Chère Melpomène

“Chère Melpomène,
We call to you, the ancient muse of tragedy, who once reigned at the back of the Palais des Beaux-Arts. Once a towering statue, several meters high, you have now become a ruin. From the residue of your dust, we seel to transcend the archetype of the muse and evoke a fresh, nuanced breath, able to seep into the interstices of established orders. In between inspiration and expiration, between what is spoken and what remains silent, this breath embodies our deepest desire for social justice.”

Chère Melpomène is a call for change, to subvert classical myths in order to convey other stories that are closer to our daily lives. The exhibition invites us to listen, feel, and breathe together in a poetic exploration of what binds us.
Drawing inspiration from the methodology of artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982) in her work Dictée (1982) - where the nine muses of Greco-Roman antiquity are reimagined to honor female martyrs who sought emancipation - the exhibition sublimates reality by rerouting the figure of Melpomène. What relationships should we cultivate among the inhabitants of the earth - beyond species, and between animate and inanimate beings? Theresa Hak Kyung Cha invites us to prioritize our senses, intuition, and pay attention to our surroundings in order to reconnect with the multiple breaths of life and reignite our commoning energy.

The exhibition invites us to navigate our intimate tragedies and the stories we can tell about them. It offers an incantation to summon spiritual and political alliances, to infuse our struggles with magic, expand our imagination, and nurture hope. The pieces in this exhibition embody acts of resistance and solidarity, sharing speculative cosmogonies that translate the plurality of memories that shape our contemporary society and cultivate our interdependence while honoring our individual differences.

Chère Melpomène intertwines a hundred works from the collections, students and international artists, presenting a transhistorical display from the late 17th century to today. Most have never been exhibited—recently acquired by the School or newly created for the exhibition—while others have yet to circulate in institutional spaces.

European Museum Night : Saturday, May 17, 2025, the exhibition will be open free of charge from 7pm to midnight. 

Nocturnes program on Wednesday evenings

WEDNESDAY APRIL 16 2025

2pm | Écrire en spirale
Writing workshop with Douce Dibondo (on registration)

6:30pm | Invocation à Melpomène
Musical composition and vocal performance by Lucie Cure

7pm | Divertimento
A piece by Baptiste Agnero Rigot, assisted by Mia Brenguier

More informations and registration

SATURDAY APRIL 19 2025

From 3 to 5pm | Gourmet Workshop
By Éloïse Bayard (on registration)

More informations

WEDNESDAY APRIL 19 2025

From 2 to 4pm | Translation workshop
Translation workshop of stories in inclusive and post-binary writing with Léna Salabert Triby for “Pays de Glossolalie”. (On registration) 

18:30pm | Invitation to Radio Bal
Invitation to the student radio station RADIO BAL

More informations and registration

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, Liselor Perez, Enzo Perrier, Romain Pommelet, Jonathan Potana, Pierre Petit, Chloé Quenum, Axel Ramat, Lou Rappeneau, Akshay Raj Singh Rathore, Man Ray, Odilon Redon, Paul Richer, Sofia Salazar Rosales, Juliana Seraphim, Seumboy Vrainom :€, Marcel Storr, Shooshie Sulaiman, Eden Tinto Collins, Marion Verboom, François Verdier, Yizhi Wan, Isabelle Waternaux, Yue Yu, Anna Zemankova et anonymes.

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!

The " Artistes & Métiers de l'exposition " program is supported by Société Générale