Eliana Willis

Since their emergence a decade ago, immersive exhibitions have been pitched as the ideal vehicle to tell humanity’s greatest stories. Visitors have been ushered inside the kaleidoscopic mind of Vincent van Gogh, through the depths of the cosmos with NASA, and back into the world of Egypt’s greatest pharaoh, Ramses II.
The premise, it seems, is that to truly understand the world and its biggest figures, looking isn’t enough—a full sensory experience is required. Well, it doesn’t get much bigger than the life of Jesus and now visitors to a Dallas, Texas, multiplex can travel back 2,000 years and experience the prophet’s life.
“The Nazarene” deploys the full complement of immersive tricks to recreate 19 episodes from the New Testament’s account of the life of Jesus including the nativity, his baptism, and his ultimate ascension into heaven. There are big screens, atmospheric lighting, panoramic sound, and 3D sets with the experience spread across five galleries.
“It’s a pioneering approach to immersive experiences. While the 360-degree projection forms the core, we’ve layered in spatial audio, practical effects, and curated set elements— like adding layers to an onion,” said Executive Producer Robert Bagdassarov. “To our knowledge, there are no other shows of this kind in existence.”
An installation view of “The Nazarene.” Photo: Courtesy of Tellem Grody PR.
As proclaimed on the exhibition’s website: “You will enter the holy lands of Galilee and Israel. Feel the hot air of the Judean desert and the cool breeze of the Jordan River. Witness miracles and betrayals.”
In some ways, the greatest wonder is that it has taken so long for an immersive spectacle of Christianity to appear. The investor and organizer is Alpine Artists, a reclusive company without a functioning website that describes itself as a “trailblazing production house” with a “stellar reputation for delivering not only enjoyable but also profoundly meaningful experiences.” Tickets are $39 per person.
The immersive component of the exhibition only comprises one part of “The Nazarene” experience. For an extra $30, visitors can also take in “Discover Jesus,” a more traditional and tangible survey, showcasing 300 artifacts from the Holy Land.
Most of the artifacts on display are fairly standard archaeological fare, selected for their material details that can help bring to life the world Jesus and his disciples inhabited. There are period pottery works, fishing hooks from the Sea of Galilee, nails “similar to those used in the crucifixion,” and silver coins, the likes of which were handed over in the course of Jesus’s betrayal by Judas.
The James Ossuary. Image: courtesy Oded Golan.
However, the headline artifact, along with its lender Oded Golan, are rather more controversial. It’s called the James Ossuary, a 1st-century limestone box that some have claimed once held the remains of Christ’s brother, James. This attribution stems from the presence of the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” carved in Aramaic. Experts don’t refute the age or function of the ossuary, but rather that its connection to Jesus is a modern alteration.
In the early 2000s, Golan was tried and acquitted of forging artifacts in an Israeli court; the judge refused to rule on the ossuary’s authenticity.
The James Ossuary inscription noting a brother of Jesus. Photo: courtesy Oded Golan.
Naturally, none of this is mentioned in the exhibition’s promotional materials but, with the ossuary making its first appearance in the U.S., it’s a rare opportunity for Americans to decide for themselves. And with Bagdassarov eying future destinations across Latin America, Asia, and Europe the opportunity may fall to many more.
See more images of “The Nazarene.”
An installation view of the exhibition. Photo: Courtesy of Tellem Grody PR.
The Nativity scene at “The Nazarene.” Photo: Courtesy of Tellem Grody PR.
Nails, the likes of which would have been used to crucify Jesus. Photo: Oded Golan.
Fishing hooks from the Sea of Galilee. Photo: Oded Golan.
A period coin, the likes of which would have been handed over in exchange for Jesus. Photo: Oded Golan.
Period earthenware. Photo: Oded Golan.
Period sandals, the likes of which Jesus might have worn. Photo: Oded Golan.

