At Design Miami.Paris 2025, artist James de Wulf unveils a ping-pong table with aluminum plates that plays meditative sounds every time the ball hits the surface. On view at L’hôtel de Maisons in Paris between October 22nd and 26th, 2025, the Resonating Ping Pong Table, Song No. 1 (2025) is reminiscent of a xylophone and sound bath in one, as the project isn’t only made for playing table tennis but also doubles as a musical instrument in the form of healing vibrations. The surface is made from aluminum plates that are carefully tuned to specific musical notes.

There are six different notes, and they are tuned to the A Minor Pentatonic scale, which is a musical scale often used to create calm and balanced sounds. When a player hits the ball, the vibration from the impact makes the metal plate vibrate, producing a sound that matches one of these notes. As the game continues and the ball moves across different parts of the table, each hit creates a new tone. The sounds then form a kind of melody that changes with every rally. The idea is that while people play ping pong, they also create a piece of live sound, a rhythm that depends on the speed, position, and strength of their movements.

all images courtesy of James de Wulf | photos by Nicky Roding

Rubber and foam balls change the sound performance

The top of the ping-pong table by artist James de Wulf is made from anodized aluminum to strengthen the metal, protect it from rusting, and improve the sound quality by helping the plates vibrate more clearly. The body of the table is varnished, and the structure is stable enough for play but also has the look of a piece of modern furniture. The net in the middle is removable. When the net is taken off, the flat surface can be used as a dining table. This gives the piece a dual function: it can be a musical ping pong table or a large surface for gatherings.

James de Wulf also designed tailored rackets to work with the sound-tuned surface of his aluminum ping-pong table. The rackets are used with a rubber ball, which gives a good bounce and makes the sound vibrations clear, and for quieter use, there are also foam balls. Both types of balls change the sound performance and the way the table reacts during play. The tuning of the plates is done manually, with each of the six plates adjusted to match a specific note. After the Design Miami.Paris 2025 fair, the artist says that there are 10 aluminum ping-pong tables to be produced, with each of them having a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist himself.

at Design Miami Paris 2025, artist James de Wulf unveils a ping-pong table with aluminum plates

view of the table’s surface

a meditative sound plays every time the ball hits the surface

the surface is made from aluminum plates that are carefully tuned to specific musical notes

there are six different notes, and they are tuned to the A Minor Pentatonic scale

the top of the ping-pong table by artist James de Wulf is made from anodized aluminum

when the net is taken off, the flat surface can be used as a dining table

there are rubber and foam balls available, depending on the kind of sound perfomance desired

the tuning of the plates is done manually

there are 10 tables to be made after Design Miami Paris 2025

project info:

name: Resonating Ping Pong Table, Song No. 1 (2025)

artist: James de Wulf | @jamesdewulf

event: Design Miami Paris 2025 | @designmiami

location: L’hôtel de Maisons at 51 Rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris, France

dates: October 22nd to 26th, 2025

The post aluminum ping-pong table plays meditative sounds every time the ball hits the plates appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Japanese artist Eugene Kangawa joins forces with A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE for TYPE-XIV Eugene Studio project, a collaboration debuting in Paris during Art Basel. The presentation, conceived by architect Tsuyoshi Tane and hosted at Lycée Turgot, marks a three-year exchange between Kangawa and A-POC ABLE’s designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae. Centered on a groundbreaking textile that translates the artist’s ongoing series ‘Light and shadow inside me’ (2022–), the exhibition situates the meeting point of art, design, and material research within a single woven surface. From the slow burn of sunlight on paper to the precision of woven threads, Kangawa and A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE’s collaboration transforms the immaterial into form. 

‘Light and shadow inside me’ is a body of work made entirely through light. Earlier iterations comprised sheets of paper brushed with dye, folded into geometric shapes, and left to fade under sunlight for weeks, while later versions evolved into monochrome photograms made by exposing folded photographic paper to artificial light. ‘The idea that all things, by the very fact of their existence, simultaneously possess both light and shadow — countless fronts and backs — is central to who I am and my practice,’ Kangawa explains to designboom. ‘My goal was to create a work of art that embodies and enacts this coexistence.’ The series was born from what he describes as a moment of revelation. ‘It all began one winter day when I found a sun-faded box at home. In that moment, everything connected, and the idea grew into these works,’ he tells us.

images © ISSEY MIYAKE INC.

Transforming Photographic Concepts into Fabric Form

TYPE-XIV Eugene Studio traces back to Kangawa’s solo exhibition The New Sea at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, where Miyamae first encountered the artist’s ‘green paintings’, sheets of watercolor paper coated with dye, folded like origami, and left to fade under sunlight for a month. Kangawa later adapted this technique to photographic paper, producing monochrome photograms that captured the tension between exposure and concealment. ‘These works were created by applying a single-color dye onto one sheet of paper, folding it—without cutting—and exposing it to sunlight,’ he explains. ‘When unfolded, the light had become both the brush and the memory.’

It was this process that fascinated Miyamae and his team, leading to a series of workshops and experiments at A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE. ‘What was most surprising about this collaboration was that Miyamae and his team spoke of ‘weaving a new language’ — starting completely from scratch to create the textile in an entirely new way,’ Kangawa recalls. ‘Their garments are beautiful, yet what struck me most was that they think not in terms of surface, but from structure itself.’

Eugene Kangawa joins forces with A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE

Weaving Becomes an Act of Illumination

The result is a technically groundbreaking ‘bit-level’ textile, in which tonal gradients from black to white emerge solely from variations in weave density without any dyes or colored threads. The team drew analogies between the intersection of threads and the microscopic silver particles that make up photographic paper, transforming light’s material absence into the tactility of fabric. Miyamae describes the process as a return to fundamentals. ‘We returned to the smallest unit of fabric: a single thread. Using only black and white threads, we explored light and shadow through variations in weave patterns and density, translating the phenomena of photographic paper and light into the language of cloth,’ A-POC ABLE’s designer shares.

For Kangawa, the collaboration resonates deeply with Issey Miyake’s human-centered design philosophy. ‘Issey Miyake’s philosophy connects closely with my own work, particularly in exploring existence,’ he says. ‘Light and shadow inside me began as a meditation on loss, peace, and nature—the idea that light can be both beautiful and fearsome. In Japanese sensibility and history, light has always carried this duality. Some people even say the works evoke associations with the nuclear.’

the exhibition positions the textile within a broader study of Japanese material culture

The Global Journey of a Light-Born Work

The exhibition design by Tsuyoshi Tane, renowned for his projects such as the Estonian National Museum and the Al Thani Collection at Hôtel de la Marine, positions the textile within a broader study of Japanese material culture. Alongside the new fabric, visitors encounter test pieces, tools, and archival materials, including an Edo-period book on origata (traditional paper folding) whose patterns unexpectedly echo those found in Kangawa’s photograms. ‘When we were preparing for the exhibition, we were surprised to find within the book a folding pattern strikingly similar to those created in ”Light and shadow inside me,”’ Kangawa recalls and tells us.

Following its Paris debut, the project will travel to Tokyo and Osaka, extending the collaboration across contexts. Meanwhile, ‘Light and shadow inside me’ will find a permanent home at the forthcoming Eugene Museum in Tabanan, Bali, opening in 2026. Designed by Andra Matin, the museum will host over fifteen of Kangawa’s works in a complex surrounded by UNESCO-protected rice terraces. Visitors will be invited to stay overnight and experience the shifting qualities of light that underpin the artist’s practice.

alongside the new fabric, visitors encounter test pieces, tools, and archival materials

the project will travel to Tokyo and Osaka

for Kangawa, the collaboration resonates deeply with Issey Miyake’s human-centered design philosophy

‘Light and shadow inside me’ is a body of work made entirely through light

the show is centered on a groundbreaking textile that translates the artist’s ongoing series

Kangawa and A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE’s collaboration transforms the immaterial into form

a body of work made entirely through light

TYPE-XIV Eugene Studio traces back to Kangawa’s solo exhibition The New Sea

Miyamae first encountered the artist’s ‘green paintings’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

monochrome photograms capture the tension between exposure and concealment

project info:

name: Light and shadow inside me — Eugene Kangawa x A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE
artist: Eugene Kangawa / EUGENE STUDIO | @eugene_studio_official
designer: Yoshiyuki Miyamae, A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE | @apocableisseymiyake_official
spatial design: Tsuyoshi Tane / ATTA | @ateliertsuyoshi_tanearchitects
location: Lycée Turgot, 40 Rue Volta, 75003 Paris, France

dates: 24th – 26th October 2025

The post weaving light: eugene kangawa and A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE turn photograms into fabric appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Among the ornamental interiors of Hôtel de Maisons in Paris, Design Miami and Apple present Designers of Tomorrow, a new initiative celebrating the work of four emerging designers who embody the future of material innovation and digital craft. The presentation formed part of the inaugural Design Miami.Paris, a fair dedicated to collectible design that filled the historic rooms with objects that merge heritage and experimentation.

