2024 program

Dear reader,

I am delighted to share with you our exciting roster of upcoming exhibitions and events at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.

We will ring in 2024 with Lacan, the Exhibition. When Art Meets Psychoanalysis (December 31, 2023–May 27, 2024), curated by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Bernard Marcadé, the first-ever show to highlight the close-knit relationship between Lacan and art. We will display the works he referenced in his seminars, works by the artists who have paid tribute to him, and the modern and contemporary works that echo the major Lacanian concepts. We are proud to present many masterpieces and important works by artists such as Courbet, Caravaggio, Velázquez, Magritte, Dalí, Bourgeois, Messager, and Cattelan.

We will celebrate the exhibition and the New Year with artists and friends at an opening/New Year’s Eve party on December 31. Come join us for the party and The Night of the Moles, a psychedelic mole concert by choreographer Philippe Quesne.

Lacan was deeply connected personally and professionally to the Surrealist movement, especially through the artist André Masson. To be sure, the idea of the uncanny and the exploration of the unconscious are fundamental aspects of both Psychoanalytic theory and Surrealism. 2024 actually marks the centenary of the “Surrealist Manifesto”, and so, we will recontextualize this seminal text in the present by devoting a retrospective to Masson (March 29, 2023–September 2, 2024) which I am co-curating with Didier Ottinger. Masson was a key figure known as the “rebel of Surrealism”, whose pioneering career reflects the history of the 20th century in Europe and America.

As always, in addition to reconsidering historical artworks in a new light we have invited contemporary artists to create site-specific, experimental shows. On view until January 15, 2024, Worldbuilding. Gaming and Art in the Digital Age, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, has turned the top floor of the museum into one big lively arcade and explores the ways in which contemporary artists have engaged with video games and made them into a new art form.

We will present Shifting the Stars (June 1, 2024–February 24, 2025) a monumental and immersive painting exposition I am curating by Katharina Grosse which will fill the Grande Nef and spill out onto the Parvis. In the Forum and the 3rd floor gallery, a show by Cerith Wyn Evans (November 1, 2024–April 21, 2025) curated by Zoe Stillpass will create a sensorial synesthetic garden, a poetic play of luminous sculptures, reflections, shadows, and sound. Bonne Chance, the first institutional show in France by contemporary art duo, Elmgreen & Dragset which I had the chance to curate, will be up until April 1, 2024. For this show, the artists have drastically transformed the Forum, the Grande Nef, and even the gallery rooftops into a series of all-encompassing environments.

The summer will be all about the many conquests that have marked the history of photography through an exhibition entitled SEE/THE TIME/IN COLOUR. The Challenges of Photography (July 13–November 18, 2024), curated by Sam Stourdzé.

As for our performing arts line-up, dance will continue to be central with performances by our friends and recurring guests, Bintou Dembélé, Vinii Revlon, and Boris Charmatz. We also have the honor to welcome Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, for Rosas danst Rosas, an exceptional weekend of performances and workshops open to all.

Finally, we are thrilled that the re-landscaping of our garden by visionary landscape architect, Gilles Clément, is thriving. Moreover, museum architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines have redesigned our restaurant and cafe. We will continue to host workshops in the PTS (Paper Tube Studio) where we will set up new participatory exhibits by artists such as Joana Vasconcelos and Ben. Also in 2024, we will inaugurate the “Olympiades Culturelles”, a second annex of the Centre Pompidou-Metz and experimental school-gymnasium-library designed as well by Shigeru Ban.

In 2025, the Centre Pompidou Paris will temporarily close for several years of technical work, and we will get the pleasure of hosting many incredible works from the Musée National d’Art Moderne collection to create new magnificent adventures. Meanwhile, the exhibition Repetition organized by Éric de Chassey, which opened earlier this year and will be up until January 27, 2025, brings together emblematic works from the Centre Pompidou collection. It explores the theme of repetition as a subject, a method, and a constraint in the production and reception of art.

At the Centre Pompidou-Metz we hope to create “A place for dreams./But dreams in their place” (Robert Desnos, État de veille).

Yours,

Chiara Parisi