“The Nazarene” is on view at 10110 Technology Blvd. E., Dallas, through January 7, 2024.
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How can artists address violent and unjust aspects of the past while looking towards the future? For the contemporary painters who reframe the work of the Old Masters, this often involves replicating compositions and marks from the originals while confronting the gendered or racial hierarchies that underpin them.
Many play with the relationship between subject, viewer and artist, imbuing their figures with a powerful gaze. Others paint their own bodies into the work. In doing so, they challenge deep-rooted western narratives of art history and ask, crucially, who gets to tell these stories.
This month, Jake Grewal opens “Sometimes I Feel More Alive”, a solo show at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. His paintings of nude figures in the wilderness evoke the inherent connection between humans and nature, and are suggestive of internal, psychological spaces.
The artist has previously described his practice as searching for a peaceful space of queer communion. His works are often inspired by canonical artists such as Constable, Degas and Gauguin. Grewal inserts his figures into passages borrowed from their landscape paintings, thereby placing himself as an artist within the heteronormative canon of art history.
Jake Grewal, Eaten // Fled Tears (2021) © Jake Grewal. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Richard Ivey
“I was interested in the synergy between his work and the artists he is thinking about,” said Simon Martin, art historian and director of Pallant House Gallery. “But also, how he subverts their work and does something which feels very contemporary, while still having an appreciation for the language of the Old Masters. A lot of the Old Masters, except for a few such as Caravaggio or Il Sodoma [both were believed to be gay] were straight, white, male figures, and Jake is dealing with queer desire.”
Martin also highlights the gallery’s recent acquisition of Vanishing Point 24 (Mignard) (2021), an embossed drawing by Barbara Walker, who is nominated from this year’s Turner Prize. The drawing follows the composition of Pierre Mignard’s painting Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth with an unknown female attendant (1682).
The “unknown female attendant” is a Black woman. In Walker’s reworking, renders the Black figure in pencil, while the duchess is nothing more than an impression, she is almost invisible. It is a potent example of very direct influence in terms of composition, while the focus within the original work is reimagined. “In looking at some of these themes in art history and exploring their resonance for contemporary audiences, we can ask how we might be able look at things differently,” said Martin.
Barbara Walker, Vanishing Point 24 (Mignard) (2022) Photo: Chris Keenan
Many contemporary artists who subvert the work of the western canon interrogate the gaze implied by the originals, whether it be that of the artist or the suggested eyeline between the viewer and subject. The work of Jesse Mockrin (whose show just closed at James Cohan in New York) takes specific details and compositions from the likes of Caravaggio and Mignard, and imbues them with contemporary narratives, often addressing the gendered dynamic between artist and subject.
For “The Venus Effect”, Mockrin has researched historical paintings of women holding mirrors, in which the viewer might imagine she is looking egocentrically at her own reflection. In fact, she is looking seductively at the male artist. According to the gallery, “The mirror becomes the tool through which her sitters recognize themselves as both the object of desire and a powerful subject, whose agency is antithetical to their original narratives.”
Jesse Mockrin, Echo (2023). © Jesse Mockrin 2023. Courtesy the artist; James Cohan, New York; and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo by Marten Elder.
“Afternoon’s Darkness”, Somaya Critchlow’s 2022 exhibition at Maximillian William, featured a commanding gaze from many of her Black subjects, in works utilizing techniques from painters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Goya. In Count Me Out (2022), an almost nude figure lounges against the wall pulling her underwear down her thighs. Though the viewer can only really identify her eyelids, her gaze—which seems to be aimed at a figure below her out of frame—is one of self-assurance.
For this work Critchlow utilized sfumato, a technique devised by Leonardo, in which paint is thinly applied across the canvas, instilling a hazy presence which also evokes the misty lens of soft-core pornography. The artist claims she used the technique here to present her figure as powerful and in charge of her own sexuality.
“I imagine Somaya Critchlow’s work wouldn’t be received in the same way if it was a white man painting it,” said writer and art historian Alayo Akinjugbe, who hosts the podcast A Shared Gaze. “It’s frustrating constantly having to bring an artist’s racial identity into it but it is dependent on the artist’s own gaze. The gaze of the artist has typically led to idealized women’s bodies painted by men. Somaya is reconfiguring the Black female nude.”
Somaya Critchlow, Count Me Out (2022). Courtesy Maximillian William
Akinjugbe also cites Rosa-Johan Uddoh and Sahara Longe as artists she admires, who are working with these ideas. Uddoh’s pieces in the 2022 show “Star Power” at Workplace in London replicate various renderings of the biblical figure of Balthazar from historical paintings and rearranged them into friendship groups.