Curated by Rodman Primack, the exhibition marked the debut of a collaboration between Design Miami and Apple. The initiative aims to suport rising designers by offering mentorship, visibility, and technological resources — in this case, the new iPad Pro with M5, a tool that integrates high performance with intuitive creative capabilities.

Among the four selected talents, the 3D-printed pieces by Jolie Ngo stood out for its tactile intelligence and playful dialogue between the analog and the digital.

Designers of Tomorrow, Design Miami.Paris, install view | image © Elodie Croquet

Jolie Ngo’s language of clay and code

Jolie Ngo’s practice bridges traditional ceramics with the precision of 3D printing, using Apple technology to extend the gestures of the hand, rather than replace them. For Designers of Tomorrow at Design Miami.Paris, the artist presents two works that illustrate her evolving vocabulary of form and surface.

Lantern Vessel in Between Worlds reinterprets the structure of Vietnamese silk lanterns through layered clay extrusion, creating contours that feel at once organic and engineered. The surface, softly airbrushed and collaged with appliquéd details, glows with a sense of motion, evoking both the pulse of the kiln and the luminescence of the digital screen.

Nearby, Table Lamp in Cherry Blossoms and Himalayan Salt offered a complementary study in light and tactility. Its sculptural ceramic base supported a translucent 3D-printed shade in a saturated pink hue. When illuminated, the lamp glows, taking shapes as a convergence of material density and visual softness.

Lantern Vessel in Between Worlds, Jolie Ngo, Designers of Tomorrow, Design Miami.Paris | image © Elodie Croquet

a process combining handcraft and apple technology

For Jolie Ngo, the iPad serves as an extension of the studio. Using Apple Pencil on iPad Pro, she sketches and models freely, exploring asymmetry and fluidity before refining her designs on MacBook Pro for fabrication. This iterative rhythm — from drawing to digital modeling to clay printing — allows her to balance spontaneity with exactness. The portability of the iPad makes it possible for her to work anywhere, and trace inspiration directly from her surroundings into form.

The new iPad Pro with M5 further deepens this relationship between idea and execution. Its enhanced speed and AI-powered capabilities support the kind of iterative modeling and visualization that define Ngo’s approach. With its Ultra Retina XDR display and lightweight design, the device expands the space between concept and craft, offering a tool that aligns with the designer’s hybrid process.

Within the larger presentation, the curation of Designers of Tomorrow at Design Miami.Paris emphasized the diversity of perspectives shaping contemporary design. Works by Atelier Duyi Han, Marie & Alexandre, and Marco Campardo join Jolie Ngo’s pieces, and form a conversation about how emerging designers harness Apple’s technology with their works.

Table Lamp in Cherry Blossoms, Jolie Ngo, Designers of Tomorrow, Design Miami.Paris | image © Elodie Croquet

Lantern Vessel in Between Worlds, Jolie Ngo, detail | image courtesy the artist

Table Lamp in Cherry Blossoms, Jolie Ngo, detail | image courtesy the artist

Lantern Vessel in Between Worlds, Jolie Ngo, detail | image courtesy the artist

Lantern Vessel in Between Worlds, Jolie Ngo | image courtesy the artist

Table Lamp in Cherry Blossoms, Jolie Ngo | image courtesy the artist

project info:

artist: Jolie Ngo | @jolienope

event: Design Miami.Paris | @designmiami

location: Hôtel de Maisons, Paris

collaborator: Apple | @apple

dates: October 22nd — 26th, 2025

photography: © Elodie Croquet, © Jolie Ngo

Designers of Tomorrow jurors:

presentation curator:
Rodman Primack | Ago Projects

apple leadership:
Alan Dye | Apple
Molly Anderson | Apple

industry authorities:
Aric Chen | Curator
Faye Toogood | Designer
Hervé Lemoine | Le Mobilier National
Jen Roberts | Design Miami
Lyne Cohen-Solal | Ateliers de Paris
Mathieu Lehanneur | Designer
Sabine Marcelis | Designer
Samuel Ross | Designer

The post jolie ngo shows vibrant 3D-printed ceramics with apple at design miami.paris appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Hidden behind an unmarked door in Paris’ 7th arrondissement, ‘Rose, c’est la vie’ is an unexpected sanctuary of softness amid the intensity of Art Basel Paris 2025, conceived by architect and designer India Mahdavi in collaboration with Luca Pronzato, founder of We Are Ona, and Mexican chef Jesús Durón. The week-long pop-up dining experience is set inside a former car repair shop, turned into a radical speakeasy of texture, warmth, and color, where every surface is swathed in a floral pink textile inspired by the Rose d’Ispahan. The project reimagines hospitality as an act of emotion, what Mahdavi calls ‘the seriousness of happiness.’

On the occasion of the event, designboom speaks with Mahdavi and Pronzato about the origins of their collaboration and the making of this multisensory dining experience. ‘We’re in a world that is quite aggressive right now,’ Mahdavi tells us. ‘The past is past and the future — we don’t know. My work is always about creating memories, ephemeral moments of happiness that you can take away with you.’

images by Laurent Giannesini, unless stated otherwise

 a speakeasy of softness at art basel paris

As Pronzato explains, the collaboration grew out of a long-standing admiration for Mahdavi’s work. ‘At We Are Ona, we create culinary experiences where we like to invite not only guest chefs but also creatives, designers, artists, and architects to think in their own way about the culinary experience,’ the founder of the nomadic dining collective shares with designboom. ‘I’ve always dreamed of working with India Mahdavi, and I’m so happy to celebrate her work and let our guests experience her pop-up.’

What began as conversations between Paris and Mexico evolved into the idea of an ‘ultra-feminine, feminist speakeasy.’ For Mahdavi, this was a conscious departure from We Are Ona’s earlier projects, which had been mainly led by men. ‘I thought I had to make a rupture,’ the Paris-based architect and designer notes. ‘A continuity within the quality, of course, but a rupture with the aesthetics that were being brutalist, minimalist, etc. I wanted it to be immersive — the experience has to start from the street. Where are you going? How do you enter? There should be a bit of a surprise.’ 

That sense of discovery guided the search for the venue. After reviewing several options, the team settled on an old carrosserie, a former car workshop, where the rough industrial shell could contrast with Mahdavi’s delicate transformation, as her design wraps the entire interior in a bespoke textile inspired by the Rose d’Ispahan, a small and fragrant Persian flower often used in decorative arts. Find our full conversation with Luca Pronzato of We Are Ona and India Mahdavi below.

‘Rose, c’est la vie’ is an unexpected sanctuary of softness amid the intensity

in conversation with India Mahdavi and Luca Pronzato

designboom (DB): How did the idea for this collaboration come about?

Luca Pronzato (LP): At We Are Ona, we create culinary experiences where we like to invite not only guest chefs but also creatives, designers, artists, and architects to think in their own way about the culinary experience. I’ve always dreamed of working with India Mahdavi. We’ve been talking about it for a very long time, and I’m so happy to celebrate India’s work and to let the We Are Ona guests experience her pop-up.

the week-long pop-up is set inside a former car repair shop

DB: Was the location something that We Are Ona decided first and then invited India, or did you discuss it together?

LP: What I love about the creative process is the conversation that we have had along the way with India. It’s pretty much carte blanche at We Are Ona. I remember India talking to me about this idea of creating a super feminine speakeasy, where you can push a door in Paris and arrive in her world.

India Mahdavi (IM): One of the first things I noticed was that We Are Ona has mainly worked with men and fewer women. I thought I had to really make sort of a rupture, a continuity within the quality, of course, but sort of a rupture with the aesthetics that were being sort of brutalist, minimalist, etc. I wanted it to be a very immersive experience. The experience has to start from the street. Where are you going? How do you enter? There should be a bit of a surprise.

I started working with the idea of a floral fabric, which was inspired by the rose of Isfahan, Iran. It’s a small, beautiful rose that has the most incredible perfume. I just took it to a different scale, and it turned into this kind of shimmery, feminine world. I felt like within this environment of the art fair, it would be nice to have this feeling of being embraced by your grandmother, in a way. So, the project was crafted by me responding not only to We Are Ona, but also to the event in Paris, and to my own aesthetics. What’s interesting about this experience is that you’re free to work with your imagination.

Then, when I showed my idea to Luca, he loved it. Still, we had to find a place where we could have this element of surprise. Luca and his team proposed five to ten spaces. We investigated what sequences we could create around each of them, and then chose the one that worked best.

the industrial shell contrasts with Mahdavi’s delicate transformation

DB: So, you wanted to create a contrast between something typically seen as masculine, like a car workshop, and a much softer, more delicate atmosphere?

