Spring 2026 exhibitions in Paris

Spring is always a full season of exhibitions in Paris. Here’s our choice of Spring 2026 exhibitions in Paris including selections for celebrating Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March) and spanning 5 continents. Isn’t Paris is a fabulously diverse city?!

MICKALENE THOMAS – ALL ABOUT LOVE

Spring 2026 exhibitions in Paris include the Grand Palais’s major monographic exhibition dedicated to American artist Mickalene Thomas entitled All About Love. Recognized worldwide for her bold, multidimensional practice, Mickalene Thomas explores the visibility and representation of Black women in art, history, and popular culture. Through a vibrant synthesis of painting, collage, rhinestones, photography and videos, she reimagines classical portraiture with a distinctly queer and Black feminist perspective. At the core of Mickalene Thomas’s work is love – as a force of liberation, self-affirmation, and joy.

Until 5 April at Le Grand Palais, Gallery 7 Entrance on Square Jean Perrin 17 Avenue du Général Eisenhower 75008 Paris https://www.grandpalais.fr/en/whatson

LEONORA CARRINGTON – RETROSPECTIVE

Leonora Carrington was a British/Mexican Surrealist painter and novelist. Though born in Lancashire she spent the majority of her adult life residing in Mexico City and was among the last remaining figures associated with the Surrealist movement of the 1930s.  Carrington was also a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s. Artist, feminist and avant-garde environmentalist, woman, mother, migrant, marked by mental illness and spiritual quest, Leonora Carrington left behind a legacy as extraordinary as it is radical.

Leonora Carrington forged her identity through travel, both internal and external. From Florence to Paris, from the South of France to Spain, and finally to Mexico, where she became a cult figure, her extraordinary path nourished a body of work at the crossroads of surrealism, mythology, and esotericism. Her creations merge human and animal, masculine and feminine, giving form to a world where metamorphoses and symbols respond to each other.

18 February-19 July 2026 at Musée du Luxembourg Senate https://museeduluxembourg.fr/en/agenda/evenement/leonora-carrington

OTOBONG NKANGA – I DREAMT OF YOU IN COLOURS

Since the late 1990s, Otobong Nkanga is one of several Nigerian artists addressing themes related to ecology and relationships between the body and the territory. Drawing upon her own personal history and her research bearing witness to an array of transhistorical influences, she creates networks and constellations between humans and landscapes. Bringing together emblematic installations, series of photographs, recent works, and a great number of drawings, the exhibition offers a cross-section of Otobong Nkanga’s protean oeuvre, spanning her career from its beginnings to the present. “I think of the Earth as a being, like our body: water, air, tree, stone, plant are beings like our body. ” said Otobong Nkanga

Closing soon (22 February) at Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 11, avenue du Président Wilson, Paris 16^e, https://www.mam.paris.fr/en/expositions/exhibitions-otobong-nkanga-0

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON – THE EUROPEANS

Henri Cartier-Bresson is regarded as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. After studying painting and associating with the Surrealists, he adopted photography as his means of expression in the early 1930s. Henri Cartier-Bresson was also a convinced European. While he traveled all over the world, he also explored Europe extensively. After the Second World War, the continent was a vast field of ruins haunted by rupture and desolation. In the context of the Cold War, the construction of the European Union was one of the major geopolitical issues of the time. After producing numerous photographic series for magazine press in Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and France, Cartier-Bresson wanted to bring them together in a single volume. He created a portrait of the people who inhabit Europe. His aim was to show what makes each people of this geographical area unique, while highlighting their shared humanity. Featuring a stunning cover by the Catalan painter Joan Miro, the book The Europeans was published in 1955 by Verve. The present exhibition brings together some of the most important photographs from the book on the occasion of its reissue.

Until May 3, 2026 at Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 79, rue des Archives
75003 Paris, https://www.henricartierbresson.org/en/expositions/henri-cartier-bresson/

ERIK KESSELS – AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE

Agnès b. and La Galerie du Jour present As Far as You Can See, the first retrospective in France devoted to Dutch artist Erik Kessels‘ publications. Artist, publisher and leading figure in contemporary thinking on vernacular photography, Erik Kessels seeks to reveal the narrative, aesthetic and anthropological significance of images produced by amateur photographers. He is more interested in the stories contained in the images than in the photographs themselves. His work explores how these photographs, often seemingly mundane, bear witness to shared gestures, rituals and behaviors that are part of the visual history of societies. In this way, he highlights photographic trends and certain universal behaviors that transcend borders and eras.

January 30 – March 15, 2026 at Galerie du Jour / La Fab. – Place Jean-Michel Basquiat – Paris 13^e, https://la-fab.com/en/la_galerie/erik-kessels-as-far-as-you-can-see/

COLORS OF KOREA, A SPOTLIGHT ON CONTEMPORARY KOREAN ART

The last of our selection of Spring 2026 exhibitions in Paris is the massive « Colors of Korea » show presented at the Korean Cultural Center to commemorate the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea.  Through the creations of 34 artists – from established masters to emerging talents – spanning a wide spectrum of practices, from painting and sculpture to photography, installation art, and digital art, the exhibition celebrates the colors of Korea. In Korea, colors are not simply shades: they are language, breath, and energy. The « Obangsaek, » a constellation of five cardinal colors – blue, red, yellow, white, and black – embodies the balance of the world and the rhythm of time. Inherited from the Five Elements and yin-yang, they trace a symbolic map of the universe where each direction and each season finds its own hue. All cultural events offered at the Korean Cultural Center are free of charge and do not require prior reservation.

Until August 2026 at Centre Culturel Coréen,  20 rue La Boétie 75008 Paris, https://www.coree-culture.org/-infos-pratiques,218-.html

Also Don’t miss « Manga: An Art Form! » exhibition at the Guimet Museum which is closing soon on March 9, 2026.

Spring 2026 exhibitions in Paris

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