Looking for a cultural break? From the Marais to Pantin through Belleville and Canal Saint-Martin, we’ll be your guide for this month’s selection of art exhibits!
Mylène Alain – Black Peonies
Until March 10th

“In the summer of 2021, Mylène Alain drew a peony flower in black stone, then a second one, before she decided she would make eighty-three. Forty drawings from this work in progress are featured in this exhibit. Far from the illustrative work of a naturalist working on botanical illustrations and seeking to faithfully reproduce her model, the creative process involved in this series is akin to Art singulier. Each drawing requires hours of execution – the repetition of the gesture plunging its creator into a meditative state, as hypnotic for her as for the viewer of the finished artwork.”
Wednesday to Sunday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Les Temps Donnés
16 rue des Envierges, 75020 Paris
www.lestempsdonnes.com
Lara Bloy, Clara Bryon, Magdalena Lamri, et Kaichun Wang – Nos Lumières
Until March 19th

In the heart of Le Marais, Galerie Sabine Bayasli gallery brings together four young artists around the theme of light. Visitors will successively discover the “states of introspection and in-between” that inhabit the portraits of Lara Bloy, the luminous reflections composed by Clara Bryon, and the reveries of Magdalena Lamri, transcribed in charcoal, wrapped in mysteries and monochrome mists. The collective project Nos Lumières (“Our Lights”) will also be the first gallery exhibition featuring painter Kaichun Wang: an opportunity to see a dozen of his portraits, clever cameos in the style of realism. Add to this the Méditation hivernale (“Winter Meditation”) created by curator Joanna Cohen alongside artists Maloles Antignac and Diane Chery, and we can only recommend an artistic stopover on Rue du Temple!
Tuesday to Saturday: 12pm-7pm – Free admission
Galerie Sabine Bayasli
99 rue du Temple, 75003 Paris
galeriesabinebayasli.com
Louis-Léopold Boilly – Chroniques parisiennes
Until June 26th

The Musée Cognacq-Jay is dedicating its latest exhibition to the many talents of Louis-Léopold Boilly, “a gifted, prolific and unclassifiable artist” who depicted the lives of Parisians “from one revolution to the dawn of another” – 1789 and 1848. His street scenes, carnival crowds, and other popular jubilations were an opportunity to use his sense of detail and observation and immortalize the capital at a decisive time in its history. The 130 works presented feature an impressive gallery of portraits, between humor and realism, a specialty of the painter who lived and worked by the Grands Boulevards. The exhibit Chroniques parisiennes also includes more intimate but equally striking compositions, such as Deux jeunes femmes s’embrassant (1790-1794), considered “one of the first lesbian kisses” depicted in painting. Several of the artworks can be seen for the very first time in France.
Tuesday to Sunday: 10am-6pm – €8/€6/€0
Musée Cognacq-Jay
8 rue Elzévir, 75003 Paris
www.museecognacqjay.paris.fr
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Nathalie Choux – Terra Chimera
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Rebecka Tollens – Eye of a womb
Until March 5th

“With Terra Chimera, the Arts Factory gallery invites Nathalie Choux to open the doors to her workshop and present a fascinating series of ceramic sculptures, the result of many months of work. As if escaped from a mysterious forest populated by lost children, this strange chimerical bestiary is part of the darker side of her production, initiated during previous exhibitions. An open territory, freed from the codes of publishing and children’s illustration, a field in which Nathalie Choux has been successfully working for many years.”
“Two years after The Last Wedding, her last exhibition at the Arts Factory gallery, Rebecka Tollens presents a new series of stunning charcoal artworks with Eye of a Womb. Behind this very Bergmanian title, visitors will find a set of drawings evoking her maternal grandmother, who disappeared three years ago. In this post-mortem conversation, Rebecka Tollens’ dreamlike inspirations celebrate, as often in her work, the union between our world and the hereafter. She gives the reminiscences of her childhood a spiritual, and largely universal, dimension.”
Monday to Saturay: 12:30pm-7:30pm – Free admission
Galerie Arts Factory
27 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris
www.artsfactory.net
Susan Cianciolo – RUN 14 FIELD of existence
March 5th to April 10th

