04 Mar – 25 Aug 2026
Paris, France
pinaultcollection.com
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Drawing on works by around twenty modern and contemporary artists from the Pinault Collection, Clair-obscur examines the legacy of chiaroscuro from the sixteenth century to the present. The exhibition transforms the museum into a shifting landscape of shadow and illumination, inviting reflection on visibility, obscurity, and the material presence of light. Referencing Giorgio Agamben’s writing on contemporaneity and darkness, the show traces a lineage from Caravaggio’s heightened contrasts and Goya’s exploration of humanity’s darker impulses to contemporary practices that continue to engage with tonal depth and ambiguity.
Works by Sigmar Polke, Philippe Parreno, Victor Man, and Bill Viola demonstrate how chiaroscuro persists as both formal device and philosophical inquiry. Laura Lamiel presents installations conceived for the exhibition, placing objects and materials within illuminated vitrines that evoke memory and interior states. In the Rotunda, Pierre Huyghe’s Camata (2024), filmed in Chile’s Atacama Desert, stages a ritual within a circular, amphitheater-like setting beneath the museum’s dome.
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