Paris Philharmonic and the Paris Orchestra is in state-of-the-art digs. Reasonably priced tickets for an evening with magnificent performers who are at their finest. Various concerts of well-known works as well as new and rarely performed pieces that deserve attention.
A real treat would be the weekend of 19-21 November 2021. Chucho Valdés is one of the key figures in the musical fusion between Cuba and Africa. With indefatigable fervor, at age 80, he continues to keep the flames of Afro-Cuban jazz burning bright. (From the official website.)
Check the calendar – there will be something you find interesting, plus you get to see the fabulous performance hall.
Philharmonie de Paris
221 avenue Jean-Jaurès
19th Arrondissement
Métro: Porte de Pantin
Panoramic restaurant: Le Balcon on the 6th Floor – closed Sundays
Official website: https://philharmoniedeparis.fr/en
Musée Carnavalet
After 4 years of renovation, the permanent collection of the Museum of the History of Paris is open to welcome you. Explore this marvelous collection with objects all the way back to the Mesolithic Era (9000-6000 B.C.).
Musée Carnavalet
Musée Histoire de Paris
23 rue de Sévigné
3rd Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Saint-Paul, Bréguet Sabin, Pont-Marie, or Chemin Vert
Restaurant in the gardens
Official website: https://www.carnavalet.paris.fr
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais is the Fine Arts Museum of the City of Paris. The stunning building was built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, like its neighbor the Grand Palais. It became a museum in 1902. Designed by Charles Girault, it is based on a trapezium shape and is made up of four wings around a semi-circular garden bordered by a richly decorated peristyle. The architect achieved a successful blend of traditional and modern architecture which is evident in the natural flow of visitors around the building and in the bold openings he created onto the Champs-Elysées gardens and inner courtyard garden. (From the official website.)
Ilya Répine (1844-1930); Painting the Soul of Russia
The Petit Palais presents the first French retrospective dedicated to Ilya Repine, one of the greats of Russian art. Little known in France, Repine’s oeuvre is nevertheless considered a milestone in the history of Russian painting of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some one-hundred paintings, including very large-format works, will be on loan from, notably, the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, and the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland. The exhibition allows visitors to retrace the career of this illustrious Russian painter through his masterpieces. From https://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/en
Ilya Répine, Leon Tolstoy Ploughing.
Ilya Répine (1844-1930); Painting the Soul of Russia
October 5, 2021, through January 23, 2022
Petit Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill
8th Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Open late for temporary exhibitions on Fridays until 9:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau or Franklin D. Roosevelt
RER: Invalides
Café inside with not-to-miss terrace on the interior garden
Official website: http://petitpalais.paris.fr/en
Palais de Tokyo
You may do a double-take when confirming the visiting hours of this fantastic art space. A seemingly never-ending stream of contemporary exhibitions, some of which may bend your mind. Take your pick from a variety of shows scheduled for winter.
Jonathan Jones, untitled (transcriptions of country)
“I’m curious about how we come to terms with objects that were collected and are now lost to the archive; how these objects can morph into new forms of dialogue, become tools of reciprocity and repatriation within the framework of decolonisation.” – Jonathan Jones.
Born in 1978 in Sydney (Australia) where he lives and works. untitled (transcriptions of country), Jonathan Jones’ new project, looks into colonial transport, trade, and the acclimatization of Indigenous plants, animals, and objects, together with the colonization of local knowledge. Its source of information is the French expedition to the southern lands led by Captain Nicolas Baudin at the very beginning of the 19th century. Commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, this was one of the most extensive scientific expeditions ever undertaken in Australia, which brought back to France many artifacts and living elements. (From the official website.)
Jonathan Jones, installation view
Exhibition by Maxwell Alexandre
Born into a Catholic family in Rocinha, one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, Maxwell Alexandre envisages painting as a “prophetic practice”. His immense and highly politicized compositions stage encounters between classic European painting, street art, and mural painting. All these elements are remixed with the syncopated rhythms of hip-hop to resonate with the contemporary tensions of Brazil.
A former professional rollerblader, Maxwell Alexandre graduated from PUC-RJ (The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro) in 2016. He organized his artistic baptism in 2018 with his first exhibition, which blended painting with performance and featured the rapper BK as priest and master of ceremonies. He also founded the “Church of the Kingdom of Art” (also known as “A Noiva” [“The Bride”]), which supports alternative Brazilian art practices. (From the official website.)