Longe has introduced Black figures to traditional tableaux used by Old Masters. “Everyone is doing something slightly different,” said Akinjugbe, “but at the core is a desire to shift the gaze and reconsider the position of Black figures in European art traditions. They are all considering the position of Blackness in relation to art history, and also their own position.”
This approach has been pioneered by artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Titus Kaphar, whose works reframing historical paintings have led to prominent commissions, including Wiley’s 2018 presidential portrait of Barack Obama and Time magazine covers (Kaphar painted for the biweekly in June 2020, in response to the murder of George Floyd).
While contemporary artists deal with the weight of history, responsibility also sits with institutions deciding how to contextualize their works. Pallant House Gallery often displays contemporary and historical works together, inviting artists such as Grewal to select pieces from the collection to show alongside their own.
Martin highlights the importance of interrogating the context of historical works, which can be effective when placing the originals alongside the works they inspired. “It’s interesting how Tate Britain, in their recent rehang of the collection, placed a large watercolour by Pablo Bronstein in the room with Hogarth and his contemporaries. Bronstein’s work depicts an 18th-century molly house in London, where men who had sex with men would go, adding a queer lens to how we understand this moment in historic British painting.”
Pablo Bronstein, Molly House (2023). © Pablo Bronstein. Courtesy the artist and Herald St, London. Photo by Andy Keate.
This movement could be seen in three parts: it is driven by artists reworking the masterworks of the western canon, which sparks a wider cultural conversation examining damning aspects of history. Institutions respond by adding context for viewers to understand the dynamics inherent in their historical works, while challenging their own legacy.
“I think the culture and artists have driven us towards this,” said Akinjugbe, adding that the institutions have mostly been led by pressure from the outside. “If 2020 hadn’t happened, I don’t think this would be happening now in institutions.” She cites the new Fitzwilliam exhibition, “Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance”, as a positive example of an institution addressing its history and researching hidden narratives within its works. Items from the museum’s collection are shown alongside contemporary pieces by Walker, Donald Locke, Alberta Whittle and Keith Piper, which all reflect on historically silenced voices.
Akinjugbe also mentions the many instances in which white subjects have been named in historical artwork descriptions, along with pets and various other elements, while the Black figures are not. “Even if there is no information known [about a Black figure within a work], they can write about the role of Black people in society at that time,” she said.
Ultimately, the artists exploring these subjects and the curators and historians who push for the reframing of historical works see the value of keeping the originals alive within contemporary conversations. In doing so, their structures and impact can be considered and learned from, rather than simply being erased. “I am very opposed to the idea of putting things into storage because they’re difficult to deal with,” said Akinjugbe. “It goes against the idea of museums and academia to just put things away.”
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In the 1970s, the fanzine scene exploded. These unofficial, DIY publications may have emerged as early as 1930 in the science fiction space, but it was with the accessibility of production techniques, namely the photocopier, that led them to become the subculture medium of choice. Zines about punk, feminism, street culture and conceptual art abound—their Xeroxed pages crammed with appropriated images and typewritten text—created by fans, amateurs, and often, too, by artists. 
In its first major exhibition on the subject, the Brooklyn Museum will bring together a feast of fanzines made by artists from Canada, Mexico and the United States over the past century. More than 800 publications by nearly 100 artists are on view at “Copy Machine Manifesto: Artists Who Make Zines,” which will chart the timeline of zine-making, while attempting to position the artist zine within contemporary art history. 
“We’re trying to show the central role of zine production in contemporary art by looking at zines in relation to painting, photography, filmmaking, video performance, all these other mediums that they went hand in hand with in terms of production,” said Drew Sawyer, the exhibition’s co-curator, over Zoom.  
Bruce LaBruce, J.D.s, no. 8 (1991) (detail). Collection Bruce LaBruce. Photo: David Vu.
The show is organized chronologically and centers on the communities that zines cultivated. The punk years between 1975 and 1990 are detailed with zines by Raymond Pettibon, Lisa Baumgartner, Bruce LaBruce, and David Wojnarowicz, which helped shape the look and iconography of the genre. Meanwhile, the feminist and queer undergrounds of the nineties are captured in publications produced by Vaginal Davis, Johanna Fateman, Ho Tam, and Kathleen Hanna. 
