Yesterday, visitors to the fifth edition of Art Basel Paris had the chance to preview its “Hors les murs” program, which spreads monumental artworks across nine exceptional cultural and heritage sites in the French capital. Among the highlights are works by Niki de Saint Phalle and Alicja Kwade, displayed along Avenue Winston Churchill, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.
Yet these encounters also serve as reminders of what the program has lost. Kwade and Saint Phalle were previously featured on Place Vendôme and in the Tuileries, respectively, but both of those venues are now absent from the itinerary, as are the Institut de France, the Musée Eugène-Delacroix, and the courtyard of the Hôtel de la Marine.
If you’re missing some of the program’s former landmarks, there are, at least, sizable artworks in Paris that are not officially a part of the “Hors le murs” program. At Saint-Eustache, there’s work by Rémi Marcel, winner of the sixth Rubis Mécénat Prize, who presents two half-columns—one made of clay with wheat seeds that evoke growth and renewal, and the other of plaster, suggesting the cycle of life. At the Musée d’Orsay, there’s Jenny Holzer’s text projections, which illuminate the facade of the former railway station at night and feature words from its archives.
Given the cloudy weather on Wednesday, the concentration of fair-associated works around the Grand Palais was not necessarily a disadvantage. Still, a few visitors could be heard commenting on the program’s relatively subdued palette, which, apart from Yinka Shonibare’s and Keita Miyazaki’s vibrantly hued works, is dominated by black, brown, and gray.
Among the super-VIPs arriving at the Grand Palais for Art Basel’s invitation-only event held ahead of Thursday’s 10 a.m. preview, there were also concerns about the security of the artworks, since they were set against the backdrop of the unrest that followed protests on October 17. None appear to have been damaged since going on view, however.
The Public Program runs from October 21 to 25. Visitors can explore it independently or seek out the École du Louvre students stationed at the participating venues, where they are available to share insights into the works on view. “The docents are not out-of-touch students, disconnected from contemporary art or today’s social struggles,” said Laure Saffroy-Lepesqueur, an instructor involved in the partnership between Art Basel and the École du Louvre. “They volunteer their time to make artworks more accessible and understandable beyond the purely commercial framework of the art fair, striving to deepen our understanding of the artists’ aesthetic, political, social, and poetic thinking.” So, go ahead and talk to them!
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Palais d’Iéna x Alice Diop
Image Credit: Courtesy Miu Miu When Art Basel Paris was created five years ago, its original name, Paris+ by Art Basel, featured a plus sign that promised a broader, more multidisciplinary vision of what the fair could be. Though that ambition still hasn’t been entirely fulfilled, the Palais d’Iéna continues to embody it through its partnership with Miu Miu, returning for the third year as official partner of the fair’s Public Program. This year, French filmmaker Alice Diop (b. 1979) takes over the monumental concrete building with Geste de Consolation, an immersive project weaving together film, photography, sculpture, poetry, dance, and music.
Diop explores how images have shaped representations of Black women, and how art might offer a form of repair. From a black-and-white photographic self-portrait by South African artist Zanele Muholi, who lies naked on a bed holding a round mirror before their face, to Simone Leigh’s totemic Sentinel (Mami Wata), described as “[her] interpretation of a West African desert spirit, a deity who has destructive powers, as well as creative-generative ones,” the exhibition unfolds as a journey through Diop’s visual memory. Her own two-screen film installation is, in her words, an “intimate visual scrapbook of images of Black women that haunt [her].” A library and living room with seating recycled from Miu Miu’s latest Paris fashion show offer a space for thought and learning, turning the Palais into a setting for reflection and collective consolation.
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Petit Palais x Cosima von Bonin
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel In front of the Petit Palais, there’s a Corten steel sculpture merging the body of a pregnant woman with the hull of a ship is not part of the Public Program. It’s the starting point of Prune Nourry’s carte blanche, which extends into the museum. But its entrance has been taken over by a work that is a part of the Public Program: a pack of leather octopuses, mohair whales, and velvet St. Bernards. This playful menagerie was commissioned by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez for the Loewe Fall/Winter 2026 show. It is the work of German artist Cosima von Bonin (b. 1962). With their soft bodies and cartoonish expressions, the oversized creatures unsettle the distinction between high art and popular culture, challenging what a museum might consider worthy of attention. Their apparent inability to serve a functional purpose also offers a humorous counterpoint to a culture obsessed with productivity and achievement.
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Trocadéro x Tracey Emin
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel This year, the Parvis des Droits de l’Homme takes center stage, stepping in for the Place Vendôme, which traditionally acts as a showcase for monumental art installations. With three imposing bronze sculptures, Tracey Emin (b. 1963) has transformed this long-standing tourist hotspot, now a favourite backdrop for influencers thanks to its spectacular Eiffel Tower view, into a meditation on the female body. One figure lies stretched across the ground, another kneels with her legs apart, while the third sits upright on a rock, her face veiled. Their unguarded poses evoke isolation, emotional fragility, and the strength it takes to endure; their roughly modelled surfaces give them a raw, intimate quality.
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Jardin de la Nouvelle-France x Boz Deseo Garden
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel In the Jardin de la Nouvelle-France, busts of French explorers Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain uncritically commemorate Canada’s colonial past. Los Angeles-based artist Boz Deseo Garden (b. 1997) challenges that legacy with two slender bronze lightning rods. One, dated 1798, recalls the case of Charlotte, an enslaved woman in Montreal whose escape led a judge to order her release; the other, dated 1834, marks the abolition of slavery across most of the British Empire. Titled Celia, or the Misfortunes of Virtue (2026), the installation also invokes the Marquis de Sade’s novel Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue, whose heroine is struck by lightning.
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Square Jean Perrin x Lionel Sabatté
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel A flock of birds perches atop uneven columns in front of the Grand Palais, their silhouettes rising against the surrounding architecture. Living descendants of dinosaurs and witnesses to an ancient evolutionary history, birds are a recurring motif in the work of Lionel Sabatté (b. 1975), a finalist for the 2025 Prix Marcel Duchamp. The artist explores transformation through unconventional materials, including dust, metal, and volcanic stone, tracing how living things change over time. For Champs d’oiseaux (2026), he transformed foundry waste into totem-like sculptures whose rough surfaces evoke tree bark. His raptors and owls, each with empty eye sockets, suggest inward vision and nocturnal perception. Their precarious balance evokes migration, as though they have paused before taking flight again. Accidental rainbow hues reveal the unexpected beauty of industrial materials.
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Chapelle des Petits-Augustins x Kutluğ Ataman
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel Forty television screens and an equal number of mismatched seats, varying in size and shape, fill the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins. The cacophony of voices and images is disorienting, yet strangely compelling. You will want to sit down and watch, drawn into the fragments of lives unfolding around you.
In Küba (2004), Turkish artist Kutluğ Ataman (b. 1961) brings together the testimonies of 40 residents of a now-vanished settlement on the outskirts of Istanbul, founded in the late 1960s by people fleeing political persecution. Each person shares their memories, fears, beliefs and dreams. Heard simultaneously, their stories overlap without any single voice taking precedence. Gradually, a collective portrait emerges, revealing a community shaped by migration, poverty, solidarity and survival. Viewed in sequence, the testimonies amount to 28 hours of footage, making the work almost impossible to watch in its entirety. “By choosing which television to watch and which individual to follow, the viewer becomes an editor of the installation,” a docent-student from the École du Louvre told ARTnews.