Back to school 2024: the 25 most anticipated exhibitions in France

Who says back to school, says new exhibitions ! And, this year, the programming is full of surprises. Modern or contemporary art, sculpture, drawings, installations and even immersive experiences… There’s something for everyone!

Come to the Bourdelle Museum for a face-to-face meeting between the masters Rodin and Bourdelle or at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille to discover the world of Raphael from every angle! For fans of the series The Walking Dead, Take a trip to the Quai Branly Museum for a unique exhibition on zombies. Also visit the Nantes Museum of Arts to revisit the great epic of cruise ships. Immediate boarding!

1. At the Musée d’Orsay, a very virile Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was exhibited in different ways, both in his role as a collector and for his passion for photography and gardens… The Orsay Museum takes a step aside, exploring a virgin subject: the representation of men in his painting. Very famous Parquet planers au Young man at his windowthe male subject is indeed very present. The curators put forward an explanation for this predominance: “At the time of the triumph of virility and republican fraternity, but also of the first crisis of traditional masculinity, the novelty and power of these images question both the social and sexual orderBeyond his own identity, that of a young and wealthy Parisian bachelor, Caillebotte carries at the heart of impressionism and modernity a deep questioning about the male condition. » The exhibition is proving to be fascinating! SF

2. At the Petit Palais: Ribera, the most radical of the Caravaggesques

Coming from Spain to try the Roman adventure, attracted by the lights of the papal city and its dark underworld haunted by the sulphurous shadows of CaravaggioJosé de Ribera (1591–1652) best embodies this generation of young painters who took up the innovations of the master of chiaroscuro to find their own path, sometimes going so far as to surpass him. Arrived in Rome at the age of 17 then left to pursue a career in Naples, he executed, under the contrasting side lighting of his studio, radical realism paintings where flesh and objects are revealed in their raw truth. Demonstration at the Petit Palais which offers the artist his first French retrospective with masterpieces and in light of the latest discoveries in the history of art. It is also an opportunity to discover the graphic production of one of the rare Caravaggesques to have left drawings and engravings for posterity. DB

3. At the Picasso Museum, another Pollock

We know the herald, and hero, of post-war expressionist abstraction… But much less the Pollock of the early days. A look back at the first decade of the famous Americanfrom 1938 to the “drippings” of 1947. Where we discover an artist marked by the realist influence of his big brother Charles, brought back into the spotlight in recent years, and Mexican muralists, just as committed. Another evocation, the fascination that Picasso exerts on himhere his host, and Masson’s sand paintings. Painting, but also engraving and sculpture, another Pollock reveals himself, surrounded by the collector John D. Graham, who defended him from the beginning, and his wife (and great painter!) Lee Krasner. HE

4. At the Jacquemart-André museum, a touch of Rome

It’s only an excerpt, but it’s invigorating! A Raphael, a Caravaggio but also signed paintings Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Verona or Titianso many works which illustrate the cardinal’s very eclectic tastes, brought together this autumn in the Golden Triangle museum. Who reopens after work having focused on the redevelopment and planting of its interior courtyard, the renovation of its tea room (and its Tiepolo ceiling) and its smoking room, the hanging of which was completely revised, with the removal from the reserves of a Reynolds and a Gainsborough. SF

5. At the Louvre Museum, a wind of madness

In a drifting boat, a Franciscan monk and a nun sing and play the lute (symbol of inspiration but also of lust) in the company of merry drunken pranksters and a simpleton perched on a branch. Let yourself be carried away by the Louvre on board Ship of Foolsonly work from the brilliant Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516) in his possession, for a delirious journey to the heart of the medieval imagination. Where some 300 works (paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows, illuminations, art objects) draw a complex and multifaceted portrait of the madmanthis uncontrollable character, omnipresent in chivalric novels, carnivals and at the king’s court where he says out loud what everyone thinks quietly. DB