The best free exhibitions in Paris
Free doesn't mean small. In cultural institutes, corporate foundations, galleries, and permanent collections, Paris offers free access to things you'd pay for elsewhere: a ball of ogresses, haute couture hats displayed like rare birds, an entire library of counterculture. Here is our selection.
THE BALL OF THE OGRESSES
AT THE INSTITUTE OF ISLAM CULTURES
Thirteen female artists take hold of Aïcha Kandisha, the Moroccan ogress who protects as much as she frightens. From Nil Yalter to Kubra Khademi, the figure changes sides: what was used to frighten girls becomes a power to be claimed. Paintings, videos, and installations compose a topsy-turvy tale, sustained from beginning to end. Discover our photos
INSTITUTE OF ISLAM CULTURES - HERE LÉON
From September 26, 2026 to February 7, 2027
METAMORPHOSES, THE HATS OF MAISON MICHEL
AT THE GALERIE DU 19M
Four rooms to follow a hat from raw straw to the head that wears it. Felt, wooden shapes, and the Weismann machine restored in 1975: Maison Michel reveals its craft rather than its shop windows. We watch hands working a resistant material, and the fashion item becomes a manufactured object once again. Discover our photos
THE 19M GALLERY
From September 23 to December 13, 2026
UNDERGROUND!
THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS OF THE 1970s
Nearly four hundred newspapers, fanzines, leaflets, and posters recount the wild age of the counter-press. Feminist, environmentalist, anti-militarist, or libertarian, this press used collage and graphic design as political weapons. The paper has yellowed, but not the audacity: you leave with the desire to create something.
BNF FRANÇOIS-MITTERRAND
Until October 18, 2026
FROM FIGURATIVE TO ABSTRACT
AT THE GALERIE DE L'EUROPE
Sixteen painters and one sculptor, two contrasting approaches: on one side, the deserted interiors of Couloumy and the close-ups of peonies by Juliana Wildner, on the other, the blues applied with a single stroke by Joseph Jeantet. Most of those who paint abstract art have a background in figurative art, and on Rue de Seine, this is evident from one wall to the next. Read our article
GALERIE DE L'EUROPE
Until October 17, 2026
LEONOR FINI
A YEAR OF METAMORPHOSES
Bird, feline, or mineral creature, Leonor Fini shaped her apparitions with the same fervor as her canvases. The Minsky Gallery celebrates this major 20th-century figure with a regularly updated exhibition, featuring previously unseen and rarely exhibited works. Here, we encounter an artist who always refused to be categorized.
MINSKY GALLERY
Until October 17, 2026
THE NABIS
THE COLOR REVOLUTION
Bonnard, Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Sérusier, and Vallotton broke with the illusion of reality. Colors, rhythms, and surfaces transformed familiar scenes and gardens into sensory experiences of astonishing modernity. A bedroom, a patch of garden, a tablecloth: that's all it took for them to change the paint.
GALERIE HÉLÈNE BAILLY MARCILHAC
Until October 15, 2026
JOHAN CRETEN
PAVLOV'S DOGS
Obsolete computer towers are piled up like the ruins of a world that believed in infinite progress. Johan Creten confronts family memories, vanished technologies, bronzes, and ceramics with the myths of our modernity. His enamels, however, do not age: this is the very essence of this encounter between two temporalities.
PERROTIN
Until October 10, 2026
JENNIFER GUIDI
FIELDS OF ENERGY
Sand mixed with pigments gives each canvas an almost tactile presence. Hollowed out with thousands of dots, Jennifer Guidi's solar compositions evoke mandalas, celestial bodies, and cascades of light. You have to approach to see the relief, step back to see the celestial body: the painting imposes its own rhythm.
GAGOSIAN
Until October 10, 2026
SUNGI MLENGEYA
EARTH AND SKY
Against immaculate white backgrounds, dark and powerful bodies emerge. For his first solo exhibition in France, Sungi Mlengeya transforms empty space into a territory of memory, transmission, and projection. White is not a backdrop but a material, the very substance upon which the silhouettes float and interact.
GALERIE LES FILLES DU CALVAIRE
Until October 24, 2026
GYAN PANCHAL
THE ECONOMY OF THE MASTERPIECE
A discarded sheet of metal, a worn glove, or a piece of plastic is all it takes. Through a fold, a cut, or a discreet assembly, Gyan Panchal reveals the plastic power of objects destined for oblivion. The intervention is so measured that one sometimes hesitates to see it, and it is precisely there that the work begins to take shape.
MARCELLE ALIX
Until October 10, 2026
HENRI LANDIER AT THE LEPIC ART STUDIO
We know the painter, now we discover the draftsman. A hundred or so sheets of paper gathered under the Montmartre glass roof, where the line searches, hesitates, begins again, and reveals what the canvas ultimately covers. The exhibition has been extended until October 25: a rare opportunity to follow a hand at work rather than a finished product. Discover our photos
LEPIC ART STUDIO
Until October 25, 2026
RAYANE MCIRDI
HAPPY RETIREMENT DAD
Forty years in the factory, and one last day. Rayane Mcirdi filmed his father's retirement, then deconstructed the film for the Plateau, in chapters spread throughout the space. Instead of sitting, visitors move around, and the scenes echo each other from one room to the next. A journey between Algeria and France, without a single line of commentary.
FRAC ÎLE-DE-FRANCE, LE PLATEAU
From September 24, 2026 to February 21, 2027