The fanzines are further accompanied by works of art, linking the publications to the artists’ broader practice. For example, the first issue of Joey Terrill’s HomeboyBeautiful zine from 1978, compiling his photo novellas and comic strips, will be shown alongside Breaking Up / Breaking Down, his early eighties canvas that was painted in a similarly multi-paneled storytelling format.
Joey Terrill, HomeboyBeautiful, no. 1 (1978). Photo: ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.
Zines, being objects that are created in small batches and circulated in underground or informal networks, are not made for a long shelf life, which made sourcing for the exhibition quite the challenge for organizers. While a number of zines have been collected in libraries and archives (New York University’s Riot Grrrl Collection, for example), the curators recall a years-long process of locating artists and raiding personal collections to locate copies. 
“Our archive research included me and Drew literally on our knees, in storage spaces, rifling through stuff that people hadn’t looked at in a long time,” said co-curator Branden W. Joseph. “There were artists who had just one copy left. The ephemeral nature of the zine is really shown in the archives.”
They also made sure to acquire permissions from artists to include their zines in the show. These publications, after all, have often been created with an anti-establishment stance that thumbed its nose at media hierarchies. Some artists refused, but most agreed. 
“I think they felt like even if they made the zine decades years ago with a sort of anti-institutional motivation, they also recognize the importance of what was produced and the need to preserve those histories, which have largely gone underwritten until now,” said Sawyer. 
LTTR (Ginger Brooks Takahashi, K8 Hardy, Every Ocean Hughes, Ulrike Müller), LTTR, no. 2, “Listen Translate Translate Record” (2003). Collection Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, Photo: David Vu.
But far from being historical artifacts, zines continue to hold resonance for artists today. If the continued presence of fanzine fairs isn’t convincing enough, the exhibition presents publications by Terence Koh, queer collective LTTR, and Miranda July, which foreground the medium’s continued resonance for creators outside the dominant culture. The curators argue that, despite (or in tandem with) a digitized age, there remains a tactile, accessible appeal to the zine. 
“One thing that zines have always represented is a certain type of intimacy—of distribution, of self-revelation, of reception. There’s a certain physical relationship,” said Joseph. “I think that’s one of the things that continues now.” 
See more zines from the show below. 
Lisa Baumgardner, Bikini Girl, vol. 1. no. 5 (1980). Collection Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons. Photo: David Vu.
Anna Banana, Vile, vol. 1, no. 2 / vol. 2, no. 1 (issue 4) (1976). Collection Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons. Photo: David Vu.
Pat McCarthy, Still from Babylon Pigeons, no. 13, “Photocopying Pigeons” (2019). Collection the artist.
Robert Ford, Thing, no. 4 (1991). Collection Steve Lafreniere. Photo: Brooklyn Museum, Evan McKnight.
Kathleen Hanna with Billy Karren, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, Bikini Kill, no. 2 (1991). Collection Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons. Photo: David Vu.
Miranda July, Big Miss Moviola Chainletter #2: Directory (The Underwater Chainletter) (1996). Photo: Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2016.M.20)
Maggie Lee, Punk Party 93′ (2020). Collection the artist.
Linda Simpson (a.k.a. Les Simpson), My Comrade, no. 1 (1987). Collection Steve Lafreniere, courtesy Arthur Fournier. Photo: Brooklyn Museum, Evan McKnight.
Cary Loren, Destroy All Monsters Magazine, no. 1 (1976). Collection Cary Loren. Photo: Brooklyn Museum, Jonathan Dorado.
“Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines” will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, November 17, 2023 through March 31, 2024. 
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Parents: have you ever looked at your child’s whimsical scribbles and thought that they had a preternatural understanding of color, form, and line? That maybe you were the parent of tomorrow’s Pollock or Kandinsky?
Well, now you can compare your toddler’s work to that of some of the contemporary art world’s biggest stars to see just how well they measure up.
That’s the idea behind ProjectArt’s 2023 Gala and single-day exhibition, “My Kid Could Do That,” which will feature never-before-seen early works from well-known artists such as KAWS, Daniel Arsham, Dan Colen, LeRoy Neiman, Nate Lowman, Sarah Cain, and Jen Stark, among others. It will serve as a way for viewers to try and search for glimpses of genius in these artists’ earliest, most elementary pieces.
Daniel Arsham childhood work, courtesy of ProjectArt.
The exhibition will take place on November 2 in Brooklyn, and be followed by the gala fundraiser for the organization, which hosts art classes year-round in public libraries in Detroit, Miami, New York, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles. According to ProjectArt, more than four million elementary school students in the U.S. go without any arts instruction.
“By providing an unprecedented glimpse into some of the earliest works by these celebrated artists, ProjectArt reveals the crucial role of arts education by empowering youth to develop their creative potential,” the organization said in a release. ProjectArt students will be on hand for portrait sessions.
