As Art Basel Paris draws the global art world to the French capital, the city’s museums are throwing open their doors to some of the year’s most anticipated exhibitions. From a spotlight on pioneering art dealer Berthe Weill at Musée de l’Orangerie to the much anticipated grand opening of Jean Nouvel’s Fondation Cartier, there’s something for every art lover.
Here are our top picks of what to see in the City of Light.
Bridget Riley: Starting Point
Musée d’Orsay, October 21, 2025–January 25, 2026
Bridget Riley, Copy after ‘Le Pont de Courbevoie’ by Seurat (1959). Private Collection. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates. ©Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved.
What better pairing for the undulations of the newly sparkling river Seine than the vibrating canvasses of Op Art master Bridget Riley? The 94-year-old is showing at the Musée d’Orsay in a fascinating show that traces Riley’s creative origin story to an encounter with the work of Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat. In 1959 she copied Seurat’s , and the hypnotic study of color and optical vibration became a defining influence on the evolution of her artistic process. Soak in a bevy of geometric patterns, lines, and color arrangements characteristic of Riley’s dizzying works in the unbeatable setting of the celebrated museum.
Echo Delay Reverb: American Art, Francophone Thought
Palais de Tokyo, October 22, 2025–February 15, 2026
Pope.L, Polis or the Garden or Human Nature in Action (1998–2015), displayed at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA Los Angeles, 2015. Courtesy of the Pope.L Estate; the MOCA L.A., and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. Photo: Brian Forrest.
This wide-ranging exhibition dives deep into the French intellectual currents that have shaped U.S. art since the 1970s, particularly the revolutionary ideas of Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, and Frantz Fanon, among others. Organized by curator Naomi Beckwith, the show puts works by seminal artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cindy Sherman, Hans Haacke, and Pope.L in conversation with new commissions by the next generation of makers and thinkers, including Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Cici Wu.
The group show accompanies a solo retrospective exhibition by American sculptor Melvin Edwards—his first in France—continuing the theme of Franco-American artistic exchange. The shows kick off Palais de Tokyo’s fall season and are free to visit with no reservation necessary on October 22 and 23.
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Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde
Musée de l’Orangerie, October 8, 2025–January 26, 2026
Raoul Dufy, (1931). © Paris Musées / Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.
Long overshadowed by male contemporaries, pioneering dealer Berthe Weill finally takes center stage in this sweeping exhibition that traces her overlooked influence on the rise of the 20th-century avant-garde. The show highlights Weill’s crucial role in launching the careers of artists like Picasso, Modigliani, and Matisse, as well as her support for women artists, including Suzanne Valadon and Émilie Charmy. The show offers a rare glimpse into the early Parisian art market through the lens of a tenacious gallerist who believed deeply in one principle: “Place aux jeunes” (Make way for the young), which was printed on her business cards.
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Exposition Générale
Fondation Cartier, October 25, 2025–August 23, 2026
The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2 Place du Palais-Royal, Paris. ©Jean Nouvel / ADAGP, Paris, 2025. Photo: ©Martin Argyroglo.
The long-awaited grand opening of Jean Nouvel’s shape-shifting new headquarters for the Fondation Cartier will be the toast of Paris art week. Located in a prime location opposite the Louvre, the dramatic architectural overhaul of the Hausmannian building is almost as anticipated as the opening exhibition curated by Grazia Quaroni and Béatrice Grenier. Titled “Exposition Générale,” it celebrates the Fondation Cartier’s history, bringing together 600 works by more than 100 artists from the institution’s collection, in an epic display of creative might. Highlights include a roll call of the biggest names in contemporary art from Damien Hirst and Matthew Barney to Joan Mitchell and Olga do Amaral who had a critically acclaimed retrospective at the foundation last year.
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Meriem Bennani: Sole Crushing
Lafayette Anticipations, October 22, 2025–February 8, 2026
Meriem Bennani © Valentina Somma, Courtesy Fondazione Prada
Meriem Bennani turns the entire Fondation into a pulsating, absurdly musical organism in her latest installation. The sound installation “Sole Crushing” fills the building with the rhythmic clatter of over 200 animated flip-flops, striking surfaces to create a layered soundscape that’s equal parts symphony and protest. Originally commissioned by Fondazione Prada, the work is reimagined here with a new score by Cheb Runner (Reda Senhaji) and a site-specific architecture. As the sandals perform in unison, solo, or call-and-response, Bennani evokes the collective energy of a crowd—whether joyous, chaotic, or revolutionary—tapping (literally) into the simple sonic power of communal movement.
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Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
