Lionel Sabatté Exhibition at the Museum of Hunting and Nature: when animals reclaim their wild side

What if animals told a different story? The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature presents Ce qui reste, a solo exhibition by Lionel Sabatté to be discovered in the Marais district of Paris, from October 15, 2026 to March 21, 2027. Spanning the two historic townhouses that house the museum as well as the courtyard, the route brings together paintings, drawings, sculptures and tapestries, most of them new works, around a central thread in the artist’s practice: the relationships between the living, matter and time.

This exhibition extends a persistent dialogue between Lionel Sabatté and the Museum of Hunting and Nature that has developed over several years. After presenting The Selection of Kin in 2017 and the inclusion of three of his dust swallows in the museum’s collections, the artist returns with a new body of recent works devoted to animal figures. Deer, wolf, dog, boar or bear appear in deliberately unstable forms, straddling sculpture, landscape, and transforming matter. Far from a naturalistic representation, these animals move between power and fragility, until gradually shedding the attributes that usually define them.

Material plays a central role in this new series. Lionel Sabatté works with everything from dust, oxidation, wool, wood, cement or earth to elements sourced from the body, such as nails or dead skin. These materials, often associated with what vanishes or is discarded, become the starting point for works that explore the cycles of transformation inherent to living beings. Through this body of work, the artist also probes the boundaries between the animal, plant, and human kingdoms. He explains that these creations address "loss as a necessity of the living."

• To be read
• October 2026 exhibitions: all the artistic outings to enjoy in Paris and Île-de-France
• The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris: an exploration of the human-animal relationship
• This week's top picks for July 6–12, 2026 in Paris and Île-de-France

In dialogue with the museum's permanent collections, What Remains at the Museum of Hunting and Nature offers a contemporary reading of the animal figure and its place in our imagination. This encounter between historic works and present-day creations provides a fresh perspective on themes of life, disappearance, and metamorphosis that thread through the museum’s itinerary as well as the work of Lionel Sabatté.

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