Looking for a cultural break? From the Marais to Belleville through République and Canal-Saint-Martin, we’ll be your guide for this month’s selection of art exhibits!
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Maria Barrio – Niña : une peinture de genres
Until January 15th

“Maria Barrio explores childhood with an autobiographical exhibition that serves not only to reconstruct moments of her life in images, to extract from memory spatial, emotional, as well as sonic landscapes, but also to show the viewer, the one who decides to look in detail, the experiences of a girl, a Latin American girl, a universal girl. Resistance of a girl, resistance of the spirit, resistance by and through art. The finger and the brush thus aim not only to recreate and recover, to draw from the past, but also to show, highlight, and denounce.” — Maria Elvira Alvarez Gimenez
Wednesday to Friday: 2pm-7pm – Saturday: 1pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie DerniersJours
5 rue Saint-Blaise, 75020 Paris
derniersjourscom.wordpress.com
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Dominique Bertail, Jean-David Morvan, and Madeleine Riffaud – Madeleine, résistante
Until February 15th

On August 23rd, 1944, during the Liberation of Paris, the resistance fighter Madeleine Riffaud led a victorious attack on a German train near the Buttes-Chaumont tunnel. This day also arked her twentieth birthday. After the Liberation, she kept on fighting as a journalist for Ce Soir, Vie ouvrière, and then for L’Humanité. Also a poet, Madeleine Riffaud started testifying about her experiences in the Resistance in 1994, in the line of Lucie and Raymond Aubrac. She adressed Parisian classrooms and, more recently, appeared on television and documentaries. Published this year by Aire Libre – Dupuis from a scenario co-written with Jean-David Morvan and drawings by Dominique Bertail, the illustrated story of her life has just been awarded the Goscinny Prize. Ahead of the 2022 Angoulême festival, and following a similar exhibition unveiled at Buttes-Chaumont in the end of 2021, the Gare d’Austerlitz is welcoming a series of large panels from the graphic novel Madeleine, résistante. – Our article on Madeleine Riffaud (French)
Outdoors and in the station concourse – Free admission
Gare d’Austerlitz
Quai d’Austerlitz, 75013 Paris
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Michèle Cirès-Brigand, Frédéric Coché, Gabriel Folli, Soo-Kyoung Lee, Laurence Papouin, and Jérôme Touron – Il était une foi(s)…
January 5th-22nd

“For Il était une foi(s)…, Galerie La Ferronnerie gallery features a set of works evoking, not without derision, the Christmas season, such as this emblematic cathedral of Brasilia, drawn in charcoal by Gabriel Folli on old architect’s plan, or Frédéric Coché’s etching Le Septième jour, where an areopagus of angels is depicted surrounding the bellicose actions of humans. The exhibit aso includes the refined and symbolic skies of Jérôme Touron, accompanied by the colorful folded artworks of Laurence Papouin, echoing an iconography inspired by religious decorum. Soo Kyoung Lee’s brightly colored paintings, punctuated with black lines, are reminiscent of stained glass art. Finally, Michèle Cirès-Brigand subtly links the gestures of hands, inspired by Piero della Francesca’s paintings, with simple text messages, snippets of our daily lives…”
Tuesday to Friday: 2pm-7pm – Saturday: 1pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie La Ferronnerie
40 rue de la Folie-Méricourt, 75011 Paris
www.galerielaferronnerie.fr
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Samuel Fosso – Retrospective
Until March 13th

“Born in 1962 in Cameroon, Fosso survived the civil war in Nigeria before settling to live with his uncle in Bangui in the Central African Republic, where he began his career as a studio photographer at the age of 13. Outside of his daily work making portraits to order, he started creating a series of alternate identities challenging representational conventions. Ever since Fosso has continued to reinvent himself through his self-portraits which have allowed him to reach beyond the limitations usually imposed by society, geography, and time. Comprising more than 300 prints, the exhibition brings together iconic series, lesser-known works, as well as archival material and previously unpublished, unseen images, displayed principally in large-scale ensembles.”
Wednesday to Friday: 11am-8pm – Saturday & Sunday: 10am-8pm – €11/€7
Maison européenne de la photographie
5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris
www.mep-fr.org
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Constance Labbé & Viviana Morizet – Réanimé
Unti January 14th