Left: KAWS, Untitled (1991). Linoleum block print. Created at age 17 for the cover of St. Anthony High School’s magazine Serendipity. Right: KAWS, THE PORTRAIT, 2021.
“Nothing speaks to our core message like this event’s childhood exhibit from the leading artistic icons of our era,” said Adarsh Alphons, ProjectArt’s founder and executive director, in a statement. It represents, he said, “the cultural, philanthropic and corporate leaders in the room sharing our vision and sentiment to invest for the long term in youth’s creativity.”
“My Kid Could Do That” is on view at Greenpoint Loft, 67 West Street, Brooklyn, New York, on November 2.
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To mark the 30th anniversary of The Nightmare Before Christmas this year—the cult classic stop-motion film that emerged from the dark imagination of Tim Burton—the McNay Art Museum is presenting fascinating bits of the film set.
The exhibition, called “Dreamland” (on view through January 14, 2024), includes original maquettes and small-scale models that were used during the three-and-a-half years it took to make the movie. These objects were accessioned into the museum’s Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts in 1994 and, over the past 30 years, have been preserved by its collection department.
Directed by Henry Selick from a story by Burton, the musical, upon its release in October 1993, was embraced for its creepy yet charming tale and its innovative use of stop-motion animation—its characters and designs swiftly lodging themselves in the Halloween pop cultural landscape.
“The set pieces and characters created for the now-iconic film reveal quite a lot,” said R. Scott Blackshire, curator of the Tobin Collection. “From a creative standpoint, visitors will recognize visual elements that signal a one-of-a-kind world that could only come from the heart and mind of Tim Burton.”
The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the tale of Jack Skellington, the melancholic king of Halloween Town, which is populated by various monsters, witches, and Frankenstein creatures. Weary of Halloween, Jack schemes with his residents to take over the holiday of Christmas, leading to hijinks including the kidnapping of Santa Claus. 
Tim Burton, Oogie Boogie Exposed from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin, TL1994.4.1.5.1. © Disney. © Tim Burton.
Featured in “Dreamland” are original models of the bony protagonist Jack Skellington, Bone Crusher, and Oogie Boogie, as well as the full-set model of Jack’s bed and tower—designs that take obvious cues from German Expressionism.
The McNay has further crafted a surreal environment in which to display these objects—its own “dreamland,” said Blackshire, “to channel our collective Burton-esque energy.”  
To do so, the museum has gathered nearly 100 paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures from its permanent collection. The film’s maquettes have been put in dialogue with works by artists including Jim Dine, Julie Speed, Käthe Kollwitz, Marilyn Lanfear, and Sandy Skoglund, as well as set designs by Eugène Berman for a production of Pulcinella and Franco Colavecchia for The Tales of Hoffmann.
Eugène Berman, Curtain design for Pulcinella (1972). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of The Tobin Endowment, TL2001.27.34.
Burton’s early days as a Walt Disney animator also gets a callback in the exhibition’s “hall of peculiar portraits,” inspired by Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, which brings together paintings by the likes of de Kooning, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec. 
“In this Victorian-inspired setting are ‘portraits’ that celebrate funny faces, eccentric characters and the whimsical narratives they inspire,” Blackshire said. “We also talked about the experience of walking through a room and feeling like the eyes in a portrait are moving, maybe even following us.”
“It was clear,” he added, “there are a host of fanciful characters in McNay’s artworks that, possibly, live in the same realm as Burton’s Nightmare cast.”
See more works from the exhibition below.
Tim Burton, Bed from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin, TL1994.4.1.1. © Disney. © Tim Burton.
Julie Heffernan, Self-Portrait as Ornament (2006). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Michael Maloney, 2012.54. © Julie Heffernan.
Marilyn Lanfear, Marilyn with no middle name, She’ll have one when she marries from The Wardrobe as Destiny Series (1989). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Given anonymously, 1996.35.
Paul Maxwell, Landsat View (1973). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Stevenson, 1982.64.
Tim Burton, Cat House from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin, TL1994.4.1.2. © Disney. © Tim Burton.
Peter Rice, Costume design for Dr. Kalterfelto in English Eccentrics (1967). Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of The Tobin Endowment, TL2002.220.9.
“Dreamland | Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” is on view at the McNay Art Museum, 6000 N New Braunfels Ave, San Antonio, Texas, through January 14, 2024. 
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After a micro-break after Frieze London, art experts headed to Paris to do it all again: perusing fair aisles, chasing around to gallery openings, dining and dancing, and bopping around to the city’s incredible network of museums.
Between the landscape of private and public institutions are a set of ambitious exhibitions. Here are some of the most compelling ones that can’t be missed.

