The Art Basel Paris fair is a major event gathering hundreds of galleries and artists, from October 23 to 25, 2026. It also unfolds a full slate of activities and happenings to discover throughout Paris and the Île-de-France region.
In Paris museums, art often takes the form of paintings, sculptures or even videos. But during the week of the Art Basel Paris fair, there are no limits! This international fair dedicated tocontemporary art brings together hundreds of galleries and artists at the Grand Palais. It also offers a range of exhibitions for you to discover off-site.
Beyond these main events, a slate of activities is offered on the fringe of the fair. Open doors, exhibitions, talks and debates, installations... Plenty of animations await at venues that are sometimes offbeat! Want to take full advantage of this entire programmation from October 20 to 25, 2026? Here’s a curated selection of happenings to experience during Art Basel Paris, the showcase for contemporary art in Paris and in Île-de-France.
Please note that not all Art Basel Paris events are free of charge or open to the public: please enquire at each participating venue, or consult the event details on the fair website.
The events and must-see happenings you won’t want to miss at this year’s Art Basel Paris 2026 fair:
- Performance - TCHOU-TCHOU, ghost train
Saturday, October 17, 2026 8:00 PM–12:00 AM
Le Wonder
109, Rue de Paris Bobigny
“Tchou-tchou, ghost train” is a collective exhibition that reinterprets the codes of the famous ride, inviting visitors to wander through the artists’ works.
Free admission
- Screening - Jenny Holzer, I Saw
Musée d'Orsay, Seine side
Projections on the facade of the Musée d’Orsay from Sunday, October 18 to Thursday, October 22, 2026, 7:00 PM–11:00 PM
A leading figure of our era, American artist Jenny Holzer places words and ideas at the heart of a deeply engaged practice. The exhibition “I Saw” will take various forms, beginning with luminous projections on the Seine-facing façade during the inauguration week in October. The excerpts chosen by Holzer—from artist letters held in the museum archives to contemporary literary or political texts—will transform the building’s exterior and offer passersby an immersive, almost timeless experience.
Free admission
- Conversations | Among friends: Simone Fattal and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Grand Palais
Simone Fattal and Hans Ulrich Obrist pick up a thread of a conversation begun decades ago. On the occasion of the exhibition Des villes au fond d’un lac at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris—and Fattal’s participation in the Public Art Basel Paris program—the Lebanese-American artist and Serpentine’s artistic director revisit questions and discoveries that have shaped their dialogue. Spanning 50 years of creation, from early landscapes to ceramics and collages, the talk is both a journey through time and a companion portrait.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | How to build a monument? Eva Jospin and Laurent Dumas
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Grand Palais
Each in their own way, collector Laurent Dumas and artist Eva Jospin have explored for years what happens when artists work on a monumental scale. Their collaboration gave rise to La Traversée (2018), a carton forest imagined by Jospin for Beaupassage in Paris. As Dumas launches Large, a major art center on Île Seguin, they discuss how a commission between artist and patron takes shape—from first sketches to realization.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Can experience itself become a work of art?
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Grand Palais
From the Alpine summits of Gstaad to immersive environments devised for fashion worldwide, Alexandre de Betak creates temporary universes that leave a lasting impression. After shaping the fashion world’s visual language behind the scenes for decades, he now embraces a full-fledged artistic practice where light and space alter perception. In dialogue with Massimiliano Gioni, de Betak reflects on this evolution and asks: can experience itself become an artistic medium?
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Museums of tomorrow: the Louvre’s next 50 years
Friday, October 23, 2026
Grand Palais
Fifty years after its opening, the Louvre is undergoing a transformative renovation. In dialogue with journalist Claire Chazal, Laurent Le Bon looks beyond the project’s immediate goals to imagine what the institution should become in the coming decades. How can the Louvre welcome millions of visitors without reducing itself to icons? And how might it evolve while preserving research and the long arc of its mission?
