Museums will have to wait until January to reopen their doors, but thankfully Parisian galleries are still here to bring a touch of culture to the end of 2020. From the banks of Canal Saint-Martin to the cobbled streets of Charonne, we’ll be your guide for this month’s selection of art exhibits!
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Charlotte Abramow & Delphine Diallo – Photography
Until December 19th

“A selection of works by artists Delphine Diallo and Charlotte Abramow (initially included in the Elles & Paris Photo program) will be on display until the end of the year. These photographs are a dialogue between the two artists’ views of contemporary feminism. Artists Thomas Klotz, Sandrine Elberg and Maud & Théo are also featured.
Delphine Diallo is a French-Senegalese visual artist and photographer who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She uses analog and digital photography, collage, illustration, 3D printing, virtual reality technologies, and is constantly exploring new media. Born in Belgium in 1993, Charlotte Abramow has been interested in photography from an early age. She strives to deconstruct notions of gender, beauty, and to tell the human story in a poetic and humorous way.”
Thursday to Friday: 2pm-7:30pm – Saturday: 11am-8pm – Free admission
Fisheye Gallery
2 Rue de l’Hôpital Saint-Louis, 75010 Paris
+33 (0)1 40 37 24 19
www.fisheyegallery.fr
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C215 – Portraits of the Communist Resistance
Until January 11th

In a tribute held for the centenary of the French Communist Party, street artist C215 has created fifteen large-format portraits exhibited in open air, in front of its Colonel Fabien headquarters. Using clandestine copies of the 1944 newspaper L’Humanité, the artist portrays leading figures of the Resistance: Martha Desrumaux, Pierre Georges, Missak Manouchian, Guy Môquet, Gabriel Péri, Jean-Pierre Timbaud, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier…
“I am not a member of the PCF but I wanted to pay tribute to the communist resistance fighters, to honor their memory. I was surprised by the fact that there are no communists among the five resistants resting at the Panthéon. I found this strange. You don’t have to be a specialist of the period to know that there were many communists who were members of the Resistance. They were essential,” the artist told L’Humanité.
Open air – Free admission
PCF Headquarters
Place du Colonel Fabien, 75019 Paris
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Ji-Yun – “Anatomies”
Until December 11th

Nestled in the charming Rue Saint-Blaise, the galerie Derniers Jours will be featuring around twenty drawings and sculptures by artist Ji-Yun. “Her grandfather, a calligrapher, once told her that everything one needed to find was on a blank page”.
“Inspired by this sentence and her memories, the knowledge of bodies is presented in a powerful and revealing way, echoes of a past in hospital institutions: the anatomical shapes of her inks and watercolors immerse us in the artist’s experience and in the intimacy of her connection with these ‘distant bodies’, as she refers to patients.”
Monday to Saturday: 4pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Derniers Jours
5 Rue Saint-Blaise, 75020 Paris
derniersjours.com
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Karolina Orzełek – “Lull after the storm”
December 12th – January 30th

After participating in the collective project “Endless Summer” a few months ago, artist Karolina Orzełek is back at the galerie Sabine Bayasli with a solo exhibition that we are looking forward to discovering! Originally from Bielsko-Biała in Poland and now a Parisian, the painter was recently awarded the 2020 Sisley – Beaux Arts de Paris prize for young creatives.
Nostalgia for a chimeric elsewhere, deserted yet bewitching beaches, plants that seem to adapt to their environment like chameleons: a change of scenery is guaranteed through Karolina Orzełek’s oils on panels. Get ready to push the door of a mysterious country in which colors and lights no longer obey the same rules.
Tuesday to Saturday: 12pm-7pm – Also open from 2pm to 7pm on December 13th & 20th – Free admission
Galerie Sabine Bayasli
99 Rue du Temple, 75003 Paris
galeriesabinebayasli.com
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Sabine Weiss – “Sous le soleil de la vie”
Until February 20th