Lili Reynaud-Dewar: “Hello, My Name Is Lili and We Are Many”Palais de TokyoOctober 19—January 7, 2024
Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Paul Alexandre, chambre 502, hôtel Relais du Pré, Paris, 24 avril 2023. Courtesy Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna.
The winner of the 2021 Marcel Duchamp Prize is known for her hard-to-categorize investigations that take the form of film, writing, and dance—but always with friends, family, or students as collaborators or subjects themselves in the work. At the Palais de Tokyo, Reynaud-Dewar shows a 19-episode film blending reality and fiction, looking at the evils of the oil industry and gentrification, while questioning the value of artistic production in relation to political activism. The second diaristic exhibition takes up the locations of hotel rooms in Paris, and looks at the artist’s emotional and professional relationships, an ongoing source of artistic content for her. —Kate Brown

“Mark Rothko“Fondation Louis Vuitton, ParisOctober 18—April 2, 2024
Mark Rothko, Self-Portrait (1936). CR82. Collection Christopher Rothko. ©1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko – Adagp, Paris, 2023.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton is celebrating the American abstract painting pioneer in one of the buzziest openings of the week. Rothko hasn’t actually had a retrospective in France since 1999, and this exhibition gives an impressive overview packed with prime examples of of his sublime and quasi-spiritual expressonistic paintings.
The institution knows how—and certainly has the means—to put on a great show, always securing impressive loans and this one is no exception, having borrowed the entirety of Tate’s Rothko room among the 115 works included in the show. The exhibition is organized chronologically, from Rothko’s early-career figuration—including this rare 1936 self-portrait inspired by Rembrandt—to the mellifluous canvases for which he is famous, and a number of his lesser known but no less magnificent late darker hued works. —Naomi Rea

