PARIS — French filmmaker Alice Diop made her first foray into exhibition-making with a multimedia project for Miu Miu at this year’s edition of Art Basel Paris, exploring how Black women have been represented throughout history and how those images continue to shape the present.
Titled “Gesture of Consolation,” the exhibition brings together film, photography, books, dance, music and sculpture inside the Palais d’Iéna, the Paris venue that also hosts Miu Miu’s runway shows.
The exhibition expands on a reading she selected for her Carte Blanche at the Autumn Festival in Paris in 2023, as well as the stage work “The Voyage of the Black Venus,” presented at the same festival in 2025.
It also builds upon “Fragments for Venus,” Diop’s project for Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales film series, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year.
The extraordinary exhibition unfolds in scenes, beginning with a self-portrait by South African photographer Zanele Muholi, followed by a dual-screen video installation featuring archival images from the 19th and 20th centuries. They trace the history of representation of Black women, including the violence and objectification that have shaped their portrayal in photography and film.
For Diop, the installation’s progression reflects how her own creative perspective began to take shape. “It’s an entire journey,” she told WWD. “Everything is in dialogue; everything resonates with and relates to everything else.”
Muholi’s photograph “establishes the perspective through which I would like people to understand how to look at this exhibition, this installation,” Diop said. “It presents the perspective of Black women who turn the gaze back upon themselves and question themselves.”
The video space, with historical and sometimes jarring footage spliced together, reflects how Diop’s point of view was first developed, then presents works that gave her comfort.
“It’s an expression of my gaze as a filmmaker, a gaze shaped by violence, but also by the images of consolation I was able to find through books,” she said. “The library contains all my material, my entire journey and my intellectual development, which has been nourished by all these readings.”
The library — or rather, “A Room of One’s Own” as it is called in the show notes — is a precise, quiet and soft-carpeted space filled with tomes hand-selected by Diop, including selections from Iceberg Slim, Raymond Carver, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Zakiya Dalila Harris.
The 500-piece collection reflects the Black writers who have shaped her intellectual and artistic growth. But the library is not a static tableau. Diop’s intention is to have people move through the space, sit down and read, move books, or leave a page open to make it a living exhibit.
The next steps lead into a performance arena (filled with chairs repurposed from Miu Miu’s most recent fashion show) where actors will read texts by writers including Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston and June Jordan.
The program also includes a performance adapted from Ivorian choreographer Nadia Beugré’s “Prophétique,” which will run for the first three days, followed by music from Chicago composer and musician Angel Bat Dawid and her ensemble, Sistazz of the Nitty-Gritty, which will round out the exhibit’s run.
The cavernous space is presided over by “Sentinel: Mami Wata,” a serpentine sculpture by American artist Simone Leigh based on the West African water spirit. The 16.5-foot bronze arrived in Paris after a weekslong journey by ship, and is the first time Leigh’s work has been on display in Europe.
The piece pulls guests through the space, and serves as a monumental presence overlooking the entire exhibition, which Diop said “represents care for me. It is the element that brings everything together.”
Diop’s exhibit marks Miu Miu’s third year as the official partner of Art Basel Paris’ Public Program. The exhibit will be open to the public from Wednesday through Sunday.