PARIS.- Paris has no shortage of treats for the culturally curious visitor, including gorgeous architecture and a wealth of museum and gallery exhibitions. Here is a selection of shows that are open this fall.

‘Things: A History of Still Life’

Still lifes were long considered a lesser genre in the art academies of Europe. How could fruits, flowers, candles and motley objects compete with sweeping landscapes and epic mythological scenes? Today, they are among the preferred genres in art history, and Paris is paying homage to them in a major Louvre Museum exhibition on the subject that examines the human attachment to “things.” There are around 170 objects — paintings, sculptures, photographs, films and videos — lent by about 70 museums and private collections from around the world. Expect to see a prehistoric ax, a magnificent painting of pipes and a pitcher by still life master Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, ready-mades by Marcel Duchamp, and works by contemporary photographer Nan Goldin and sculptor Ron Mueck. Commissioned specially for the exhibition is a towering installation by Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo, “The Pillar of Missing Migrants,” that nearly reaches the top of the Louvre’s glass Pyramid.

Alice Neel

If you missed the Alice Neel show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021, and are passing through Paris or live there, you can see the Pompidou Center’s take on the artist, who was born in 1900 and died at 84. Titled “Alice Neel: An Engaged Eye,” it includes about 75 paintings and drawings, and examines the artist’s career through the prism of identity politics — defining her as a major talent who was overlooked in her lifetime, and one whom the Pompidou is studying, exhibiting and collecting as part of its efforts to foreground female artists. The exhibition recalls that Neel preferred to portray individuals who were marginalized because of their skin color, social class, or sexual or political orientation, and quotes her as saying, “In politics and in life, I always liked the losers, the underdogs.”




‘Venice Revealed’

If you’d like a trip to Venice but can’t fit it into your schedule or budget, Paris is offering something of a substitute: an immersive plunge into the splendid city. Thanks to a colossal 3D replica — created using ultra-high-precision images captured by drones — “Venice Revealed” features tours of the city’s foundations, pitched in the muddy sands of its lagoon; views of the Grand Canal and its majestic palazzos; and close-ups of St. Mark’s Square, the Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. The exhibition is held at the Grand Palais Immersif, just off the Place de la Bastille, a new digital offshoot of the Grand Palais exhibition hall (which is undergoing a restoration).

Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha, a Los-Angeles-based artist known for his billboardlike depictions of the American West, and for his use of words on canvas, is getting his first-ever show at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris: 10 new paintings and a new hologram. Most of the paintings are inspired by Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” but have no words or messages scrawled over them. They are views of plain wooden slats, inspired by an episode in the novel where Tom Sawyer needs to whitewash a fence.

Adel Abdessemed

French-Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed — whose works frequently explore current conflicts, migration and violence — has a new show at the recently opened Galleria Continua space in Paris. The title — “Out, Out, Brief Candle” — recalls both Shakespeare’s Macbeth and a video by the artist in which he crushes a candle with his foot. Through various media, including drawings, film, and bas-relief, Abdessemed evokes war, displacement and devastation. In one life-size sculpture, he represents himself carrying a globe that is set on fire every day. The exhibition ends with “Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” a massive metallic grinder whose menacing size and deafening sound make it something of a metaphor for our time.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.