IM: It’s an old carrosserie that had been transformed into an office space, but there was still this roughness due to the industrial feel of the building. The way you enter is the main surprise element. But in any case, yes, it’s a contrast: having this space, which is rough and completely covered in one pattern.

Mahdavi’s design wraps the entire interior in a bespoke textile inspired by the Rose d’Ispahan

DB: Could you elaborate on the design concept, especially the all-over textile treatment, and how it contributes to the tactile and immersive quality of the space?

IM: The fabric gives you a very special feel. I’ve always been interested in designing patterns for fabrics or wallpapers, and that’s part of my language. I use ornaments a lot in my work. It’s a way of giving a new identity to a space that we’re modifying. It’s an efficient and beautiful way of doing that.

At that moment, I was also designing a line of fabrics for this French company called Pierre Frey. So, we used that as a base, we took this fabric, scaled it, and worked with them to produce it. It’s based on the rose. It’s very fresh, very familiar, because we’ve all seen homes covered with floral patterns, and I’m just taking it to a different level, making it radical. It’s an ode to soft power because soft power is something subtle that does exist, but when you have it all over, it becomes very powerful.

the space becomes a tactile cocoon

DB: Luca, how do the dining elements and overall experience dialogue with India’s design?

LP: It’s a total. Everything was settled with India, from the main architecture to the table design, tablecloths, plates, glasses, cutlery, and the aprons of the staff, even adding some surprises around the idea of the rose.

We also created a conversation with Jesús Durán, an amazing chef from Mexico that I really love. I think this will really add a lot to the experience. He’s one of the most incredible emerging talents — he used to work at Pujol, and we worked on some projects in Mexico with India. So there’s a nice link there.

guests share a communal table

DB: The way you describe this experience, it sounds like you’re focusing on positive elements — softness, happiness, warmth, and coziness. Why was it important to highlight these in this project?

IM: You know, we’re in a world that is quite aggressive right now. We’re surrounded by a future we don’t know. So I think that’s what it is, it’s about the present moment, the past is past and the future — we don’t know. My work is always about creating memories, creating an ephemeral moment of happiness that you can take away with you. The idea of the experience is really important — we see so many images on social media that we don’t know what’s real anymore. The only way to know if something is real or not is to live it, to experience it yourself. So I think this multisensorial experience is super important. It’s also about togetherness, because with this dining experience you’ll be sitting maybe next to somebody you don’t know, since it’s communal tables. You’ll share the same experience, which will engage conversations and encounters. All these people coming are interested in experience, in design, in food. It’s all about that.

LP: I totally agree with India. The point on human experiences is so important because all these details have been designed to put the guests into a full culinary experience. That’s something we’re really proud of at We Are Ona, creating this togetherness.

Durón’s menu interacts with Mahdavi’s sensory landscape

project info:

name: Rose, c’est la vie, We Are Ona x India Mahdavi

artist: We Are Ona | @we.are.ona

designer: India Mahdavi | @indiamahdavi 

location: Paris, France (7th arrondissement)

chef: Jesús Durón

occasion: Art Basel Paris 2025

The post india mahdavi’s rose-draped speakeasy for we are ona pops up in paris during art basel appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

With its third issue, The Archive of the Future, MAGMA transforms from printed matter into lived experience and takes shape in a spatial exhibition at 127 rue de Turenne in Paris. Conceived by Matière Noire together with MAGMA and presented with the support of Bottega Veneta, the show invites visitors to move from reading to presence and translate the multidisciplinary spirit of the journal into space. 

Open until November 19th, 2025, the exhibition features works by Charles Ray, Jonas Mekas, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Patti Smith, Jean-Luc Godard, and others. Its contemplative environment resists the accelerated pace of the contemporary art circuit and encourages a more intimate form of attention.

installation images by Nicolas Brasseur

The Archive of the Future: inhabiting the rhythm of a book

The Archive of the Future exhibition brings together original works featured in the publication, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and time-based media, and proposes an unusual encounter with art’s past, present, and speculative temporalities. Its scenography, developed by Matière Noire, builds an atmosphere of deceleration, an invitation to inhabit the temporal rhythm of a book. The visitor walks through an archive still in the making, an assemblage of voices, gestures, and memories. To ‘inhabit a book,’ as the curators describe, is to experience art as a shared duration, where reading becomes listening and viewing becomes dwelling. Throughout its month-long run, screenings, readings, performances, and conversations with participating artists become parts of the exhibition.

Among the works on view are five poetic voice recordings by sculptor Charles Ray, who for fifteen years has recorded reflections during solitary dawn walks across Los Angeles. His Five Prose Poems (2022), curated by Jean-Pierre Criqui and Cyrus Goberville, open the exhibition with the intimacy of spoken thought.

Nearby, two portraits by Elizabeth Peyton, The Death of Sarpedon (2025) and L’Aigle à deux têtes (Les Amants) (2024–2025), extend the artist’s delicate exploration of desire and temporality, while a group of unpublished Polaroids by Jonas Mekas, accompanied by drawings by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, anchors the show in a spirit of artistic camaraderie.

MAGMA transforms from printed matter into lived experience

fragments of history and homage

A sequence of works by Jill Mulleady pays homage to Lautréamont’s hermaphrodite through painting, granite, and woodcut, while Pol Taburet’s bronze and charcoal pieces merge spiritual symbolism with corporeal immediacy. Stanislava Kovalčíková contributes Die gute Hirtin (2025), an oil and foil painting that reflects her ongoing dialogue with archetypes of femininity and devotion.

On a larger scale, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Black and Light (2024) reflects both viewer and world through the artist’s signature mirrored surface, while Michel Journiac’s monumental La Guillotine (Piège pour une exécution capitale) (1971) reasserts its political and performative charge in the present. Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys present a new series of wood prints from 2025, furthering their surreal, psychologically charged practice.

The Archive of the Future issue takes shape in a spatial exhibition

From Godard’s Lens to Smith’s Voice

The MAGMA exhibition’s filmic and sonic program spans nearly a century of creation. Jean-Luc Godard’s first film, Opération Béton (1954), is screened in full, accompanied by a new sound work by Stephan Crasneanscki that weaves fragments of Godard’s own voice and recordings from his archive. Crasneanscki’s Mardi 13 Sept. 2022 Rolle (2025), produced by the Biennale Son, captures the soundscape of Lake Geneva on the day of Godard’s death, folding private mourning into collective memory.

The cinematic thread continues with Jonathan Glazer’s Strasbourg 1518 (2020), inspired by the historical episode of involuntary dancing mania and featuring choreography by dancers from Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal set to a score by Mica Levi. The exhibition closes with Patti Smith’s The Reluctant Master (2021), a piece originally included in Stephan Crasneanscki’s What We Leave Behind, bringing the show’s themes of transmission and legacy full circle.

the contemplative environment resists the accelerated pace of the contemporary art circuit

Pol Taburet, Leleco‘s walk, 2025, Charcoal on Paper ©2025 Pol Taburet © ADAGP, Paris, 2025 | image courtesy of the Artist and Mendes Wood DM Sao Paulo, Paris, Brussels, New York

the show invites visitors to move from reading to presence

the MAGMA exhibition’s filmic and sonic program spans nearly a century of creation

Jean-Luc Godard’s first film, Opération Béton (1954), is screened in full

Archive of the Future brings together original works featured in the publication | image courtesy of MAGMA

an unusual encounter with art’s temporalities | image courtesy of MAGMA

Precious Okoyomon, But Did You Die? 2024 ©2024 Precious Okoyomon Published by Serpentine and Wonder Press Courtesy of the artist

Jonas Mekas, Dumpling Party Polaroids, 1971 Unique set of 6 polaroids, with writing by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on verso © 1971 Jonas Mekas Courtesy the Estate of Jonas Mekas and APALAZZOGALLERY

featuring works by Charles Ray, Jonas Mekas, Yoko Ono and more | image courtesy of MAGMA

Jonas Mekas, Dumpling Party Polaroids, 1971 Unique set of 6 polaroids, with writing by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on verso © 1971 Jonas Mekas Courtesy the Estate of Jonas Mekas and APALAZZOGALLERY

translating the multidisciplinary spirit of the journal into space | image courtesy of MAGMA

project info:

name: MAGMA No. 3 — Archive of the Future

publication: MAGMA | @magmajournal

location: 127 rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris

set design & scenography: Matière Noire | @matiere.noire.paris

dates: October 20th – November 19th, 2025

curation & artistic direction: Paul Olivennes

head of content production: Louise Brunner

associate editor: Boris Bergmann

graphic direction: Helena Kadji & Rocío Ortiz Faye and Gina

production & technical team: CentralSV

executive and creative production: Louis Matton, Thomas Bihoré-Allegret

support: Bottega Veneta 

The post MAGMA brings its pages to paris exhibition with works by charles ray, jonas mekas and more appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

