The Petit Palais gets into the spirit of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games! The Musée des Beaux-Arts presents its new exhibition, Le corps en mouvement, from May 15 to November 17, 2024. This original tour combines sport and art, thanks to the participation of several "art-thletes", who talk to us about their sport through the collections of the Petit Palais.
The exhibition features 50 works: paintings, sculptures, antiques, drawings and prints evoke the links between art, sport and body movement. Interviews with athletes complete the selection.
The tour evokes the colors of Olympism, and is divided into seven chapters. We begin in ancient Greece, at the first Games, with works illustrating the sports of the time: javelin throwing, discus throwing, running... Then it's on to the body: the body of the hero, the musculature of the athlete, the subtleties ofhuman anatomy revealed in paintings, drawings and sketches by artists who have analyzed the body in minute detail.
The exhibition places special emphasis on dance, and the many works that this activity has inspired in artists. Painters and sculptors have attempted to immortalize these graceful movements, this spark of beauty that comes to life on dance floors, and on the canvases of creators. Freezing movement without extinguishing it - that's the challenge the sculptors set themselves for the rest of the tour. A highly complicated challenge, but not impossible, as the works on show demonstrate.
The Petit Palais also evokes the social aspect of sport, with theemancipation of women and the control of their bodies through sport and competition. Children are also part of the picture: in the artists' works, we see them having fun and exerting themselves with the games and sports of their time.
We end this chronological adventure with the modern Games, the sports that democratized in the 20th century, and today's practices. A long epic that takes us to meet several Olympic and Paralympic athletes, who explain in video the importance of their sport, and the place of the body in this discipline.
Along the way, you can admire creations by great artists such as Rembrandt, Dürer, Léon Comerre, Youriévitch... Artists from different periods, styles and countries, brought together in this original exhibition at Petit Palais.
Dates and Opening Time
From May 15th, 2024 to November 17th, 2024
Location
Le Petit Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris 8
Prices
Free
Official website
www.petitpalais.paris.fr