Mike Kelley: “Ghost and Spirit”The Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, ParisOctober 13—February 19, 2024
Perspectaphone, 1978. Performance at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 1978
As the late critic Peter Scheldahl put it, Kelley was “a scourging wit in many mediums.” More than a decade after his untimely death, his large oeuvre still evades classification, though one can say for certain that it is challengingly conceptual, and borrows bravely from high and low. Despite his cult status in the U.S., Kelley is less intimately known in France and Europe, which makes this sprawling retrospective that starts off at the Pinault Collection at Bourse de Commerce so exciting. The show will travel to the Tate Modern in London, the K21 in Düsseldorf, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. And while you’re there, do not miss solo presentations by rising star Ser Serpas, as well as exhibitions by the legendary American painter Lee Lozano and painter and art critic Mira Schor. —Kate Brown

“Picasso. Endlessly Drawing”Centre PompidouOctober 18—January 15, 2024

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Françoise, 1946 – Pablo Picasso Acceptance in Lieu, 1979 © musée national Picasso-Paris (MP1351), © Succession Picasso 2023
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s passing. Among some 50 exhibitions jointly organized by cultural institutions in Europe and North America celebrating the achievements of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Centre Pompidou has put together a show that offers a rare opportunity to rediscover the basics of Picasso’s art.
Featuring nearly 1,000 works from notebooks, drawings, and engravings dated from his youth studies to his final works drawn from the collection of Musée National Picasso-Paris, “Picasso. Dessiner à L’infini” (“Picasso. Endlessly Drawing”) dives deep into the modern master’s lesser-known and rather private drawing practice, which laid the foundation for some of the artist’s greatest works. Like a private visual diary, the drawings reveal Picasso’s creative process and exploration of techniques. “They enable us to explore Picasso’s graphic profusion,” said the show’s curators Anne Lemonnier, assistant curator of Musée National d’Art Moderne, and John Popelard, curator of drawings and prints, Musée National Picasso-Paris. —Vivienne Chow

“Peter Doig: Reflections of a Century”Musée D’OrsayOctober 17–January 21, 2024
Peter Doig, 100 Years Ago (2000). Private Collection© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved, DACS/ ADAGP, Paris, 2023
An essential stop off for anyone’s Paris+ schedule is Peter Doig’s exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay. Doig’s painterly sensibility, his masterful gestures in color, light, place, and perspective visible in his Trinidad paintings naturally complement the modernist works in the Orsay’s collection. Major Doig works, from the ethereal figures soaking in the moonlight in Night Bathers to a silvery ocean scene of geometric abstraction in 100 Years Ago, are shown in a salon-style hanging, holding their own in the museum’s domed rooms. To accompany his first solo exhibition in France in 15 years, the artist has been permitted to select works from the museum’s collection in an adjoining room overlooking the Seine, where Impressionist and post-Impressionist works by Gauguin, Courbet, and Rousseau illuminate some of the inspirations percolating inside the mind of the Scottish painter. —Naomi Rea

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This week, art connoisseurs from across the globe will touch down in the City of Lights for the second edition of the fair Paris+, by Art Basel. While selling is the backbone of the event, the fair has also taken advantage of the city’s legendary environs to stage public exhibitions and events.
Among the more arresting will be a show titled “La Cinquième Saison” (The Fifth Season), taking place at the iconic Jardin des Tuileries in the heart of the city. Presented by Art Basel in collaboration with the Louvre, the show is curated by Annabelle Ténèze, director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, for the second year in a row. It brings together some 25 artworks placed among the fountains and pathways of the park, creating a pop-up sculpture garden with a distinctly global purview.
“In the city, we live with animals, birds, insects, rocks, but we don’t consider them,” Ténèze told the New York Times. “The idea of the fifth season is to look at what is so marvelous around us.”
“Last year, many of the projects questioned the form of art in public space,” Tenèze told Art Basel. “This raised the question of who expresses themselves in the public space and, in turn, who doesn’t. I’m very interested in these reflections.
“Among the various proposals I’ve received this year, several works question what it means to live and inhabit the world today, whether as an animal or a human being, on a planet that is dramatically changing,” she added. “Water is present on several occasions, including in projects not intended for ponds.”