In the lush gardens of L’Hôtel de Maisons, once the Parisian home of Karl Lagerfeld, designer Vikram Goyal unveils The Soul Garden, an installation that transforms India’s ancient animal fables into a living, multisensory landscape. Presented by The Future Perfect for Design Miami/Paris 2025, the project, on view from October 21st to 26th, 2025, bridges sculpture, craft, design, and olfactory art in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Sissel Tolaas, who translates the invisible language of scent into a medium of storytelling and emotion.

all images by Alfredo Piola, unless stated otherwise

a sanctuary of spirit, memory, and craft

The Soul Garden reimagines India’s timeless reverence for animals as vessels of wisdom and guardianship. The installation gathers five sculpted creatures, the Tiger (Vyaghra), the Elephant and Baby Elephant (Gaja and Karabha), the Tortoise (Kurma), and the Crocodile (Nakra), crafted through the New Delhi-based designer Vikram Goyal’s signature repoussé and hollowed joinery metal techniques. ‘In India, animals are more than instinct, they are sacred, sentient, divine. Many embody essential virtues – strength, wisdom, loyalty, tranquillity,’ notes Goyal. ‘This recognition of their spiritual equivalence has led to their protection and veneration for centuries.’

Each animal encapsulates a moral dimension drawn from the Panchatantra, a 2,000-year-old collection of Sanskrit fables that uses animal protagonists to teach lessons in empathy, prudence, and coexistence. Within the sculptures, hidden repoussé panels reveal miniature narrative scenes inspired by these tales. Collectively, they form a contemporary bestiary, one that fuses India’s sculptural heritage with the animaliers of 20th-century Europe, such as François-Xavier Lalanne and Rembrandt Bugatti.

Vikram Goyal unveils The Soul Garden in the lush gardens of L’Hôtel de Maisons

Sissel Tolaas translates the animal world through scent

For Goyal, scent became the natural language of the animal world and the essential dimension of The Soul Garden. To realize this idea, he invited Sissel Tolaas, renowned for her pioneering work in olfactory research and art, to create a smellscape that would bring emotional depth to the installation.

‘For animals, smell is their primary language; it’s how they find food, recognise kin, warn of danger and even express emotion,’ says Goyal. ‘Scent is a story, and in order to be true to the intelligence of animals, The Soul Garden needed to speak in this invisible but powerful register. That’s why I turned to Sissel Tolaas.’

Tolaas, who describes smell molecules as ‘the alphabet of the air,’ visited Goyal’s studio in New Delhi to collect molecular samples during the metalworking process. She also recorded scent profiles from real animal habitats and interactions, synthesizing each species’ olfactory signature. Using a combination of nanotechnological and analog diffusion devices embedded in the sculptures and surrounding grasses, these molecular blends subtly fill the garden with layered fragrances. ‘To engage with The Soul Garden through smell is to unlock an encounter infused with emotion, play and vulnerability,’ shares Tolaas. ‘And without an emotional reaction, there can be no action.’

an installation that transforms India’s ancient animal fables into a living, multisensory landscape

Between myth and memory

Visitors of the Soul Garden are encouraged to sit among the sculptures, read, or simply breathe in the layered scents. Each evening at 5 pm, students from Cours Florent, Paris’s renowned performing arts school, will perform readings from the Panchatantra, animating its fables of wit and morality, the Lion and the Hare, the Monkey and the Crocodile, the Tortoise and the Birds, with renewed voice and presence. As a symbolic gesture, talismans will be offered to visitors, inviting them to become caretakers of the animals, acknowledging a shared duty of guardianship toward both mythic and living beings.

Through the fusion of sculpture, scent, and story, The Soul Garden emerges as a fable for the present moment—an appeal for empathy, ecology, and coexistence amid an age of disconnection. ‘It reinterprets Indian animal fables not as relics of the past but as blueprints for future thinking – about empathy, ecology, and coexistence,’ says Goyal. ‘By entering this living fable, each visitor leaves not only with a story, but a renewed role in the wider web of life.’

presented by The Future Perfect for Design Miami/Paris 2025

on view from October 21st to 26th | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

bringing together sculpture, craft, design, and olfactory art | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

reimagining India’s timeless reverence for animals as vessels of wisdom and guardianship | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

the installation gathers five sculpted creatures | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

each animal encapsulates a moral dimension drawn from the Panchatantra | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

the animal sculptures are crafted through Vikram Goyal’s signature techniques | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

fusing India’s sculptural heritage with the animaliers of 20th-century Europe | image by Ali Monis Naqvi

visitors of the Soul Garden are encouraged to sit among the sculptures | image by Ali Monis Naqvi 

project info:

name: The Soul Garden | @vikramgoyalstudio

designer: Vikram Goyal Studio | @vikramgoyalstudio

location: L’Hôtel de Maisons, Rue de l’Université, Paris, France

event: Design Miami/Paris 2025 

collaborator: Sissel Tolaas (olfactory artist) | @sssl_berlin

presented by: The Future Perfect

dates: October 21st–26th, 2025 

photographer: Alfredo Piola | @alfredo_piola, Ali Monis Naqvi | @alimonisnaqvi

The post vikram goyal turns india’s ancient animal fables into a scented landscape in paris appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

The monumental green figure of Kermit the Frog takes flight above the stately facades of Place Vendôme as part of the Art Basel Paris Public Program. Until October 26th, 2025, Alex Da Corte‘s artwork transforms the historic square into an unlikely stage for a scene of comic melancholy. Presented by Sadie Coles HQ, the project takes the form of an enormous helium-filled inflatable, a towering, 19.75-meter-long effigy of the beloved Muppet icon.

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

alex da corte turns a parade mishap into a study of resilience

The American-Venezuelan artist’s installation revisits an episode from the 1991 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, when a Kermit balloon snagged on a tree branch and tore open mid-parade, slumping half-deflated as the celebration continued beneath it. For Da Corte, this strange, fleeting moment became a metaphor for exhaustion, resilience, and the dissonant cheer that often masks collective anxiety. ‘Since only the head gets torn, only a part deflates,’ he explains. ‘It’s between lives, between states.’ Beneath the floating sculpture, a group of smiling performers dressed as Kermit, one possibly the artist himself, keeps the facade of optimism alive, ‘reminding us of the charade,’ Da Corte says. ‘Their only task is to keep smiling and keep it moving. You don’t know who’ll be watching, but we can’t show on our faces the terror in our minds if we know the balloon is failing.’

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

a modernist echo in green as part of art basel paris 2025

Officially titled Kermit the Frog, Even, in sly reference to Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923), Da Corte’s Kermit the Frog, Even combines American pop iconography with the language of modernist art history. Between humor and pathos, the piece suspends its protagonist in a perpetual moment of defeat, exposing the vulnerability that underpins mass-produced optimism. ‘My interest in Kermit has been this ”It’s not easy being green” thing,’ the artist notes. ‘On one hand, green means green energy, being conscious of the environment; on the other, there’s also the sense of being an alien, being marginalized, and that hardship. Here we see Kermit wearing it plainly on his face—the facade drops when the camera isn’t focused on you.’

In Kermit the Frog, Even, that joy becomes bittersweet, stretched thin like the green nylon skin of the balloon itself. The work’s scale and visibility turn Place Vendôme, a site synonymous with French grandeur, into a stage for an American existential fable.

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

Installation view, Alex Da Corte, Kermit the Frog, Even, 2018/2025, Art Basel Paris Public Programme, Place Vendôme, 20-26 August 2025 Credit: © Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London | image by Andrea Rossetti

part of the Art Basel Paris Public Program | image ©designboom

the green figure of Kermit the Frog is takes flight above Place Vendôme | image ©designboom

the project takes the form of an enormous helium-filled inflatable | image ©designboom

a towering, 19.75-meter-long effigy of the beloved Muppet icon | image ©designboom

the installation revisits an episode from the 1991 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC | image ©designboom

project info:

name: Kermit the Frog, Even

artist: Alex Da Corte

location: Place Vendôme, Paris, France

event: Art Basel Paris 2025 Public Program

presented by: Sadie Coles HQ

dates: October 20th–26th, 2025

The post alex da corte’s giant kermit the frog lands in place vendôme during art basel paris appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

October sees Paris transform into a vibrant stage of creativity and culture as art and design fairs, museum and gallery exhibitions and public installations take over the French capital. For its fourth edition, Art Basel Paris returns to the newly restored Grand Palais, bringing together 206 international and local galleries as well as a strong public program beyond the fairgrounds. Meanwhile, Design Miami.Paris stages its third edition at the historic Hôtel de Maisons, presenting collectible design that bridges craft, history, and contemporary innovation.

