Clair-obscur — Bourse de Commerce — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 6 days: March 4 → August 16, 2026

Through a selection of around twenty modern and contemporary artists from the Pinault Collection, the exhibition “Clair-obscur” explores the legacy of chiaroscuro from the sixteenth century to the present day, revealing its resonance with our own time. From Baroque tenebrism to contemporary practices, the exhibition leads visitors from shadow into light, within a museum transformed into a landscape that is at once luminous and crepuscular, where visible and invisible, radiance and darkness, consciousness and the unconscious enter into dialogue.

Drawing on the thought of Giorgio Agamben — for whom the contemporary is one who can perceive the darkness of their own time — the exhibition traces the history of chiaroscuro from Mannerism and the Baroque period onward. Caravaggio radicalized its use, heightening the dramatic tension between shadow and light, while Francisco Goya extended its power by probing the darker side of humanity. This legacy continues to inform contemporary creation: Sigmar Polke with Axial Age (2005–2007), Philippe Parreno revisiting the Black Paintings, Victor Man in his melancholic canvases, and Bill Viola, whose figures slowly emerge from darkness within suspended time.

A carte blanche has been granted to Laura Lamiel in the Passage display cases. She presents a group of installations conceived specifically for the exhibition, in which light acts as a vital tool revealing memory, affects, and inner states. Found objects, collections, and materials interact with steel surfaces illuminated by fluorescent tubes, bringing the invisible into vibration.

Beneath the museum’s dome, in the Rotunda transformed into a timeless amphitheater, Camata (2024) by Pierre Huyghe presents a metaphysical ritual filmed in the Atacama Desert. Between night and day, shadow and light, earth and cosmos, human and non-human, the work extends the exhibition’s reflection on humanity’s place within a world in transformation.

The exhibition notably features works by Frank Bowling, James Lee Byars, Bruce Conner, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Fujiko Nakaya, Bruce Nauman, Rosemarie Trockel, and Danh Vo.

Curated by Emma Lavigne, Director and Chief Curator of the Pinault Collection.