Meriem Bennani
Meriem Bennani, Windy (2022). Courtesy of the artist, High Line and Audemars Piguet, and CLEARING.© Meriem Bennani
Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani’s work grapples with life in the modern age, and the ways in which culture, community, and technology collide, all rendered with a mischievous eye and an interest in pop and consumer culture. This work, made from motorized foam disks, plays with ideas of living in a three-dimensional world but being consumed by two-dimensional imagery. First commissioned by the High Line in New York, the work’s frenetic swirl evokes the anxieties of living in the age of technology.

Claudia Comte
Claudia Comte, Five Marble Leaves, 2023. Presented by Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid). Courtesy of the artist and Albarrán Bourdais.
Created expressly for the Jardin des Tuileries, this sculptural installation formally refers to the trees that surround it in the garden while also alluding to the perils of climate change. The leaves refer to both death and rebirth; the sculptures’ material, sturdy and long-lasting marble, alludes to the hardiness of trees but also, by contrast, to their fragility. Through site-specific installations, painting and sculpture, often using organic forms like trees, leaves, and cacti, Comte brings together traditional hand-working processes for making objects with modern industrial and mechanical methods.  

Tony Cragg
Tony Cragg, Willow (2014). Presented by Buchmann Galerie. Courtesy of Paris+ par Art Basel
Before pursuing art, German-English sculptor Tony Cragg worked in a biochemistry lab, and his work today builds upon that background, looking to push the limits of materials by making structures that feel organic in nature. The undulating, cocooning form of Willow continues on in that tradition, taking inspiration from a willow tree that stands outside the home where he spends his summers in Sweden. Despite being made from heavy, immovable bronze, Cragg imbues the sculpture with a softness and a sense of movement—the very contrasts that have informed much of his career. 

General Idea
General Idea, AIDS Sculpture (1989-2023). Presented by Esther Schipper, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Mai 36 Galerie, and Maureen Paley. Courtesy of Paris+ par Art Basel
Acting under the moniker General Idea, Canadian artists AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal banded together in 1969 and spent the next quarter-century creating works across a variety of mediums. This work, created for the 1987 Art Against AIDS benefit, takes Robert Indiana’s famous sculpture LOVE (1966) and modifies the letters to read “AIDS,” raising awareness of a disease that was then devastating the art community. Graffiti and other markings it gathers over time become part of the piece—showing how public art is in constant dialogue with the world around it. 

Nicène Kossentini
Nicène Kossentini, The Butterfly, 2014. Presented by Selma Feriani Gallery, (Tunis, London). Courtesy of Selma Feriani Gallery and the artist.
Made from resin, fiberglass, and a Japanese textile, this oversized butterfly not only highlights the delicacy and ephemerality of nature but also brings light to the ways humans and nature interact. Kossentini, a Tunisian artist, is known for work focusing on our relationship with our environment. Here, the grounded butterfly evokes both the freedom of flight and its dangers, referring to Icarus, whose wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. Additionally, butterflies at once are perceived as light, joyful creatures that symbolize transformation but also an example of the dangers of climate change, since Monarch butterflies are currently endangered. 

Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, The Politics of Black Silhouettes, 2023. Presented by Galerie Carole KvasnevskiCourtesy of Paris+ par Art Basel.
Self-declared “visual activist” Zanele Muholi has achieved worldwide acclaim for their photography lionizing the LGBTQIA+ community of South Africa through portraiture created in the face of brutality and state persecution. Now they have turned to self-portraiture and to sculpture; the works in the Tuileries depict the artist in dialogue with the historical, more martial-themed sculptures placed in the park. Presented without a pedestal, they show the artist seated, restrained, or even sleeping or merging with the earth. 
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