Beyond the fairs, the entire city becomes part of the cultural program with several new exhibitions, installations, and site-specific projects on view. From Alex da Corte’s giant Kermit installation above Place Vendôme and an automated orchestra installation made of flip-flops at Lafayettes Anticipations, to the opening of Fondation Cartier’s new premises and a floral dining experience by We Are Ona and India Mahdavi, Paris unfolds into a landscape of ideas, dialogue, and experimentation.

Explore designboom’s curated guide below for our must-see highlights of Art Basel Paris, Design Miami.Paris, and other standout shows and events across the city.

image by Alexander Kagan on Unsplash

explore designboom’s curated map to the city of Paris

Art Basel paris 2025 returns to the Grand Palais

Art Basel Paris 2025 returns to the Grand Palais from October 24th to 26th, bringing together 206 galleries from 41 countries, including 29 newcomers and nearly a third with spaces in Paris. The fair unfolds across three sectors: Galeries, showcasing the breadth of international gallery programs; Emergence, dedicated to 16 solo presentations by rising artists; and Premise, highlighting curated historical projects with works predating 1900.

Beyond the fairgrounds, the Public Program, supported by Miu Miu, animates key Parisian landmarks such as the Petit Palais, Palais d’Iéna, and the Domaine national du Palais-Royal with site-specific commissions and installations developed in collaboration with major cultural institutions. Conversations, Art Basel’s flagship talks series, returns to the Petit Palais, hosting artists, curators, and thinkers in dialogue on contemporary art and culture. The fair also restages Oh La La!, its initiative inviting exhibitors to present creative rehangs on October 24th and 25th, this year guided by an overarching thematic prompt.

what: Art Basel Paris 2025
when: 24 – 26 October 2025
where: Grand Palais, 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris

image courtesy of Art Basel

Helen Marten — 30 Blizzards. presented by Miu Miu

As part of the Art Basel Paris 2025 Public Program, Miu Miu presents 30 Blizzards., a major new project by British artist Helen Marten, staged at the Palais d’Iéna. This is Marten’s first large-scale performance work, created in collaboration with theater director Fabio Cherstich and composer Beatrice Dillon. On view from 22nd to 26th October, 2025, the project combines five sculptures and five new videos with monologues and a libretto performed by thirty characters, each linked to a symbolic object. Through song, speech, and movement, the performance explores themes of childhood, sexuality, community, interiority, and loss, while the title evokes both the performers and the turbulence of human temperament. Installed within the formal architecture of the Palais d’Iéna, the work features sculptural platforms, a central stage, and a circular track carrying vessels, creating an immersive environment where sculpture, video, text, music, and performance converge in a continuously unfolding narrative.

what: 30 Blizzards. 
when: 22 – 26 October 2025
where: Palais d’Iéna, 9 Avenue d’Iéna, 75116 Paris

The Palais d’Iéna | photography by Aliki Christoforou for Art Basel

Alex Da Corte — Kermit the Frog, Even

The Art Basel Paris 2025 Public Program also features an inflatable sculpture by Alex Da Corte, which is inspired by the collapse of a Kermit balloon during New York’s 1991 Thanksgiving Day Parade. Half-deflated yet still afloat, the figure hovers above Place Vendôme in a state of suspended vulnerability, transforming an icon of childhood joy into a monument of fragility and delusion. By isolating this fleeting accident, Da Corte continues his exploration of American pop culture as a site of both collective fantasy and underlying unease, where cartoons, consumer icons, and suburban ideals reveal their hidden cracks. The work is on view from October 20th to 26th, 2025, with a performance activating the sculpture scheduled for Monday, October 20th.

what: Kermit the Frog, Even
when: 20 – 26 October 2025
where: Place Vendôme, Paris

Alex Da Corte, performance view, Kermit The Frog, Even, Fridericianum, Kassel, 7 September 2024. © Alex Da Corte. courtesy the artist and Fridericianum, Kassel. photo: Nicolas Wefers

Harry Nuriev — Objets Trouvés

Harry Nuriev transforms the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins into a site of exchange with Objets Trouvés (2025), a participatory installation inviting visitors to leave behind an object they no longer need and take one left by others. Arranged in supermarket-style boxes, each contribution is certified as an artwork, with all exchanges later compiled into a Yellow Pages–style publication, preserving the fleeting process as a collective archive. Rooted in Nuriev’s notion of Transformism — the reimagining of everyday materials into new forms and meanings — the project turns the act of exchange into a gesture of shared authorship and social interaction. Objets Trouvés is on view from October 21st to 26th, 2025 and is part of the Art Basel Paris 2025 Public Program.

what: Objets Trouvés
when: 21 – 26 October 2025
where: Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, Beaux-Arts de Paris

Harry Nuriev, Objets Trouvés, 2025 | image courtesy of the artist

Ugo Rondinone — the innocent

Ugo Rondinone installs the innocent (2024) on the parvis of the Institut de France, a monumental figure over four meters tall, composed of stacked bluestone blocks evoking heads, torsos, and legs. Archaic in form yet shifting with the light and weather, the work embodies both permanence and transience. Continuing Rondinone’s exploration of elemental sculpture as a reflection of the human condition, the innocent stands as sentinel and witness in the historic heart of Paris — at once timeless, fragile, and profoundly human. Presented in collaboration with the City of Paris and as part of the Art Basel Paris 2025 Public Program, the installation is on view from October 17th to 28th, 2025.

what: the innocent
when: 17 – 28 October 2025
where: Parvis de l’Institut de France, Paris

Ugo Rondinone, the innocent, 2024 | image courtesy of the artist

design Miami.Paris 2025 presents its third edition

The third edition of Design Miami.Paris returns to the historic Hôtel de Maisons, bringing together over 25 leading international galleries and designers to present rare and unique examples of historic and contemporary collectible design across the house and gardens. Set within the 18th-century mansion, the fair continues to explore the dialogue between architecture, craftsmanship, and innovation through curated exhibitions, site-specific installations, and its Design at Large program. Alongside the main fair, a series of talks, collaborations, and special projects will highlight new perspectives on design and its evolving role in culture and daily life.

what: Design Miami.Paris 2025
when: 21 – 26 October 2025
where: L’Hôtel de Maisons, 51 Rue de l’Université, Paris

image courtesy of Design Miami.Paris

Friedman Benda

As part of the Design Miami.Paris 2025 program, Friedman Benda (New York) presents a cross-section of contemporary design practice, showcasing designers, architects, and artists who push the discipline’s formal and conceptual limits. Among the highlights is the European debut of Frida Escobedo’s Creek Chair, a study in material poetics where delicate nickel ball chains cascade over a geometric frame.

Creek Chair 02, 2023 by Frida Escobedo for Friedman Benda at Design Miami.Paris 2025 (Image courtesy of Friedman Benda Gallery)

Galerie Gastou and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret

On the occasion of Design Miami.Paris 2025, Galerie Gastou and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret (Paris) present Early Birds, a joint curation celebrating the art of mixing and dialogue across eras. The presentation brings together an ensemble of works by the Artisans de Marolles alongside pieces spanning from the early 1900s to contemporary design. Unified by the recurring motif of birds, the selection reflects both galleries’ shared sensibility for craftsmanship, symbolism, and timeless form.

image courtesy of Galerie Gastou and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret

Patrick Parrish Studio

Making its French debut at Design Miami.Paris 2025, Patrick Parrish Studio (New York) presents a solo exhibition dedicated to Carl Auböck. The presentation spotlights the Austrian designer’s mastery of everyday objects — bells, dishes, baskets, and bookends — reframing them as refined objets d’art. Focusing on Auböck’s post-Bauhaus era, the curation highlights his signature blend of material sensitivity and craftsmanship, expressed through hand-sewn leather, polished brass, bamboo, and fine woods.

Assorted Objects, 1950s by Werkstätte Carl Auböck for Patrick Parrish Studio at Design Miami.Paris 2025 | image courtesy of Clemens Kois

ATRA x Pedro Reyes

Also making its debut at Design Miami.Paris 2025, ATRA (Mexico City) presents Aerial Symmetry, a collaboration with Pedro Reyes exploring geometry, time, and memory. The installation comprises a series of sculptural, pyramid-like structures arranged around a central chair by Reyes, conceived as a spatial marker visible from above. Referencing the cosmic alignments of ancient civilizations, Aerial Symmetry invites reflection on humanity’s enduring impulse to organize space in dialogue with the stars and the passage of time.