At the time of the first lockdown in the spring of 2020, the staff of the intensive care unit of the Tenon hospital agreed to welcome photographers Constance Labbé and Viviana Morizet for two weeks. The touching sound exhibition born from this experience, Réanimé (Reanimated), can be discovered until January 14th on the walls of the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin. Through a series of 17 photographs, the two artists bring us into the trying daily life of the teams confronted with the first peak of the crisis, illustrating the efforts and solidarity required to face unprecedented days and nights. Their photographs are accompanied by a soundtrack orchestrated by cellist Mathyas Vj, “who composed an original music, integrating sounds, machine noises, and about thirty testimonies of caregivers” recorded on site. — Our article (French)
Outdoors on the walls of the Pavillon – Free admission
Pavillon Carré de Baudouin
121 rue de Ménilmontant, 75020 Paris
mairie20.paris.fr
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Vivian Maier – Saisir l’inattendu
Until February 5th

The story of Vivian Maier is sad and fascinating at once. She worked for 40 years as a nanny, and her immense talent for photography was left ignored during her whole life. She took advantage of her trips in the streets of Chicago, New York and Los Angeles to produce more than 120,000 negatives. She could not afford to develop most of her pictures, and the recognition of their artistic value coincided with her passing in 2009 in her 83rd year. Les Douches feature a series of photographs of the now celebrated anonymous (a street was named after her last November in the 13th arrondissement), most of them previously unseen. Taken from the 50s to the 70s, these works show the unique talent of Vivian Maier, an artist especially know for her portraits in black and white. The exhibit Saisir l’inattendu also demonstrates that the mysterious photographer’s poetic realism translates just as well in colors.
Wednesday to Saturday: 2pm-7pm
Les Douches La Galerie
5 rue Legouvé, 75010 Paris
lesdoucheslagalerie.com
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Aloïs Marignane – Paris 19e
Until January 31st

Great news for all those who love Eastern Paris: after illustrating the districts of the 20th arrondissement in a series of vibrant posters, local artist Aloïs Marignane crosses Rue de Belleville with another project, this time dedicated to the neighboring 19th district! From Buttes-Chaumont to La Villette, passing by the Place de Stalingrad and the rising bridge of Rue de Crimée, this collection of iconic places from the north-eastern corner of the capital is presented at the café L’Atalante, right by Canal de l’Ourcq. — Our interview with Aloïs Marignane (French)
Monday: 5pm-12am – Tuesday to Thursday: 5pm-1:30am – Friday & Saturday: 12pm-1:30am – Sunday: 12pm-12am
L’Atalante
26 quai de la Marne, 75019 Paris
Événement FB
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Dean Monogenis – Continuous Coast
Until January 15th

“Dean Monogenis is an American artist of Greek heritage who lives and works in Brooklyn. His paintings feature dreamy spaces in which architectural and natural elements interlace. He depicts modernist buildings, colorful scaffoldings, imaginary architect houses in the middle of rocky landscapes taken over by wild vegetation. Balancing between reality and fantasy, his artworks embody a permanent state of transition, an ongoing dialogue between urbanisation and nature, forging an utopian vision with a dystopian touch.”
Tuesday to Friday: 10am-1pm & 2pm-7pm – Saturday: 10am-7pm – Free admission
Xippas
108 rue Vieille-du-Temple, 75003 Paris
www.xippas.com
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Aurélia Peñafiel – Les Fourmis
January 12th-23rd

“Born in 1982 to a Chilean father and a French mother, both sculptors, Aurelia Peñafiel had a childhood synonymous with creativity, shaping her own artistic universe. In 2005, in Salvador, in the north-east of Brazil, she followed courses in engraving and painting at the federal university of the Bahia region. For the past fifteen years, she has been refining her line, affirming her artistic identity and exhibiting in solo and group shows across several countries. The exhibition Les Fourmis depicts festive scenes bringing together a profusion of disturbing birds, dreamy ants, lonely souls… An imaginary world that switches from laughter to tears, from cries to silence, and from light to darkness, the time of a dance, a disarticulation.”
Thursday to Sunday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie des Ateliers d’artistes de Belleville
1 rue Francis Picabia, 75020 Paris
ateliers-artistes-belleville.fr
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Julian Simon – Softspots
January 15th to February 19th

