Paris Art Week 2026

For one week in late October, Paris times almost everything to Art Basel Paris, which opens to the public at the Grand Palais on Friday. Around it the city's galleries, foundations and museums stage major openings: the Matignon dealers launch the week with a joint evening on Monday, the Marais fills with new shows from Tuesday, and by the weekend there are fairs, auctions, talks and performances in every direction.

The museum shows

Start at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, where Kerry James Marshall: The Histories is the first exhibition in France devoted to the American painter, some seventy works including eight new paintings made for the show. The same building holds Simone Fattal's first Paris museum exhibition and the four nominees for the Prix Marcel Duchamp, whose winner is announced on Thursday. At the Grand Palais, Cezanne et nous follows Cezanne's afterlife through nearly 180 works, from Matisse and Picasso to Joan Mitchell and Peter Doig. On Tuesday Louise Bourgeois: Extrême tension opens at BnF Richelieu, uniting the library's prints with the Centre Pompidou's holdings, while the Musée Picasso gives Kurt Schwitters his first French retrospective since 1994.

Two institutions open whole new seasons. Ibrahim Mahama fills the entire Fondation Cartier with site-specific works, among them a reconstructed Ghanaian glass-bottle factory and a version of Parliament of Ghosts that hosts a weekend of talks and a seperewa concert. The Palais de Tokyo opens its autumn season on Wednesday with a free first day, including Ali Cherri's extension of his film La Sentinelle, Sonia Gomes and the Ivorian photographer Paul Kodjo. Further out, Walid Raad leads performed tours of his new show at the Centquatre from Friday.

The galleries

Monday evening belongs to the Matignon Saint-Honoré galleries, whose joint vernissage pedestrianises the district: Lee Krasner's first solo show in France at Gagosian, Amoako Boafo at Mariane Ibrahim and Magnus Plessen at Lelong are the ones to see. In the Marais the same night, Marian Goodman premieres Drawing Blind Drawing, a film diptych by Tacita Dean and Bruce Nauman, Thaddaeus Ropac opens Jordan Casteel's first French exhibition and Elmgreen & Dragset take over both of Max Hetzler's spaces. On the Left Bank, Mennour has Anish Kapoor and Yinka Shonibare side by side.

Fairs and public works

Post-Fair, the alternative fair founded in Los Angeles by Chris Sharp, makes its Paris debut with 34 solo and duo presentations across two buildings on the rue du Temple. Ceramic Art Fair + Glass returns to the Maison de l'Amérique latine with a full programme of talks, and AKAA, devoted to art from Africa and its diasporas, takes the Carreau du Temple from Friday. Outdoors, Tracey Emin's three monumental bronzes sit on the Trocadéro and Robert Indiana's LOVE Wall stands on Place Clemenceau, while indoors Kutluğ Ataman's forty-screen Küba plays in the chapel of the Beaux-Arts.

The week rewards a plan by neighbourhood: Matignon on Monday night, the Marais on a weekday before the fairs open, the Trocadéro museums on Wednesday, the Left Bank and the Fondation Cartier at the weekend. Below you'll find picks for every day, a closer look at each neighbourhood, walks and a map.