Aerial Symmetry, 2025 by Pedro Reyes for ATRA at Design Miami.Paris 2025 | image courtesy of ATRA

Maison Parisienne

At Design Miami.Paris 2025, Maison Parisienne (Paris) presents a site-specific installation by Aude Franjou, showcasing the artist’s hand-crafted linen sculptures throughout the Hôtel de Maisons. Franjou’s vivid, vine-like forms unfurl across the balcony of the étage noble and weave through the metal arches of the garden, creating a dialogue between textile and architecture. Rendered in radiant shades of yellow, orange, and red, the works highlight the expressive potential of linen while casting a vibrant contrast against the building’s neoclassical ironwork.

Embrassade en rouge opéra, 2024 by Aude Franjou for maison parisienne at Design Miami.Paris 2025 | image by Vincent Leroux

Designers of Tomorrow – Design Miami.Paris x Apple

Design Miami.Paris and Apple present Designers of Tomorrow, a special initiative highlighting four emerging designers whose creative practices are deeply integrated with the iPad Pro. Curated by AGO Projects co-founder Rodman Primack, and selected by a jury including Apple’s Alan Dye and Molly Anderson, the exhibition showcases how technology empowers innovation, from research to the final crafted work. Beyond the presentation, the project provides a platform for visibility, professional connection, and future opportunities within the global design community.

image © Elodie Matcha

vikram goyal’s soul garden

In the lush gardens of L’Hôtel de Maisons, designer Vikram Goyal unveils The Soul Garden, an installation that transforms India’s ancient animal fables into a living, multisensory landscape. Presented by The Future Perfect for Design Miami/Paris 2025, the project, on view from October 21st to 26th, 2025, bridges sculpture, craft, design, and olfactory art in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Sissel Tolaas, who translates the invisible language of scent into a medium of storytelling and emotion.

image by Alfredo Piola

the 11th Edition of PARIS ASIAN ART FAIR

Returning for its 11th edition, Paris Asian Art Fair – Asia NOW once again brings together leading and emerging voices from across Asia and its diaspora. Held at the historic Monnaie de Paris, the fair reaffirms its role as a platform for dialogue and discovery, transcending geographic and cultural boundaries. Guided by the decentering mission initiated by My East is Your West, the fair continues to challenge traditional frameworks of presentation and perception—amplifying underrepresented narratives and expanding the understanding of what “Asian art” can mean today. Through its curated program, Paris Asian Art Fair invites visitors to experience Asia not as a fixed place, but as a methodology, a lens, and a movement shaping the global art landscape.

what: Paris Asian Art Fair – Asia NOW 
when: 22 – 26 October 2025 
where: Monnaie de Paris, 11 Quai de Conti, 75006 Paris

image courtesy of Asia NOW

exhibitions, events and galleries AROUND PARIS

Fondation Cartier Opens New Site at Place du Palais-Royal

On October 25th, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain inaugurates its new home at 2 Place du Palais-Royal, directly opposite the Louvre. Housed within a Haussmann-era building from 1855, the space has been entirely reimagined by architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the Fondation’s original glass structure on Boulevard Raspail in 1994. The new site unfolds across 8,500 square meters, including 6,500 square meters of exhibition space distributed over five adjustable platforms capable of shifting to eleven different heights. Conceived as a flexible ‘scenographic device,’ the architecture adapts to exhibitions spanning visual arts, film, performance, craft, and science, while fostering public exchange and dialogue.

To mark its inauguration, the Fondation presents Exposition Générale, a sweeping showcase of works from its collection tracing over 40 years of contemporary creation—from early commissions to recent landmark projects. Accompanied by live performances and spoken word events, the exhibition signals a new chapter for the Fondation Cartier: one that expands its architectural, cultural, and social reach within the very heart of Paris.

what: Exposition Générale
when: 25 October 2025 – 23 August 2026 
where: 2 Place du Palais-Royal, 75001 Paris

rendering of platform 1 looking onto the Rue de Rivoli | image © Jean Nouvel/ADAGP, Paris, 2024

Gerhard Richter Retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton

The Fondation Louis Vuitton presents a landmark retrospective dedicated to Gerhard Richter, featuring 270 works from 1962 to 2024. Spanning paintings, glass and steel sculptures, drawings, watercolors, and overpainted photographs, the exhibition offers the most comprehensive view yet of Richter’s six-decade career.

Tracing his evolution from photo-based realism to lyrical abstraction, the show highlights the artist’s lifelong exploration of perception, memory, and the possibilities of painting. Occupying the entire museum, this exhibition continues the Fondation’s series of major monographs devoted to 20th- and 21st-century masters such as Basquiat, Mitchell, Rothko, and Hockney.

what: Gerhard Richter: Retrospective
when: 17 October 2025 – 2 March 2 2026
where: Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Paris

Gerhard Richter, Gudrun, 1987 | image courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton

Gerhard Richter at David Zwirner

Coinciding with the major retrospective of Richter’s work at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, David Zwirner’s exhibition presents a selection of paintings, drawings, and glass works by Gerhard Richter at its Paris gallery. This marks Richter’s third exhibition with the gallery since his representation was announced in 2023, following solo shows in New York and London. 

what: Gerhard Richter exhibition
when: 20 October – 20 December 2025 
where: David Zwirner Gallery, 108, rue Vieille du Temple 75003 Paris

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 2001 (detail) | image courtesy of Gerard Richter

Minimal at Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection

Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection presents Minimal, an exhibiton that examines the global evolution of Minimalism, a movement since the 1960s that redefined the artwork and its relationship to the viewer. With a focus on simplicity, formal clarity, and spatial experience, artists worldwide used natural and industrial materials to create works emphasizing perception, presence, and direct interaction. The show is organized into seven themes — Light, Mono-ha, Balance, Surface, Grid, Monochrome, and Materialism — and spans North American, South American, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European perspectives. Featuring works from the Pinault Collection, Dia Art Foundation, and other major collections, the show highlights Minimalism’s global reach and experiential impact.

what: Minimal
when: 8 October 2025 – 19 January 2026
where: Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection, 2 rue de Viarmes, 75001 Paris

image courtesy of Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection

YVES SALOMON EDITIONS x Dimorestudio — Un Souffle de Vent

YVES SALOMON EDITIONS presents Un Souffle de Vent, an immersive installation created in collaboration with Dimorestudio. Continuing the dialogue between the two houses, the exhibition unveils new pieces alongside works first presented at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. Inspired by Georges Perec’s Les Choses, the presentation evokes a poetic atmosphere where memory and impermanence intertwine. Dimorestudio’s sculptural approach comes to life through tactile surfaces, refined materials, and a delicate balance of minimalism and ornament. Each piece — spanning furniture and textiles — transcends functionality, reflecting YVES SALOMON EDITIONS’ commitment to craftsmanship and artistic experimentation.

what: Un Souffle de Vent
when: 21 – 26 October 2025 
where: YVES SALOMON EDITIONS Showroom, 5 rue Castiglione, 75001 Paris

image @ Matteo Verzini

Meriem Bennani’s Sole Crushing at Lafayette Anticipations

For her solo exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations, Meriem Bennani transforms the foundation into a vast resonating chamber with Sole Crushing, a monumental sound installation spanning the building’s full height. Nearly two hundred pairs of flip-flops and slides form an automated orchestra, striking surrounding surfaces to create a rhythmic composition between symphony and uprising. Echoing crowds in movement — whether at protests, stadiums, or traditional dakka marrakchia ceremonies — the work explores the balance between individuality and collective rhythm, where the simple slap of a flip-flop becomes a shared pulse of resistance and connection. Reimagined from its first presentation at Fondazione Prada (2024–25), this new version features an original soundtrack by Reda Senhaji (Cheb Runner) and a site-specific design for Lafayette Anticipations. 

what: Sole Crushing
when: 22 October 2025 – 8 February 2026
where: Lafayette Anticipations, 9 Rue du Plâtre, 75004 Paris

preparatory drawing Sole crushing, sound installation work-in-progress (2025). reinterpretation of the work originally presented in For My Best Family at Fondazione Prada in 2024–25 © Meriem Bennani

Steffani Jemison’s clear skies / troubled water at Lafayette Anticipations

Steffani Jemison’s solo exhibition  at Lafayette Anticipations explores how physical and social forces shape our ability to move, act, and perceive. Developed during her residency at the foundation, the exhibition features a new sculpture and a video installation that examine movement, gravity, and orientation as frameworks for understanding power and resistance. Through these works, Jemison considers how bodies navigate systems of control and liberation, connecting geographies of violence with practices of resilience. The artist approaches atmosphere not simply as weather, but as a condition charged with history and tension — one that influences how we move, respond, and inhabit space.

what: clear skies / troubled water
when: from 22 October 2025
where: Lafayette Anticipations, 9 Rue du Plâtre, 75004 Paris

research still, video work-in-progress (2025) © Steffani Jemison

India Mahdavi x WE ARE ONA present Rose, c’est la vie !

