Chère Melpomène

“Dear Melpomène,
We address you, muse of tragedy, once enthroned at the back of the Palais des Beaux-arts. From a plaster statue several meters high, you have become a ruin. From your dust particles, we wanted to go beyond the archetypal muse to form a living breath capable of infiltrating the interstices of established norms. Between inhalation and exhalation, between what is said and what is left unsaid, this breath embodies our deepest desires for social justice.”

Chère Melpomène is a call for change, for thwarting classic myths to pass on other stories closer to our everyday lives. The exhibition invites us to listen, feel and breathe together, in a poetic exploration of what connects us.
that connects us.

A journey through our intimate tragedies and the stories we can tell of them, the exhibition is an incantation to bring about spiritual and political alliances, to “magize” our struggles, to develop our imagination, to sustain hope. The works presented embody the will to resist and to build solidarity, and share speculative cosmogonies capable of translating the plurality of memories shaping our contemporary society, and cultivating our interdependence while respecting each other's differences.

Chère Melpomène interweaves some one hundred works from the collections, from students and studio heads, and from international artists, presenting a transhuman display.
artists, presenting a transhistorical display from the late 17th century to the present day. Most of the works have never been exhibited before - either recently acquired by the École or produced especially for the show - while others have not yet been circulated in the institutional milieu.

Nocturnes on Wednesday evenings : detailed program to follow.

Curators : Mélanie Bouteloup and Armelle Pradalier, co-directors of the “Artists & Exhibition Professions” program, Giulia Longo, Curator of Prints and Photographs at Beaux-Arts de Paris, with students in the program : Kenza Agbo, Adèle Anstett, Martin Bas, Héloïse Bayard, Léonard Berthou, Pauline Boudaoud, Mathilde Cassan, Mathilde Chabaud, Elisa Leïla Durand, Éloïse Frye De Lassalle, Klara Jakes, Clément Justin Hannin, Zoé Le Bacquer, Shumeng Li, Zahra Mansoor, Timothée Perron, Zoé Siau, Kit Szasz, Lara Ulusoy.

Artists : Soraya Abdelhouaret, Océane-Maria Adjovi, Giovanni Altieri, Shelim Alvarado, Dyan Daniel Assogo, Eugène Atget, Gianfranco Baruchello, Baya, Romain Bernini, Pierre-Amédée-Marcel Béronneau, Michel Blazy, Félix Bonfils Et Atelier, Rosa Bonheur, Wanda Elisabeth Bouleau-Rabaud, Jean Bhownagary, Luciano Castelli, Norbert Chautard, Arthur Coquille Hopfner, Henri Cueco, Storm De Hirsch, Princesse Diakumpuna, Amahiguere Dolo, Azzeazy, Guillaume Benjamin Amant Duchenne De Boulogne, Aysha E Arar, Mimosa Echard, Laura Esparch, Frederik Exner, Nina Fiorentini, Diego Garcia Lara, Guillaume-Sulpice Dit Paul Gavarni, Clémence Gbonon, Fengyi Guo, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Roger Hardy, Suzanne Husky, Fanny Irina, Svay Ken, Käthe Kollwitz, Shengqi Kong, Adrien Lagrange, Emmanuelle Lainé, Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato, Gherasim Luca, Frédérique Loutz, Rose Lowder, Antoinette Lubaki, Turiya Magadlela, Joshua Merchan Rodriguez, Pierre Molinier, Céleste Moneger, Zora Neale Hurston, Aryle Nsengiyumva, Christel Pereira, Lizelor Perez, Enzo Perrier, Romain Pommelet, Jonathan Potana, Pierre Petit, Chloé Quenum, Axel Ramat, Lou Rappeneau, Akshay Rathore, Man Ray, Odilon Redon, Paul Richer, Sofia Salazar Rosales, Juliana Seraphim, Seumboy, Marcel Storr, Shooshie Sulaiman, Eden Tinto Collins, Marion Verboom, François Verdier, Yizhi Wan, Isabelle Waternaux, Yue Yu, Anna Zemankova and anonymous.

Practical informations

Wednesday April 09 - Sunday June 01 2025
Palais des Beaux-Arts
Beaux-Arts de Paris, 13 quai Malaquais, Paris 6e
Wednesday to Sunday, 1pm-7pm
2€, 5€ or 10€ it's up to you!