“When I had to choose a title for this exhibition, I wanted to highlight the character of Sabine Weiss. Sunshine, smile, energy, optimism, dedication… there is no lack of qualifiers. Temperament, too! “In the Sunshine of Life” soon became obvious because it summarizes quite well her appetence.
As you will have understood, it is with great tenderness that we present at the gallery a new exhibition of Sabine Weiss, with well-known photographs, and some more unusual ones, and always composition and light as the key words” — Françoise Morin, art director.
Wednesday to Saturday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Les Douches La Galerie
5 Rue Legouvé, 75010 Paris
+33 (0)1 78 94 03 00
www.lesdoucheslagalerie.com
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Group Show – “Bêtes de Scène à Paris”
Until December 20th

Thanks to the exhibit “Bêtes de Scène (à Paris) – Animals in contemporary sculpture”, Parisians have the opportunity to discover the surprising artworks that attracted nearly 50,000 visitors last year in Lubéron, the region where the Villa Datris Foundation is based.
Some sixty pieces are reunited for the occasion at the Espace Monte Cristo, a few minutes away from Père Lachaise. The animal world has inspired the sculptures of 29 French and international artists, questioning our relationship with wildlife and our environment. Among the great names of contemporary art who bring the Villa Datris collections to life are Rina Banerjee, Katia Bourdarel, César, Kate MccGwire and Evert Lindfors.
Wednesday to Sunday: 11am-6:30pm – Free admission
Fondation Villa Datris – Espace Monte Cristo
9 rue Monte Cristo, 75020 Paris
+33 (0)1 48 17 60 60
fondationvilladatris.fr
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Group Show – “Colors of Africa”
Until January 10th

“Hassan Hajjaj (Morocco), Thandiwe Muriu (Kenya), Derrick Boateng (Ghana), Ebuka Michael (Nigeria) and Nyaba Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso) are twisting conventions to free themselves, exploring and playing with the limits of the photographic matter. They structure their compositions to challenge the unconscious and offer a new aesthetic, at the confluence of the Africas.
Between Moroccan pop, the tribute to the beauty and modernity of African women by Kenya’s Thandiwe Muriu, Nyaba Ouedraogo’s reflections on identity, and the explosion of colors created by the new generation of phone photographers, represented by Derrick Boateng and Ebuka Michael, ‘Colors of Africa’ celebrates a certain philosophy of life, positive and hopeful, that this young generation carries.”
Tuesday to Saturday: 10:30am-7:30pm – Free admission
193 Gallery
7 Rue des Filles du Calvaire, 75003 Paris
www.193gallery.com
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Group Show – “D’un confinement à l’autre”
/!\ Postponed to January 7th – February 6th

“Wherever we are from, whatever our history, what are we made of? The health crisis has suspended time all over the world, echoing an experience familiar to those forced into exile. Taking a break, finding and letting ourselves think. Through the eyes of exiled artists, it’s the occasion to explore and measure the political stakes of what we are made of. For the fourth year of the festival “Visions of exile”, artists revisit the recent confinement in line with their personal history.
In the exhibition “D’un confinement à l’autre” (From one confinement to another) by the agency of artists in exile, presented this year at the Pavillon Carré de Baudoin, artists from Iran, Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Pakistan share their vision of these unprecedented hours through drawings, paintings, installations, and films.”
Tuesday to Saturday: 2pm-6pm (7pm on Thursdays) – Free admission / Reservation required
Pavillon Carré de Baudouin
121 Rue de Ménilmontant, 75020 Paris
+33 (0)1 58 53 55 40
www.pavilloncarredebaudouin.fr
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Group Show – “Le lien : corps en éclosion”
Until December 31st

“At Galerie Hors-Champs, we felt that at a time when the body is no longer publicly mentioned, except as a space of danger and as an endangered space, it became necessary to think of it as an object of growth, attraction, and blossoming.
A group exhibition is already an anatomy made of organs mixed together; from the bond of the four intertwined artists, Damien Bockenmeyer, Dylan Caruso, Claudie Dadu, and Marielle Degioanni, from drawing to sculpture, grows an exploration of the different links that make the body – ours as well as that of the artwork” — Hannibal Volkoff, curator.
Tuesday to Sunday: 1pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Hors-Champ
20 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003 Paris
+33 (0)1 45 35 48 98
www.galerie-hors-champs.com
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Group Show – “Little Big Art”
December 10th-20th