“Born in 1994 in Cologne, Julian Simon lives in Berlin, where he has been studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Weißensee’s painting department since 2016. He developed a realistic touch oil painting, working with a technique close to fa presto – a practice originating in 17th century Italy and consisting of painting quickly on a previously coloured background, in order to achieve a spontaneous and expressive result. For his compositions, Julian takes spontaneous analogue photographs of his loved ones. Sensitive to hyperconnectivity, overexposure, and the overconsumption of images, Julian is interested in photographs that would normally be rejected because they are badly framed, overexposed, blurred, or have chromatic aberrations, before transposing them freely onto canvas. […] Oscillating between dream and reality, Julian offers with Softspots an intimate and offbeat look at the ambiguity of youth – at once ecstatic and forlorn.”
Wednesday to Saturday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Chloé Salgado
61 rue de Saintonge, 75003 Paris
galeriechloesalgado.com
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Seula Yi – Blue in City
Until January 22nd

“Seula is a lover of cities. A world traveler, she goes from East to West, from North to South, stopping in megalopolises, with long sidewalks, immense towers, bridges spanning waters that are not always clear. New York, London, Berlin, Seoul… In these sprawling cities that capture us like giant octopuses, Seula draws the day, the night, the seasons that follow each other and the people who inhabit them. In her gouache and watercolor paintings, she tenderly transposes the poetry and beauty of the urban world.”
Monday to Saturday: 11am-7pm – Free admission
Slow Galerie
5 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris
www.slowgalerie.com
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L’Enfer
Until January 15th

“At the initiative of Galerie Sabine Bayasli, the painter Olivier Masmonteil is curating his first exhibition by bringing together fifty artists invited to imagine their ‘Hell’, in reference to the old library sections dedicated to prohibited or immoral books. Focusing mainly on small formats, the exhibition recreates the atmosphere of an intimate boudoir, in which the eye slips as close as possible to the artworks. Erotic drawings, obscene paintings, blasphemous sculptures, apocalyptic photographs: the ensemble follows this precept of the no less anti-conventional Georges Bataille: ‘the necessity to dazzle and to blind’.”
Tuesday to Saturday: 12pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Sabine Bayasli
99 rue du Temple, 75003 Paris
galeriesabinebayasli.com
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CollectOR
Until January 9th (closed until January 4th)

A group exhibition featuring the street artists Agrume, Ardif, Codex Urbanus, Nadège Dauvergne, Dawal, Ender, Etus, Philippe Hérard, Mahn Kloix, Levalet, Marquise, Mika, Mani, Ned, Nosbé, Petitepoissone, Jérôme Rasto, Sax, Thomas, and Vermibus.
Tuesday to Sunday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Le Cabinet d’amateur
12 rue de la Forge Royale, 75011 Paris
www.lecabinetdamateur.com
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Visages du monde ouvrier (1880-1940)
Until January 29th

“At the dawn of the twentieth century, photography was essentially the result of a staging that tended to show an idealized image of workers, defined solely by their task and their tools. However, by the quality of the workers’ presence, the dignity of their posture, the intensity of their gaze, the photograph managed to escape the intention of the commissioner. Beyond the details that inform us about the working-class condition, what holds our attention, fascinates us, are the faces, this place of the body where the personality is lodged, this most unique and irreplaceable part of the individual. Just like photography, the face is a sensitive surface on which lasting traces are imprinted. The workers wear the marks of their labor on their faces, but at the same time, by their singularities and mysteries, these faces constantly escapes those who want to reduce it to an object.” — Marion & Philippe Jacquier
Wednesday to Saturday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Lumière des roses
12-14 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 93100 Montreuil
lumieredesroses.com
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Illustration (cropped) :
Sortie d’usine, circa 1910. Silver print. Photo card. 9 x 14 cm
© Anonymous photographer – Courtesy Galerie Lumière des roses
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