Palais Garnier turns artists’ residencies into a public exhibition

Visitors to the Palais Garnier can encounter twelve contemporary artworks around the building’s first floor until October 30, as the Paris Opera presents the results of its Projet 12 residencies.

The initiative was launched by the opera company and its supporters’ association, Arop, for the building’s 150th anniversary in 2025. The resulting exhibition opened on October 21, 2026. Each participating artist spent a month immersed in the institution, with access to its daily activity and the people working in its workshops and rehearsal spaces.

The works are due to be auctioned at Sotheby’s Paris on December 3, with part of the proceeds supporting the Paris Opera’s activities. The exhibition therefore offers a short public viewing period before the objects move into the auction setting.

Rather than asking artists simply to illustrate familiar operas, the project invited responses to the building and the working life within it. Johan Creten’s sculpture Pavilion for Fame and Fortune draws on architectural decoration. Jeanne Vicerial’s Persephone n°7, Gisèle Meduse, made with bronze and black cord, brings her exploration of clothing and the body into an operatic environment.

Omar Ba’s Dancing with the Shadow takes dance as a source of painterly energy, while Jean-Michel Othoniel contributes three glossy black-brick stools. Together, the works range across painting and sculpture, offering different ways of engaging with the same institution.

The residency programme recalls the original Garnier project, in which architecture, painting, sculpture and decorative craftsmanship were conceived together. Its contemporary participants include artists represented by galleries such as Mennour, Templon, Perrotin and Thaddaeus Ropac.

For opera-goers, the display opens another route through a familiar landmark: looking beyond the auditorium towards objects generated by the theatre’s workshops, performers and spaces. The fundraising sale will follow, but the first encounter is with the art in the place that prompted it.