“As the holiday season approaches, fifteen artists from the association Ateliers d’artistes de Belleville are coming together in a collective exhibition and sale organized by Constance Martiny Sondag. This exhibit will be testament to the diversity of the catalogue and creations of local artists.
Painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, engraving… many techniques will be represented, but in small format, in order to keep prices affordable. The artists featured are Angela Bonavita, Anne Ramaré, Charlotte Barrault, Constance Martiny Sondag, Cyril Réguerre, Elisabeth Lerolle, Gérard Tricottet, Jozyann Chabel, Laurent Bergstrasser, Marine Courillon, Nicole Pavlowsky, O’d, Servane Cayeux, Stéphanie Olivar and Ulrike Klett.
Thursday to Sunday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie des Ateliers d’artistes de Belleville
1 rue Francis Picabia, 75020 Paris
+33 (0)1 73 74 27 67
ateliers-artistes-belleville.fr
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Group Show – “Moriyama – Tomatsu: Tokyo”
/!\ Postponed to January

“This original exhibition, which brings together the visions of two masters of contemporary Japanese photography, features 400 artworks from the 1950s to the present day. The first retrospective in France devoted to the carreer of Shomei Tomatsu, it is also one of the largest exhibitions organized around the work of Daido Moriyama in several years.
Imagined by the photographers themselves, during Tomatsu’s lifetime, it is a vibrant testimony to the passion they both share for the Japanese capital and its residents. In the Studio, a space dedicated to young creation, the film by choreographer and visual artist Smaïl Kanouté introduces visitors to the extraordinary story of Yasuke Kurosan, Japan’s black samurai.”
Wednesday to Friday: 11am-8pm – Saturday & Sunday: 10am-8pm – €11/€7
Maison européenne de la photographie
5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris
+33 (0)1 44 78 75 00
www.mep-fr.org
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Group Show – “Du jour au lendemain”
Until January 3rd

The outdoor exhibition “Du jour au lendemain” (From one day to the next) will be held until January 3rd around the May Picqueray garden, facing the Bataclan. It brings together 42 photographers who were in Paris on that terrible day of November 13th, 2015. Alongside the association 13onze15, curator Laura Serani and artistic director Camille Morin partnered to create this tribute.
They detail the approach that allowed them to assemble this series of “intimate and personal” diptychs, accompanied by texts by their authors: “They were asked to look in their archives for a photograph taken on the 13th, before the attacks […] and, at the same time, to select one of their photographs as a ‘response to the attacks’, an act of resistance to the logic of death and destruction, a metaphorical image of these tragic moments, an echo of pain and fears, but also of hope, revolt and resilience.”
– Our article –
Open air – Free admission
Jardin May Picqueray
94 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 75011 Paris
13onze15.org
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Group Show – “Un voyage parisien”
December 8th-20th

“What is travelling? Setting out on a journey, in an unusual way and thus discover different spaces. Travelling is also escaping, through reading, dreaming or imagination, or making one’s revolution… just like the sun! It is moving in space but also in time, sometimes leading us to an experience of introspection.
Dreams, sleep and psychotropic drugs take us to faraway places comparable to travel. And art in all this? It gives us the possibility to leave the known framework, the everyday life, to see objects and beings differently. It opens us to reaction, emotion and reflection. Bon voyage! with the twelve artists Valérie Belmokhtar, Saskia Bertrand, Caroline Bouyer, Michaël Cailloux, Arnaud Franc, Colette Grandgérard, Atsuko Ishii, Thibault Laget-Ro, Emmanuelle Pérat, Véronique Pineau, Coco Téxèdre, and Samir M. Zoghby.”
Tuesday to Saturday: 11am-8pm – Sunday: 12pm-6pm – Free admission
Espace des Coutures Saint-Gervais
Organized by galerie Nathalie Béreau
6 Rue des Coutures Saint-Gervais, 75003 Paris
www.nathaliebereau.com
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Illustrations (reframed):
Homme allumant une cigarette, Paris, 1950 / Courses à Auteuil, Paris, 1952 – Photographs featured in the exhibit “Sous le soleil de la vie” at Les Douches La Galerie
© Sabine Weiss / Courtesy Les Douches La Galerie
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