We are delighted to announce Pauline Curnier Jardin's upcoming solo exhibition at Palais de Tokyo, organised in collaboration with Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Pauline Curnier Jardin Virages Vierges (Virgin Turns) Palais de Tokyo, Paris Opening April 2 April 3 –– September 13, 2026
Entitled “Virages Vierges” [Virgin Turns], Pauline Curnier Jardin’s solo exhibition takes as its starting point the notion of deviation, or even deviance: the turn as a departure from the straight line, abandoning a stable trajectory in favour of uncertainty and crossroads. Like her fragmented narratives, the artist’s work is constructed in areas of confusion where fiction, ritual and documentary intertwine without hierarchy.
This large-scale monographic exhibition allows Pauline Curnier Jardin to present her practice through a selection of major works—most notably video installations and sculptures—as well as new productions. It reveals her phantasmagoric atmospheres, situated somewhere between theatre, cinema, and ritual, and structured around recurring themes: the fluid relationship between bodily vulnerability and power, the place of women in society, and forms of popular spirituality and syncretism.
This project continues a long-term relationship between the Palais de Tokyo and the artist, who previously took part in the group exhibitions “Dynasty” (2010, with the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris) and “Antibodies” (2020).
This exhibition is curated by Daria de Beauvais, with assitance by Inès Fodil. The scenography is by Rachel Garcia.
This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid).
Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and M HKA (Antwerp) will publish in 2026 the first monographic publication on the work of Pauline Curnier Jardin.
Pauline Curnier Jardin (b. 1980, Marseille, France) is an artist working across installation, performance, film and drawing. The transgressive, camp, and idiosyncratic work of Curnier Jardin takes on a diversity of forms ranging from paintings, performances, musical collaborations, installations and films. In her work the artist often incorporates historical or mythological material into her own bizar aesthetics. With the instruments of the theater, she breathes new life into objects, discoveries, and images. She reinterprets such objects as altruistic protagonists in her self-created, peculiar adventures. She is especially interested in the female figure in mythology, history, folklore, and cinema. She deconstructs stereotypical of women as hallow, witch, mother, or mystic. Through a multimedia approach, her work seeks a unique logic, in order to locate a separation between reality and fiction, rationality and emotion, man and woman, friend and enemy, human and objects, the sacred and the profane.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Dress to Kill, NW Aalst; The Associations of Pauline Curnier Jardin, M HKA, Antwerp; Deep Scarlet, Scream Ruby | The Freestanding Joys, Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto; The Dawn is Red When the Dew Coagulates, Kiasma Museum, Helsinki; Hot Flowers, Warm Fingers, Centraal Museum, Utrecht.
