Paris Gallery Weekend 2025 takes place May 23–25 across 74 galleries in the capital, featuring vernissages, performances, exhibition walkthroughs, and artist talks. Now in its second decade, the event was founded to spotlight Paris’s contemporary art scene and offers a counterpoint to the art fair circuit. Highlights include Sophie Calle’s "SÉANCE DE RATTRAPAGE" at Perrotin, where she revisits unfinished projects from her 2023 Picasso Museum exhibition, and major institutional shows like the David Hockney retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton and "Corps et âmes" at Bourse de Commerce. The weekend also includes a new Agnès Varda exhibition at Musée Carnavalet linking her photography to her Montparnasse atelier.
This event matters because it underscores Paris’s resurgence as a global art capital, with a growing number of contemporary galleries, museums, and art fairs establishing themselves in the city. The weekend’s emphasis on figurative painting, textile-based work, and solo presentations reflects current market trends, while the inclusion of major institutional shows alongside gallery programming demonstrates the city’s cultural vitality. The initiative provides an alternative to the dominance of art fairs, reinforcing the importance of gallery-based discovery and direct artist engagement.