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Artists’ one-on-ones | Ibrahim Mahama
Friday, October 23, 2026
Grand Palais
“Artists’ one-on-ones” hands the floor to artists for a deep dive into their recent work. Ibrahim Mahama, laureate of the 2025 Art Basel Awards gold medal, chats with Aby Gaye-Duparc, curator of his first Paris exhibition, The Time of Harvest, this fall at Fondation Cartier. From his Tamale-based cultural projects, they explore how working with local communities has increasingly shaped the artist’s practice.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Artists’ one-on-ones | Zanele Muholi
Friday, October 23, 2026
Grand Palais
“Artists’ one-on-ones” gives the floor to Muholi for a close look at their recent work. On the occasion of Remember Me, the landmark survey marking the bicentennial of photography at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Zanele Muholi speaks with filmmaker and curator Pascale Obolo about photography as a means of historical inscription. Bringing together practices shaped by archives and marginalized narratives, the conversation examines how images resist erasure and which artist deserves to be remembered.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Artists’ one-on-ones | Stanislava Kovalcikova
Friday, October 23, 2026
Grand Palais
This session dives into the work of Stanislava Kovalcikova, recent winner of the Reiffers Initiatives Prize 2026. Alongside curator Caroline Bourgeois, the artist reflects on a practice built slowly, layer by layer, inhabited by figures both intimate and unsettling. Their exchange probes the singular psychology of her images and the near-theatrical worlds they inhabit, with paintings and sculptures that fuse mythic imagery, architectural frames, light, mirrors, textiles, and the limits of accessing painting itself. Modernism and contemporary disintegration mingle in her work.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Museums of tomorrow: the Louvre’s “New Renaissance”
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Grand Palais
Christophe Girard took the helm of the Louvre in February 2026, guiding the world’s most visited museum through a phase of renovation and transformation. In dialogue with journalist Claire Chazal, he looks beyond the practicalities of the Louvre’s project to ask what the museum could become in the long run. How can it welcome millions of visitors without relying on icons alone, and how might it evolve while preserving research and time-honored missions?
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Painting beyond the canvas
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Grand Palais
For more than 30 years, Swiss artist Renée Levi has developed a singular approach to painting, where color, gesture, scale, and the body are closely tied to architecture and the spaces housing the works. Her latest project, September (2026), a monumental public artwork for the Hayward Gallery in London, produced with Audemars Piguet Contemporary, extends this exploration onto the building’s brutalist facade. Renée Levi and Audrey Teichmann, APC curator, join moderator Nicolas Trembley to discuss the making of this ambitious work, Levi’s broader practice, and APC’s ongoing support for artists developing new commissions.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Keeping an artwork alive: shaping an artist’s legacy
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Grand Palais
An artist’s legacy is built long before their passing. Drawing on their work with artists and multi-generational estates, Pauline Pavec and Jeffrey Deitch examine the pivotal role of gallerists in this enduring story. How do you introduce an artist into the canon? And how do you keep an artwork alive without imprisoning it in a fixed narrative or constantly reinventing it for the times? Led by Marine Van Schoonbeek, they explore the choices that mold how a work is valued over time.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
- Conversations | Life as art: Jordan Roth and Linda Yablonsky
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Grand Palais
Broadway producer Jordan Roth has spent decades bringing others’ visions to the stage. He now shares his own. This autumn, his installation To Think of the Tranquil Life of Things occupies the Hôtel de Guise. Photographs of his former apartment are printed on textiles and draped over the furniture they depict, turning traces of domestic life into functional sculptural pieces. In conversation with Linda Yablonsky, Roth asks what happens when a life becomes material and a producer becomes an artist. Roth’s multidisciplinary practice sits at the crossroads of performance, art, and fashion, earning seven Tony Awards. In 2025, he presented his first public performance, Radical Acts of Unrelenting Beauty, at the Louvre, before premiering at Palazzo dei Fiori during Venice Biennale 2026 in partnership with Performance Space New York.
Admission to Conversations is free and open to all. We recommend reserving a seat.
With this program, it's impossible to remain indifferent to this week dedicated tocontemporary art in Paris! For the official program of the fair, see our dedicated article. Shall we go, friends?
Art Basel Paris: Dates for the 2026 edition of the contemporary art fair at the Grand Palais
The international contemporary art fair Art Basel Paris is set to return to the Grand Palais for a new edition. The event runs over the weekend of October 23–25, 2026. [Read more]
Art Basel Paris: Dates for the 2026 edition of the contemporary art fair at the Grand Palais
