Cette page existe aussi en français. Voir en français

Esta página también está disponible en español. Ver en español

Back
Kerry James Marshall. The Histories

Photo : Kerry James Marshall Courtesy de l’artiste et Jack Shainman Gallery, New York Photo : M. Sean Pathasema

Oct 13 – Jan 24

Kerry James Marshall. The Histories

Step into a world where everyday life meets monumental history through the lens of one of today's most influential painters. This expansive retrospective weaves together four decades of work, celebrating a unique visual language that merges classic techniques with Afrofuturist motifs and pop culture.

Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (Paris 16th)

Book

About

From October 3, 2026, to January 24, 2027, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris hosts a major exhibition by contemporary painter Kerry James Marshall. Featuring seventy works, including eight pieces created specifically for this show, the retrospective spans four decades of his career. Marshall’s monumental paintings integrate Black figures into art history, drawing from Western canons, Afrofuturism, and comic books. The museum ensures full accessibility for visitors in wheelchairs and provides specific facilities for those with visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments. Tickets are available with a price range from 0 to 17 euros, offering an in-depth look at his thematic cycles.

Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and in collaboration with the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the exhibition "Kerry James Marshall: The Histories" presents seventy works, including eight new paintings created especially for the exhibition.

Considered one of the most influential contemporary painters, Kerry James Marshall is known for his monumental compositions that give a central place to Black people, frequently elevating the mundane to the status of epic. By placing these figures within the archetypes of art history, the artist invites the viewer to measure the undeniable power of their presence. Kerry James Marshall addresses themes such as the forced crossing of enslaved Africans to the Americas and the legacy of American Black mobilizations like the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, without ever directly depicting violence and alienation. His work draws inspiration as much from the established Western art history canon as from other forms of visual expression from popular culture, notably 19th-century French painting, contemporary culture, Afrofuturism, comics, and science fiction.

Designed with the artist's support, the exhibition aims to retrace more than four decades of his career. It presents numerous cycles of work that unfold primarily in the field of painting but also through prints, drawings, and a sculpture, sourced from museums and private collections in North America and Europe.

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris honors the work of Kerry James Marshall, continuing a series of pioneering monographic exhibitions in France devoted to Black American artists, including Kara Walker (2007) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (2010). Kerry James Marshall works in series and cycles, as evidenced by the chronological-thematic organization of the exhibition, which presents eleven groups of works created between 1980 and today.

Our take on this event

Curated in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Kerry James Marshall: The Histories presents an extensive overview of the artist's four-decade career. The exhibition is organized into eleven thematic groups, featuring paintings, prints, drawings, and a sculpture sourced from collections across North America and Europe. Through these works, Marshall explores complex themes like the legacy of the Black Power movement and the African diaspora, all while avoiding direct depictions of violence.

The exhibition is open at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10:00 to 18:00, with extended hours on Thursdays until 21:30. The venue is fully wheelchair accessible and offers specialized accommodations for deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, visually impaired, and cognitively impaired visitors, including sign language support.

Admission fees range from 0 to 17 euros. This event marks a significant milestone in the museum's history of showcasing influential Black American artists, following previous major retrospectives dedicated to figures like Kara Walker and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

23°C

Weather forecast

Light rain

max +23 °Cmin +15 °C

Book

You might also like

  • Florian Krewer woven thin*

    The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris presents Florian Krewer: woven thin*, the artist's first solo exhibition in France. Organized following the donation of several of the artist's works to the museum, this exhibition, at the heart of the collections' tour, is intended to be a deep dive into the pictorial world of the German artist, who has been based in New York since 2020.

    FreeOct 13 – Jan 3Metro Iéna

  • Kurt Schwitters. The World-Chaos. 1918-1948

    The Musée national Picasso-Paris presents, from October 6, 2026, to February 7, 2027, the exhibition "Kurt Schwitters. The World-Chaos. 1918-1948," a major retrospective of an artist apart from the Dada movement, constructivism, and the German abstract scene, who has not been shown in France for over thirty years. Bringing together more than three hundred works and documents - paintings, sculptures, assemblages, collages, drawings, notebooks, photographs, books, and archives - the exhibition offers an immersion into a universe of exceptional formal and conceptual richness. It also highlights the echoes that connect Schwitters' work to that of Picasso, particularly in their approach to experimentation, assemblage, and the transformation of everyday materials.

    Oct 13 – Feb 7Metro Saint-Sébastien Froissart

  • Daniel Dezeuze

    The Museum of Modern Art of Paris maintains, through its history, a privileged link with the Supports/Surfaces group, which it presented for the first time under this name at the ARC in 1970. Among its founders, Daniel Dezeuze (born in 1942) occupies a defining place.

    FreeOct 13 – Jan 3Metro Iéna

  • Monet, Painting Time

    The year 2026 will mark the centenary of the death of the painter Claude Monet (1840-1926). To mark this anniversary, the Musée de l'Orangerie is organizing an exhibition focused on the relationship of Monet's work to time.

    Oct 14 – Jan 25Metro Tuileries

  • Delacroix, Horses and Other Animals

    The Delacroix Museum presents a new exhibition exploring the animal world of Eugène Delacroix, on the occasion of the acquisition of two recently restored horse studies. Displayed for the first time at the museum, the two studies of stallions, a chestnut and a golden chestnut, bear witness to Delacroix's keen interest in the horse and its depiction.

    Oct 14 – Apr 18Metro Saint-Germain-des-Prés

  • Simone Fattal. Cities at the bottom of a lake

    In the autumn of 2026, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris is dedicating a major exhibition to Simone Fattal, a Lebanese-American artist born in 1942 in Damascus, who has been living in Paris for many years.

    Oct 13 – Jan 24Metro Iéna

  • Contemporary counterpoint. Vija Celmins

    The contemporary counterpoint honors Vija Celmins, the artist who has been developing very precise work since the late 1960s, focused on surfaces: ocean, desert, sky, or snow, which she calls "impossible images," without spatial references, immersing the spectator in infinity.

    Oct 14 – Feb 15Metro Tuileries

  • Heritage in Resistance, from Timbuktu to Odesa

    The exhibition brings together an exceptional collection of graphic documents, contemporary artworks, and digital replicas of lost sites. In the style of a major reportage, the ensemble weaves a documented, visual, and sensitive narrative, where the perspectives of actors and witnesses, architects, and artists intersect.

    Oct 14 – Jan 3Metro Trocadéro

  • Exhibition "Artists at the Museum"

    To mark the Museum's 400th anniversary, its rich art collections are unveiled in an unprecedented exhibition! From scientific explorations to contemporary artists inspired by natural history, explore the profound links between art and science through more than 300 exhibited works.

    Oct 14 – Mar 7Metro Place Monge