Best of Art in Paris from Gagosian Gallery

One of the most important actors in the global art scene, Gagosian presents a whole selection of beautiful projects in Paris for this autumn and beyond. From Carsten Höller’s Giant Tripple Mushroom and Basquiat’s Venus to the lights of James Turrell and imaginary landscapes by Harold Ancart, here is a selection of our top four art seeings from Gagosian Gallery. 

Giant Triple Mushroom at Place Vendôme

It’s the art piece to see this autumn. Created in 2024, the Giant Triple Mushroom sculpture by Carsten Höller took over Paris’ Place Vendôme as part of Art Basel Paris’ public program, open to all.                             

Eye-catching and mesmerizing, Giant Trimple Mushroom combines enlarged cross-sectional segments of three different mushroom species that one can spot in wild forests. Three meters in height, the work features the bright red cap of Amanita muscaria (fly agaric), the distinctive netlike “skirt” of the Phallus indusiatus (long net stinkhorn), and the ribbed gills of Tricholoma columbetta (dove-colored tricholoma). Whereas the latter two species are edible, Amanita muscaria is toxic, and, at smaller doses, psychotropic, which made Carsten Höller, who has a background in science and a doctorate in agricultural science, deeply interested in it, trying to learn more about its cultural, historical, religious, and spiritual importance. 

Giant Triple Mushroom will be on view until November 24. 

At One by James Turrell in Le Bourget

This season, Gagosian presents its Le Bourget art space in the North of Paris, one of the largest James Turrell exhibitions in Europe in over 25 years. At One features more than 35 works, including never-seen-before objects and installations. 

“I want to make something that people direct their attention toward. It’s not that different from when I was a child in the crib, fascinated by the light I saw above me. We usually use light to illuminate things. I am interested in the “thingness” of light itself. Light does not so much reveal, as it is the revelation itself,” comments James Turrell, who uses light as his signature and primal material. 

The exhibition includes two new large installations: a Ganzfeld piece, All Clear, and a Wedgework piece, Either Or, both developed by Turrell in 2024 specifically for Le Bourguet gallery space. You can literally walk inside and feel the lights and their magic. Also on view are two new Cross Corner projection works — Raethro, Yellow and Afrum, Lavender — and six new in-wall Glassworks pieces that present every configuration of the series. Additionally, the show features holograms, models, prints, and plans of Roden Crater, along with survey lap desks used in their production (the artist used them in the 80s), as well as other photographs, prints, and archival materials, essential to understanding Turrell’s artistic vision. 

At One by James Turrell will be open until Summer 2025 at 26 Avenue de l’Europe, Le Bourguet.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Venus at Gagosian Paris

Gagosian has a special passion for Basquiat, one of the greatest artists of the second part of the 20th century, and this is the eleventh exhibition of the gallery dedicated to the artist's legacy. Presented at the compact space on rue de Castiglione, just a stone's throw away from Place Vendôme, Venus pairs two rarely seen masterpieces from different time frames: Untitled, a significant painting from Jean-Michel Basquiat’s acclaimed Modena series that he completed in 1982 when he was just twenty-one, is shown in dialogue with an Imperial Roman sculpture of the goddess Venus loaned from the Torlonia Collection in Rome, the world’s largest private collection of Roman art.

“Basquiat saw the world differently. He had a great grasp of the history of art and visual culture and was brilliant at bringing the past to life in his paintings. His work reminds us of the common chords and resonances of beauty and identity throughout art history. Seeing his painting in dialogue with this ancient Venus sculpture reminds us of the enduring energy and sophistication of his work,” explains Larry Gagosian, who is proud to present Basquiat’s work once again in Paris.  

Venus is on view until December 20 at 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris.  

Maison Ancart by Harold Ancart

Trees, meadows, ponds and mountains by Harold Ancart, which he often calls “an alibi” for artists to show their freedom as the backdrop for their experiments with oil paint, are now on view at Gagosian’s main space on Rue de Ponthieu. The exhibition entitled “Maisin Ancart” features never-shown-before large-scale artworks by the Belgian artist, that he completed in 2024 in dialogue with his favouriteimpressionist paintings from Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne or Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Maison Ancart is open until December 20 at 4 rue de Ponthieu, Paris.

Courtesy: Gagosian

Text: Lidia Ageeva