Nestled between Pantin and Pré-Saint-Gervais, the Community Centre welcomes American artist and designer Susan Cianciolo for her first solo exhibition in France in nearly twenty years. RUN 14 FIELD of existence includes a selection of tapestries, video creations, site-specific artworks and outdoor sculptures, accompanied by a performance. The latter will be unveiled at the opening on Saturday, March 5th, to a musical backdrop orchestrated by Californian multi-instrumentalist Anenon.
Friday & Saturday: 12pm-8pm – Sunday: 12pm-6pm – Free admission
The Community Centre
9 rue Méhul, 93500 Pantin
thecommunity.io
Juliette Dupuis Carle – Une sur Trois
March 9th-20th

“Referencing the international statistic stating that one out of three women will survive sexist and sexual violence in her lifetime, the photographic series Une sur Trois describes the post-traumatic consequences of these aggressions. Through her lens, photographer Juliette Dupuis Carle wants to give a voice to the bodies and souls of survivors of sexual violence. With art and gentleness, she aims to show the daily pains, hidden, and too often put under silence. It is also a question of making isolated people understand that they are not alone, to help them overcome the violence they have experienced, to enable them to build a life without this violence. The exhibition will present the portraits of twenty different women who have agreed to testify as part of the project Une sur Trois.”
Every Day (except for Monday) : 10:30am-7pm – Free admission
Espace Beaurepaire
28 rue Beaurepaire, 75010 Paris
www.espacebeaurepaire.com
Sandrine Elberg – Astra
March 10th to April 9th

Photographer Sandrine Elberg propels us towards the stars with Astra, a hypnotizing exhibit hosted at Fisheye Gallery, a short walk away from Canal Saint-Martin. Far-away galaxies, dreamlike asteroids, supernovas, comets: celestial bodies abound in these black and white artworks using a wide range of techniques, from digital photography to postproduction, rayograph (interposition of an object between a sensitive paper and the light), and chemigram (use of light-sensitive paper). Featuring around twenty new prints, this exhibit was “conceived as a return from a long scientific journey dedicated to the observation of the stars”.
Wednesday to Friday : 2pm-7pm – Saturday: 11am-7pm – Free admission
Fisheye Gallery
2 rue de l’Hôpital Saint-Louis, 75010 Paris
www.fisheyegallery.fr
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Mar García Albert – Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect
March 7th-27th

“Mar García Albert is a visual artist based in Paris since 2013. Due to her previous studies in economics, she considers pictorial practice as a space to thwart the mechanism of value attribution to artworks in a free market context. This sometimes leads her to focus more on aspects related to the creative process in the studio – a working area rarely visible to the final viewer – or to focus on minor (almost illegitimate) subjects from everyday experiences. Using toilet paper samples, collected by the artist during her various travels or brought by her own personal network, Mar García Albert develops a new body of artworks for her solo exhibition at Doc.”
Opening hours to be confirmed / By appointment – Free admission
Doc
26 rue du Docteur Potain, 75019 Paris
doc.work
Fatimah Hossaini, Massoud Hossaini, Naseer Turkmani, Reza, Roshana, Roya Heydari, and Sayd Bahodine Majrouh – Le Rire des Amants: Une épopée afghane
Until April 2nd

On the heights of Ménilmontant, the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin welcomes the group exhibition Le Rire des Amants – Une épopée afghane, which brings together six photographers around the legacy of the poet Sayd Bahodine Majrouh. Held “in support of the Afghan people and its artists” in the “first cultural venue of the 20th arrondissement”, the event will also include several performances and workshops around literature or cinema. These testimonies will complete the panorama of photographic series presented, made from 1983 to 2021, between “a diversity reflecting the complex reality” of the country and “the quest for beauty and poetry” as a remedy to Afghanistan’s current and past tragedies. — Our article (French)
Tuesday to Saturday: 2pm-6pm (until 7pm on Thursday) – Free admission
Pavillon Carré de Baudouin
121 Rue de Ménilmontant, 75020 Paris
www.pavilloncarredebaudouin.fr
Clara Lang-Ezekiel – N’oubliez pas les dames
March 3rd-24th

“A French-American artist who studied art and history, Clara Lang-Ezekiel is interested in portraying historical figures. Her current work focuses on women’s history: from Hedy Lamarr, without whom we wouldn’t have Wi-Fi to occupy our evenings in lockdown, to Margaret Bourke-White, who was the first woman photographer to report on World War II. In 1776, as the founding fathers of the United States were preparing their Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband: ‘In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation’.”
Monday to Saturday: 9am-5pm – Free admission
Centre Paris Anim’ Bessie Smith
19 rue Antoine-Julien Hénard, 75012 Paris
Événement FB
Élodie Seguin – The missing Thing
Until April 2nd