Maxwell Alexandre
Jonathan Jones, untitled (transcriptions of country)
November 26, 2021, through February 20, 2022
Exhibition by Maxwell Alexandre
November 26, 2021, through March 20, 2022
Palais de Tokyo
13 avenue du Président Wilson
16th Arrondissement
Open Wednesday through Monday 10:00 am to 10:00 pm
Closed Tuesdays and major holidays
Métro: Iéna and Alma Marceau
RER: line C / Pont de l’Alma station
Two restaurants: Monsieur Blue and Bambini
Official website: https://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr
Théâtre du Châtelet
Sumptuous gold and red velvet temple to the arts! Musical theater, dance, concerts, variety performances – it is all here. The Théâtre du Châtelet has come roaring back to life. Here are three events that could be great to see.
Nov 15-21: Voodoo Cello performed by Imany. The love marriage sorcerer of the low tones of Imany and eight cellos. With Voodoo Cello, the singer Imany casts a spell on eight cellos to transform some of the greatest hits of pop history (from Ed Sheeran to Cat Stevens, Donna Summer, Hozier, t.A.t.u., Bob Marley, Elton John, Neil Diamond…). Without any artifice, she uses the combined magic of the strings and her voice to bewitch the audience and awaken their consciences around the power of the feminine. (From the official website.)
Dec 11, 2021 – Jan 1, 2022: Cole Porter in Paris. Cole in Paris is conceived as a picture book, a fresco of sound and vision that transports us into the Roaring Twenties, evoking the personal journey of the man and the artist as much as the new breath of life that irrigated Paris after the Great War. (From the official website.)
Feb 6, 2022 – Tap Virtuoso. Classical music meets American tap dance – Pianist François-René Duchâble and artist Aurélien Lehmann perform classical music masterpieces from Bach to Gershwin, in a show where piano and tap dance compete in mastery. A unique visual and musical performance that will make you (re)discover the history and evolution of “great music” to the rhythm of Tap Dance. (From the official website.)
Théâtre du Châtelet
2 rue Edouard Colonne
1st Arrondissement
Métro: Châtelet (exit Théâtre du Châtelet or Place du Châtelet)
RER: Châtelet – Les Halles
Official website: https://www.chatelet.com/en/home/
Lido de Paris
Paris Merveilles
THE show to see. Such fun, marvelous as its name implies, a great evening for the whole family. With seating for 1,100, you would think it would have plenty of room, but get your tickets well in advance!
Paris Merveilles
Lido de Paris
116 bis avenue des Champs-Élysées
8th Arrondissement
Showtimes: 9:00pm or 11:00pm
Can reserve dinner and a show, check the website for details and tickets.
Métro: George V
Official website: https://www.lido.fr/en
Musée du Luxembourg
Because it is open late on Monday, this is a prime time to plan something to do in the evening.
Vivian Maier
The career path that Vivian Maier (New York, 1926 – Chicago, 2009) took is unusual yet is that of one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. It was at the heart of American society, in New York from 1951, then in Chicago from 1956, that the children’s governess meticulously observed the urban fabric that already reflected the great social and political changes in its history. It was the time of the American dream and overexposed modernity, the behind-the-scenes of which constituted the very essence of Vivian Maier’s work.
The exhibition allows the public to see archives of the photographer that were discovered in 2007 and have not been seen before: vintage photographs that Vivian Maier printed, super 8 films never shown, audio recordings…. As such the exhibition allows the full extent of the eminent artist’s work to be appreciated, and for her work to be placed in the history of photography. (From the official website.)
Vivian Maier
15 September 2021 – 16 January 2022
Musée du Luxembourg
19 rue de Vaugirard
6th Arrondissement
Open every day 10:30 am to 7:00pm
Open late on Mondays until 10:00pm
Métro: Saint Sulpice, or Mabillon
RER: Luxembourg (exit Jardin du Luxembourg)
Official website: https://museeduluxembourg.fr/en
Palais Galliera
Museum of Fashion of the City of Paris. The Palais Galliera preserves some of the richest collections in the world. Estimated today at nearly 200,000 works (clothing, accessories, photographs, drawings…), these collections reflect the codes of clothing in France from the 18th century to the present day and are regularly the subject of numerous exhibitions in Paris, France, and foreign countries.