India Mahdavi teams up with Luca Pronzato’s WE ARE ONA on Rose, c’est la vie !, an immersive one-week dining installation. Set inside a former car repair shop in Paris’ 7ᵉ arrondissement, the project transforms the space into a hidden speakeasy — a parallel world that carries the spirit of APT, Mahdavi’s first New York nightclub, reinterpreted for today.

At the heart of the experience is Mahdavi’s signature ‘all-over’ approach: a bespoke textile inspired by the Rose d’Ispahan envelops the space entirely, from tablecloths and napkins to aprons, creating a tactile, poetic cocoon. The menu, conceived by guest chef Jesús Durón, mirrors the setting with a multi-course experience designed exclusively for the occasion.

what: Rose, c’est la vie !
when: 20 – 26 October 2025
where: Secret location, 7ᵉ arrondissement

image courtesy of India Mahdavi and WE ARE ONA

PROJECT ROOM #20: Parenchyma by KAUANI / India Mahdavi

AGO Projects, the Mexico City–based collectible design gallery, presents Parenchyma, a solo exhibition by the design studio Kauani, in Project Room #20, India Mahdavi’s open platform for international design. This marks AGO Projects’ third year participating, showcasing innovative approaches to material, form, and spatial experience in a space designed to connect Paris with the global design community.

what: Parenchyma
when: 21 October – 7 November 2025
where: Project Room, 29 rue de Bellechasse

image by Ines Llasera

INDIA MAHDAVI PROJECT ROOM #7: FOLK CITY by Serban Ionescu

India Mahdavi’s Tiny Room #7 presents Folk City, a solo project by Serban Ionescu exploring the form and memory of the chair. Using raw materials, Ionescu treats wood like drawing or clay, improvised and direct, embracing accidents. Inspired by his Balkan roots and heirloom traditions, the Folk Chairs series began after visiting the Museum of the Peasant in Bucharest in 2015, where simple wooden chairs from around 1900 sparked a spontaneous creative response. These fast, rough chairs, made from discarded materials without plans, grow through improvisation, reflecting childhood memories of joy and sadness.

what: Folk City
when: 21 October – 7 November 2025
where: Tiny Room, 3 rue Las Cases

image by Thierry Depagne

Maison Guerlain presents Straight to the Heart: A Century of Pure Love

To mark the centenary of Shalimar, its iconic fragrance created in 1925, Maison Guerlain presents Straight to the Heart: A Century of Pure Love, in partnership with Art Basel Paris. The exhibition explores how our understanding of love has evolved over the past hundred years, bringing together more than thirty artists across generations and disciplines—from Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović & Ulay, and Robert Mapplethorpe to Camille Henrot, Alex Gardner, and Pierre et Gilles. Spread across three floors of Guerlain’s historic flagship designed by Charles Mewès, the show unfolds as a multi-sensory journey through painting, photography, sculpture, video, and performance. An olfactory installation by Guerlain perfumer Delphine Jelk and Magique Studio complements the artworks, translating emotion into scent and creating what Guerlain calls ‘love potions to see, smell, and feel.’ Drawing inspiration from Shalimar’s origin — a tale of eternal devotion that inspired the Taj Mahal — the exhibition reflects on love as a force that transforms, endures, and reappears in ever-changing forms.

what: Straight to the Heart: A Century of Pure Love
when: 22 October – 16 November 2025
where: Guerlain, 68 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris

RongRong&inri, Untitled 2008 No.25, 2008

Maison Perrier-Jouët

Maison Perrier-Jouët brings its Belle Époque heritage to the legendary Maxim’s through La Parenthèse Belle Époque, an immersive experience celebrating the shared history between the Maison and this Art Nouveau landmark. The space is reimagined with stained glass and arches adorned with anemones by Émile Gallé, vintage decorative objects, and archival posters. A stele by artist Samantha Kerdine, created for the first edition of Parenthèse Belle Époque, holds a Jeroboam of Belle Époque 2007 from the Maison’s Anémone collection—bridging craftsmanship, design, and heritage.

what: La Parenthèse Belle Époque
when: until March 2026, with musical performances on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays
where: Maxim’s, 3 Rue Royale, 75008 Paris

image courtesy of Maison Perrier-Jouët

The Salons of Imagination by Studio GGSV

From October 13th to November 2nd, French design duo Studio GGSV presents The Salons of Imagination, an immersive installation created for the newly established Manufactures Nationales as part of its inaugural PAVILLON program. Conceived for this first edition at the invitation of the institution, the project gives contemporary designers free rein to imagine the interiors of tomorrow while honoring the role of the interior designer. Housed inside the Pavillon d’Angiviller at the historic Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, it transforms a 200-square-meter apartment into three interconnected interiors where art, architecture, and craftsmanship converge to offer profound sensory experiences. For this commission, Gaëlle Gabillet and Stéphane Villard, founders of Studio GGSV and known for their experimental use of illusion and trompe-l’œil, designed every piece of furniture and décor, presenting several never-before-seen works. The three environments — the Reception Salon, the Conversation Salon, and the Reading Salon — are conceived as spaces that stimulate the mind as much as they invite contemplation, encouraging visitors to imagine, exchange, and dream while celebrating French savoir-faire.

what: The Salons of Imagination
when: 13 October – 2 November 2025
where: Manufactures Nationales, 42 avenue des Gobelins 75013 Paris 

image © Jean Allard

Ed Ruscha: Talking Doorways at Gagosian

Gagosian presents Ed Ruscha: Talking Doorways, an exhibition of new paintings that mark a striking shift in the artist’s six-decade exploration of architecture and language — from public facades to the quiet intimacy of private interiors. In these works, Ruscha depicts sparse rooms defined by molding and doorframes, each pierced by a doorway through which a painted phrase appears, accompanied by trailing bands that evoke both beams of light and soundwaves. The series draws inspiration from Vilhelm Hammershøi, the Danish painter known for his restrained, light-filled interiors, whose influence led Ruscha to explore the emotional resonance of empty spaces.

what: Ed Ruscha: Talking Doorways
when: 22 October – 3 December 2025
where: Gagosian, rue de Castiglione, Paris

Ed Ruscha, Says I to Myself Says I, 2025. acrylic and graphite on canvas, 54 × 120 inches (137.2 × 304.8 cm) © Ed Ruscha. photo: Jeff McLane

The Singular Experience at Gagosian Le Bourget

Gagosian Le Bourget presents The Singular Experience exhibition, curated by Donna De Salvo, marking what would have been American artist, sculptor, illustrator and composer Walter De Maria’s 90th birthday. At its center is Truck Trilogy (2011–17), De Maria’s final sculpture, shown for the first time outside the U.S., featuring three polished 1950s Chevrolet pickup trucks transformed into minimalist monuments of geometry and reflection. The exhibition also includes 13, 14, 15 Meter Rows (1985), drawings, films, and archival materials that trace the artist’s lifelong exploration of measurement, rhythm, and perception.

what: The Singular Experience
when: 19 October 2025-18 April 2026
where: Gagosian, 26 Avenue de l’Europe, Le Bourget

Walter De Maria, Truck Trilogy, 2011–2017, installation view at Dia Art Foundation, Beacon, New York, 2017–19

Magma No. 3: Archive of the Future

Magma Journal launches its third issue, Magma No. 3: Archive of the Future, with the support of Bottega Veneta. Conceived as a forum for artistic expression, Magma revives the tradition of the twentieth-century revues d’art, inviting artists and writers to collaborate on original, previously unseen works. The new volume will debut on October 19th, accompanied by a month-long exhibition presenting the featured artworks within an immersive scenography by Matière Noire.

what: Magma No. 3: Archive of the Future
when: 19 October – 19 November 2025
where: FORMA, 127 rue de Turenne 75003, Marais district, Paris

Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Interior, 2025. Die Vier von der Tankstelle, 2023 ©2025 Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys. courtesy of the artists, photography by Fabrice Schneider

A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Eugene Kangawa

Japanese multidisciplinary artist Eugene Kangawa and A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE unveil a new textile innovation, the result of a three-year creative dialogue between Kangawa and designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his team. Inspired by Kangawa’s ongoing series Light and shadow inside me (2021–), the textile reinterprets the gradations of photographic paper through weaving alone, achieving shifts from black to white without dyes or multiple thread colours. The project debuts in Paris in an exhibition conceived by architect Tsuyoshi Tane, presenting the new textile alongside test pieces, artworks, and creative tools, and accompanied by guided tours and hands-on workshops. Following its Paris premiere, the exhibition is scheduled to travel to Tokyo and Osaka.

what: A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Eugene Kangawa exhibition
when: 24 – 25 October 2025 (11:00 – 19:00) and 26 October 2025 (11:00 – 18:00)
where: Lycée Turgot Paris, 40 Rue Volta, 75003 Paris

Eugene Kangawa, Artist and Yoshiyuki Miyamae,Designer, A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE discussing the project at the artist’s atelier in Japan © ISSEY MIYAKE INC.