“For her fifth solo exhibition at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Élodie Seguin brings order and disorder into dialogue in The missing Thing, a journey constructed through a succession of new pieces that question unity and production. After three years of research and two residencies on the subject of transparency, she is considering thermoforming as a form of sculpture. A gesture that also shapes an absence, and gives meaning to all the things we do not see.”
Tuesday to Saturday: 10am-6pm – Free admission
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
43 rue de la Commune de Paris, 93230 Romainville
www.galeriewolff.com
Pamela Tulizo – Face to face
Until March 13th

“In response to the theme Face to face, photographer Pamela Tulizo highlights the dual identity of Congolese women, from the demeaning image of victims conveyed through the media to a hopeful image – women who are vibrant and resistant, fighting daily against social injustice. The MEP is also presenting her recent series Enfer Paradisiaque (2021), inspired by the Covid-19 epidemic: images of models in gorgeous robes incorporating essential products such as light bulbs, food, or coal.”
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
Lili Wood – Sous le vent
Until March 26th

A perfect venue to discover the new generation of graphic artists in Paris, Slow Galerie will present a selection of works by illustrator Lili Wood. Living in Cancale since the summer of 2020, the artist recreates the sometimes supernatural lights and atmosphere of the Emerald Coast. Foamy sea, pastel skies, windswept paths: through more than fourty gouaches, let yourself be carried away along the shores of an “impetuous, luminous, mystical and wild” Brittany. In these inspired compositions, “the strength of the wind decides, pushing and guiding us towards a direction rather than another. In the artist’s illustrations, just like in her strolls.
Monday to Saturday: 11am-7pm – Free admission
Slow Galerie
5 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris
www.slowgalerie.com
Les diplomates face à la Shoah
Until May 8th

“Diplomats in the Shoah are still largely perceived through a handful of them, those who saved Jews. But the reality is much murkier. Caught up in very rigid state administrations and complex and changing foreign policies, some were nevertheless the first informants on the persecution and then on the extermination. Others, more rare, did save Jews. But most obeyed orders, trying to navigate the turmoil of World War II. Through their duties, diplomats played a key role in migration issues in general, particularly regarding the issue of German refugees in the late 1930s and during the conflict, before Germany banned Jews from emigrating in October 1941. After the war, diplomats participated in the negotiation of reparations to survivors, as well as in the international dimensions of the memory of the Shoah.” — Our article (French)
Everyday except Saturday: 10am-18pm (until 10pm on Thursday) – Free admission and visits in English
Mémorial de la Shoah
17 rue Geoffroy L’Asnier, 75004 Paris
www.memorialdelashoah.org
Lointain proche
Until March 26th

“Lointain Proche is a project inspired by the thoughts of writer Édouard Glissant, who cast a visionary light on the cultural futures of people, identities, and the global world. Discussing Glissant in their workshops, artist and curator Emmanuel Rivière and his friend, artist Alex Burke, have brought together other creators around them in order to create a nomadic, flexible exhibition, meant to renew itself across different venues. For this specific version of Lointain Proche at Montreuil’s Centre Tignous d’art contemporain, the artists featured in the initial project – Alex Burke, Mamadou Cissé, frédéric dumond, Dimitri Fagbohoun, Emmanuel Rivière – will present new multi-media works (sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos), and Yuhsin U Chang will create a large sculpture in situ. New visual artists will join the project: Anahita Bathaïe, Olivier Peyronnet, and his accomplice Hervé Télémaque, whose pictorial work adresses the creolization described by Glissant.”
Wednesday to Friday: 2pm-6pm (until 9pm on Thursday) – Saturday: 2pm-7pm – Free admission
Centre Tignous d’art contemporain
116 rue de Paris, 93100 Montreuil
centretignousdartcontemporain.fr
Illustration (cropped) :
Portrait from the series Pearl in the oyster / L’audace de la beauté featured in the exhibit Le Rire des Amants – Une épopée afghane at Pavillon Carré de Baudouin
© Fatimah Hossaini
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