Vogue Paris 1920-2020
One hundred years of Vogue Paris, the oldest French fashion magazine still being published. The exhibition highlights the talent of the great illustrators, and particularly photographers that Vogue Paris has encouraged. Hoyningen-Huene, Horst, Bourdin, Klein, Newton, Lindbergh, Testino, Inez & Vinoodh, are among those who produced their most beautiful spreads for Vogue Paris. In this chronological tour, a number of spotlight displays pay tribute to the magazine’s faithful collaborators. The exhibition highlights Vogue Paris’s special relationship with those great couturiers, who the magazine supported throughout their careers, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. Vogue woman is epitomized in the exhibition by Catherine Deneuve and Kate Moss, the two women who posed for the most front covers.
For Vogue Paris 1920-2020 around 400 items have been brought together, mainly from the magazine’s archives – photographs, illustrations, magazines, documents, and films – as well as more than fifteen haute couture and prêt-à-porter models. (From the official website.)
Catherine Deneuve by David Bailey, Vogue 1966 © David Bailey
Vogue Paris 1920 -2020
October 2, 2021, until January 30, 2022
Palais Galliera
Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris
10 avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie
16th Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Late-night Tuesdays and Fridays until 9:00 pm
Closed Mondays
Métro: Iéna or Alma-Marceau
Official website: https://www.palaisgalliera.paris.fr
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
The Museum of Decorative Arts of the City of Paris began in 1882, in the wake of the Universal Exhibitions. A group of collectors banded together with the idea of promoting the applied arts and developing links between industry and culture, design and production. For many years it was known as the Union centrale des Arts décoratifs (UCAD), but in January 2018 it changed its name to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. It remains true to its original goal “to keep alive in France the culture of the arts which seek to make useful things beautiful” and to maintain close links with industry, forging numerous partnerships with firms operating in various fields. (From the official website.)
Cartier and the Art of Islam. Origins of Modern Design.
The exhibition explores the influences of Islam on modern design through drawings, objects, and stories. Including the influence of India on Jacques Cartier’s after his travels to India to visit his princely clients, Maharajahs of India!
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs presents, from October 21, 2021 to February 20, 2022, “Cartier et les arts de l’Islam. Aux sources de la modernité”, co-produced by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and the Dallas Museum of Art, with the exceptional collaboration of the Musée du Louvre and the support of the Maison Cartier. This exhibition shows the influences of the arts of Islam on the production of jewelry and precious objects of the House of High Jewelry, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day.
More than 500 pieces – jewelry and objects of the Maison Cartier, masterpieces of Islamic art, drawings, books, photographs, and archival documents – trace the origin of this interest in Oriental motifs. She returns in particular to the Parisian context of the time and the figures of Louis and Jacques Cartier, grandsons of the founder, who played a significant role in the birth of a new aesthetic imbued with modernity. (From the official website.)
Cartier necklace was ordered in 1947.
Cartier and the Art of Islam. Origins of Modern Design.
October 21, 2021, through February 20, 2022
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
107 rue de Rivoli
1st Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro : Palais-Royal, Pyramides or Tuileries
This museum is located inside the Louvre building, on the Rue de Rivoli side. Look for the banners directing you to the entrance.
Restaurant
Official website: https://madparis.fr
Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute)
The Arab World Institute Museum, which was entirely redesigned and reorganized in 2012, invites visitors to discover the Arab world from a different perspective and goes beyond stereotypes, by presenting all the diversity of its cultures, ethnicities, languages, and confessions, from its origins to the present day. As visitors enter the Museum, an installation of sounds and images projected onto mirrors immerses them in the heart of plural and multiform Arab world. (From the official website.)
Insights into Lebanon; Modern and Contemporary Art from 1950 to Today
One year after the explosion of 4 August 2020 that devastated the port of Beirut, the Arab World Institute pays tribute to the vitality and resilience of the Lebanese art scene. With the exhibition LUMIÈRES DU LIBAN, Modern and Contemporary Art from 1950 to Today, the Arab World Institute celebrates the prodigious creativity of modern and contemporary artists from Lebanon and its diasporas, from the day after its independence in 1943 to the present day, with works by Shafiq Abboud, Etel Adnan, Saliba Douaihy, Paul Guiragossian, Hussein Madi, Assadour, Chaouki Choukini, Ayman Baalbaki, Zad Moultaka, Serwan Baran, Hala Matta, Hiba Kalache, Zena Assi, and Tagreed Darghouth. (From the official website.)
