Initially attracted by cinema and conceptual art, Guillaume Paris obtained a scholarship to study engineering at the Cooper Union in New York and ended up studying visual arts at the same time. After graduating, he continued his research at the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris. He was then artist-in-residence at the Core Program in Houston, at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and undertook doctoral studies in cultural anthropology at University College London, before becoming a resident at the Villa Médicis in Rome.

Initiated in the early 90s, the H.U.M.A.N.W.O.R.L.D. project brings together all his concerns: identity construction and ideology, reification and fetishism, belief, consumerism, memory and temporality.

His work has been shown in numerous museums and art centres in France and abroad, including the Centre Pompidou, the Jeu de Paume, the ZKM, the Tinguely Museum and the Prada Foundation. He taught at the Parsons School of Art and Design in Paris before joining the Beaux-Arts. He has lectured at numerous art schools and universities in France and abroad (Beijing, Tokyo, Helsinki, Utrecht, London, Taipei, Nanjing, Belgrade, Reykjavik, New Delhi).