Must-See Exhibitions in Marseille, Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux for 2025

To help you, here is a short and (absolutely) non-exhaustive list of some of the most anticipated exhibitions in 2025:

• On track! Clowns, clowns and acrobats

This colorful exhibition takes place in Marseille at the Mucem. The idea is to revive the lost shows, by celebrating these acrobats who have now disappeared through a scenography. The good news is that you can get there now, since the exhibition takes place from December 4, 2024 to May 12, 2025.

© MUCEM

• The Paris of Agnès Varda, here and there

At the Carnavalet museum, the work of Agnès Varda is deciphered and analyzed under the prism of the inspiration that the capital gave her, and more particularly a courtyard-workshop which was located in rue Daguerre (Paris 14th). Between humor, strangeness, history and photography, the exhibition will take place from April 9 to August 24, 2025.

© © Estate of Agnès Varda

• Amazons

“Impenetrable” “inhospitable”, “dismal”, the knowledge and preconceived ideas experienced regarding the Amazon forest are numerous. Between fauna and flora that are still partially unknown, it is more complex to have a panoramic vision of everything that is found in the forest… starting with the civilizations found there. In this exhibition, we finally give a voice to those primarily concerned, the Kayapo Mêbengôkre, Ashaninka, Wayana and Apalaï populations. They talk about their struggle and their perception of the world. (Musées des Confluences, Lyon, April 18, 2025 – February 8, 2026).

• Louvre Couture – art objects, fashion objects

This is the very first time in two centuries that the Louvre Museum in Paris is hosting an exhibition devoted to fashion. There you can find iconic outfits designed by the greatest couturiers such as Dolce & Gabbana and Karl Lagerfeld, but also more contemporary pieces and talents, all on nearly 9,000 square meters. The scenography is by Nathalie Crinière, who notably staged the Dior Gallery.

Louvre, Paris, January 24 – July 21, 2025

© Louvre couture

• Electrique Op – from optical art to digital art

This exhibition, co-organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (United States) and the Nantes Museum of Arts, explores the different links between optical art and video and computer art, from the years 1960. On the program, among others, a work by François Morellet, Random distribution of 20% squares, superimposed 5 times by rotating in the center (1970).

The exhibition will take place from April 4 to August 31, 2025 at the Nantes Museum of Arts.

• Au fil de l'or – The art of dressing from the Orient to the Rising Sun

In 2024, the Quai Branly museum particularly stood out with its “Zombis” exhibition, largely a victim of its success, particularly popular during the Halloween period. From February 11 to July 6, 2025, the focus is no longer on Haiti but from the Maghreb to Japan. As the title suggests, the exhibition will focus on clothing adorned with threads of this precious metal, exposing visitors to the beauty and technicality of costumes from a vast geographical delineation.

The exhibition will take place from February 11 to July 6, 2025, at the Quai Branly museum, in Paris.

• The Orientalists – Ingres, Delacroix, Gérôme

A digital and immersive art center in Bordeaux, the Bassins des Lumières, created in 2020, occasionally offers monumental digital exhibitions. the objective is in particular to present the works of great artists, as is the case for this one. The “rediscovery” of the Orient by artists and writers in the 19th century is presented here in the form of large dreamlike projections, punctuated by the sounds of oriental instruments.

The exhibition takes place from February 21, 2025.

• Silence

This is the brand new exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie. There, the relationship between noise and silence is dissected, questioned, analyzed and explored within an exhibition, as usual at the center, immersive, playful but also introspective and intimate thanks to a headset that the visitor must place on his ears.

Cité des sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris, until August 31, 2025