JOOPITER at Dover Street Market Paris

JOOPITER, Pharrell Williams’s auction platform, takes over Dover Street Market Paris with a special presentation of its fall auctions. Visitors can discover highlights from The Contemporary Take: A Look with Jay Chou and Inked: Tattoos by Contemporary Artists, JOOPITER’s first-ever tattoo auction curated by Sharon Coplan. The preview is open on Wednesday, October 22nd and Thursday, October 23rd in Event Space B2, offering an exclusive look at commissioned tattoo designs and contemporary artworks featured in JOOPITER’s upcoming global sales.

what: Inked: Tattoos by Contemporary Artists and The Contemporary Take: A Look with Jay Chou
when: 22 – 23 October 2025
where: Event Space B2, Dover Street Market Paris

image courtesy of JOOPITER

Constantin Brancusi’s Photographs at Thaddaeus Ropac

Following the acclaimed retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Thaddaeus Ropac Paris presents Photographs, a focused exhibition devoted to Constantin Brancusi’s rarely seen photographic work from 1906 to 1938.

For Brancusi, photography was both documentation and creation—an extension of his sculptural practice through which he explored form, light, and spatial dialogue. Influenced by his friendships with Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and Man Ray, Brancusi used his camera to ‘sculpt light,’ capturing the radiance of his polished bronzes and the interplay between his works and their surroundings. Featuring self-portraits, early naturalist studies, and iconic views of his atelier, the exhibition reveals how Brancusi shaped his own myth and legacy through the lens—transforming his studio into a living space for sculpture and light.

what: Photographs
when: 20 October – 22 November 2025
where: Thaddaeus Ropac, 7 Rue Debelleyme, 75003 Paris

image © Succession Brancusi – All rights reserved (Adagp)

Precious Okoyomon’s it’s important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world AT Mendes Wood DM

Mendes Wood DM presents Precious Okoyomon’s first solo exhibition in Paris, it’s important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world, coinciding with the artist’s presentation at Art Basel Paris. Known for creating living ecosystems that merge poetry, sculpture, and organic materials, Okoyomon explores the entanglement of race, nature, and power, exposing the invisible violences that shape our shared environments. At the gallery, the exhibition unfolds across several immersive settings: newly conceived wallpaper and a series of child-sized teddy bear sculptures introduce the show, while further rooms feature dioramas, a new poetic text, and a large-scale horticultural installation of aromatic flowering plants accompanied by sound. Together, these elements evoke a world where decay and regeneration, innocence and ferocity coexist, offering a sensorial reflection on survival and transformation at the end of an era.

what: it’s important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world
when: 20 October 2025 – 17 January 2026 
where: Mendes Wood DM, 25 Pl. des Vosges, 75004 Paris

Precious Okoyomon, ONE EITHER LOVES ONESELF OR KNOWS ONESELF, Exhibition view second floor Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2025, in the belly of the sun endless, 2025 | photo: Markus Tretter © Precious Okoyomon, Kunsthaus Bregenz courtesy of the artist and Kunsthaus Bregenz

The Spaceless Gallery and MycoWorks present Matières Sensibles

From October 20 – November 28, 2025, The Spaceless Gallery collaborates with MycoWorks to present Matières Sensibles at The exhibition combines contemporary art and next-generation biomaterials, featuring ceramics, pigment-based works, floral assemblages, abstractions, and sculptural/AI collaborations. MycoWorks highlights Reishi designs, including pendant lights by Alea and a new stool by Tim Leclabart. The show explores materiality, form, and technique, celebrating the dialogue between human creativity and natural matter.

what: Matières Sensibles 
when: 20 October – 28 November 2025
where: Reishi House, 14 avenue de l’Opéra, 75001 Paris

image courtesy of The Spaceless Gallery

Enrico David’s The Soul Drains the Hand at White Cube

Enrico David presents his first solo exhibition The Soul Drains the Hand at White Cube Paris. Opening during Art Basel Paris, the show coincides with his major survey at Castello di Rivoli, Italy. The exhibition features new sculptures, furniture, tapestries, and works on paper, continuing David’s exploration of the body through inventive manipulation of materials and form.

what: The Soul Drains the Hand
when: 21 October 2025 – 19 December 2025 
where: White Cube Paris, 10 Avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris

Enrico David, Assumption of we, 2014-25 © the artist | photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis)

Paul Sietsema at Marian Goodman

Marian Goodman Gallery presents Paul Sietsema’s second solo exhibition in France, featuring new works and earlier pieces, including two 16mm films. Known for his exploration of image, material, and meaning, Sietsema examines how objects and gestures acquire cultural and symbolic value. The exhibition spans paintings, sculptures, and film, from recent object-based compositions, depicting telephones, coins, and paintbrushes, to archival works exploring labor, media, and perception. Together, they trace the artist’s ongoing investigation into the shifting relationship between image, material, and time.

what: Paul Sietsema exhibition
when: 18 October – 20 December 2025
where: Marian Goodman Gallery, 79 Rue du Temple, 75003 Paris

image courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery

Pièces à vivre at GALLERIA CONTINUA

Galleria Continua presents Pièces à vivre, a group exhibition featuring works by Ai Weiwei, Leandro Erlich, Eva Jospin, Julio Le Parc, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Nari Ward, Pascale Marthine Tayou, and over twenty other international artists. Set within the gallery’s historic Marais space, a former leather goods store redesigned by MBL architects, the exhibition transforms each room into a reimagined domestic environment where art and everyday life seamlessly merge.

Conceived as a ‘house of art,’ Pièces à vivre invites visitors to wander through spaces that blur the boundaries between intimacy and imagination. Each artwork engages in dialogue with its surroundings, offering fragments of memory, emotion, and collective experience. In this hybrid setting, GALLERIA CONTINUA continues its mission to create a living continuity between art, architecture, and daily life.

what: Pièces à vivre
when: until 29 October 2025
where: Galleria Continua, Paris, 87 Rue du Temple, 75003 Paris

‘Pièces à vivre’ exhibition view, Galleria Continua / Paris Marais. Photo: © Paul Hennebelle. Paris ADAGP 2025

Jeffrey Gibson’s This is dedicated to the one I love at Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth presents Jeffrey Gibson’s first solo exhibition in France, showcasing new paintings, beaded panels, cloaks, punching bags, and ceramic head sculptures. Dubbed This is dedicated to the one I love, the show reflects Gibson’s interdisciplinary practice, rooted in American, Indigenous, and queer histories, and inspired by music, literature, and art history. With his signature use of bold color, pattern, and abstraction, Gibson explores empathy, resilience, and creative expression in times of crisis, inviting viewers into a space where identity, culture, and color converge.

what: This is dedicated to the one I love
when: 20 October – 20 December 2025
where: Hauser & Wirth, 26 bis Rue François 1er, 75008 Paris

image courtesy of Hauser & Wirth

Ronan Bouroullec’s Clair-obscur at Galerie kreo

Galerie kreo presents a new exhibition by Ronan Bouroullec, extending his exploration of light as both material and perception. Suspended glass compositions — part sculpture, part drawing — balance fragility and precision, lightness and structure. Each piece combines white opaline globes with transparent, gray, or amber glass corollas, connected by anodized aluminum rods of near watchmaking detail. Rooted in repetition and variation, the works transform their surroundings through diffused, filtered, or reflected light, inviting a phenomenological experience of perception.

what: Clair-obscur
when: until 1 November 2025
where: Galerie kreo 31, rue Dauphine 75006 Paris

image courtesy of Galerie kreo

CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE: 40 YEARS OF THE WRAPPED PONT NEUF

Paris celebrates 40 years since Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s legendary transformation of the Pont Neuf into a monumental work of art. Realized in 1985 with 41,800 square meters of fabric and the help of hundreds of workers, The Pont Neuf Wrapped remains one of the city’s most iconic artistic gestures. To mark the anniversary, the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, with support from the City of Paris, presents Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Parisian Projects, a free open-air exhibition tracing the artists’ deep connection with the French capital through projects including Wall of Oil Barrels – The Iron Curtain (1961–62), Wrapped Statue, Trocadéro (1964), and The Arc de Triomphe Wrapped (1961–2021). The celebration continues in summer 2026 with JR’s Projet Pont-Neuf, an installation inspired by the artists’ legacy, transforming the historic bridge once again through a dialogue between art, architecture, and the city.

what: The Pont Neuf Wrapped: 40th Anniversary

when: until 30 October 2025

where: Quai de la Mégisserie, beneath the Pont-Neuf

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris, 1975-85, photo by Wolfgang Volz © 1985 Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation

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