Hussein Madi, Garden of Eden.
Insights into Lebanon; Modern and Contemporary Art from 1950 to Today
September 21, 2021, through January 2, 2022
Institut du Monde Arabe
1 rue des Fossés Saint-Bernard
5th Arrondissement
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
and Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday: 10:00 am to 7:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Jussieu or Cardinal Lemoine
Panoramic terrace restaurant, a café, and self-service kiosk
Official website: https://www.imarabe.org/en
Musée National Picasso Paris & Musée Rodin
These TWO museums are hosting one show. A great idea that also gives us a reason to visit two fabulous mansions that are now museums. This mash-up is guaranteed to be fun.
PICASSO – RODIN
For the first time, the Musée Rodin and the Musée National Picasso-Paris join forces to present the exhibition event “Picasso-Rodin”. This exceptional partnership between two great monographic museums offers an unprecedented look at these genius artists who have paved the way for modernity in art. Their masterpieces are presented simultaneously in the two historical monuments that house these national museums. The exhibition invites a cross-rereading of the works of Rodin (1840-1917) and Picasso (1881-1973). These two great artists having permanently changed the artistic practices of their time for generations to come. It is not a question of showing what Picasso borrowed from Rodin, but rather of examining the significant convergences that appear between Rodin’s work and several periods of Picasso’s production.
This cross-reading of their works is available in different chapters on both places, at the Rodin Museum on the one hand through the crisis of representation of the early twentieth century, and at the Picasso Museum, on the other hand, the creative processes of the artists. At different times and in different contexts, Rodin and Picasso participate in a decisive articulation of history and this is undoubtedly one of the keys to their similarities. In their own way, they invented a new mode of representation, expressionist at Rodin, cubist at Picasso. (From: https://www.museepicassoparis.fr/fr/picasso-rodin)
PICASSO – RODIN
2 artists, 2 museums, 1 landmark exhibition
Through January 2, 2022
Musée National Picasso-Paris
5 rue de Thorigny
3rd Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Friday 10:30 am to 6:00 pm
and Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 9:30 am to 6:00 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Saint-Paul, Saint-Sébastien Froissart, or Chemin Vert
Official website: https://www.museepicassoparis.fr/en/
Musée Rodin
77 rue de Varenne
7th Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10:00am to 6:30pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Varenne or Invalides
RER: Invalides
Café-restaurant L’Augustine in the garden under tall trees
Official website: https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Y’all, despite its name, this is one of the jewels of the world. It is so avant-garde, it flies under the radar. The curatorial staff is out of this world and killing it every day. They organize shows and rearrange permanent exhibitions in ways only designers of Bergdorf-Goodman windows could imagine. This place is IT. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, geaux, geaux, geaux cat geaux to this place the next time you are in Paris!!!!
Carte Blanche – Eva Jospin
For over 10 years, artist Eva Jospin has been composing forest and mineral landscapes exclusively from cardboard. The sobriety of the initial material and the monumental presence of the sculptures contrast with the extremely meticulous and detailed nature of the cut-outs imitating the details of natural landscapes with perfection. She has been invited to take over the rooms of the Museum in the fall of 2021. (From the official website.)
Eva Jospin, Forest.
Eva Jospin
November 16, 2021 through March 20, 2022
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
62 rue des Archives
3rd Arrondissement
Open Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Late openings some Wednesdays until 9:30 pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays
Métro: Hôtel de Ville, Rambuteau, or Arts et Métiers (take a few minutes and admire this station if you get out here).
Official website: https://www.chassenature.org
And So Much More
Oh yes, there are operas and the standard permanent gallery exhibitions that remain in many places! And, the good news is that everything is opening up. If it isn’t mentioned here, check out your favorite venue’s website. Repertory works are often fabulous productions. Especially now since performers have not had a lot of practice time. And, what could be wrong with seeing masterworks at the standby museums?? Nothing at all!!
Opéra de Paris – various repertory works, and interesting ballet performances. See the lineup and purchase tickets here.
Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie – various shows as well as permanent collection on display.
