Barbara Chase-Riboud: Quand Un Nœud Est Dénoué, Un Dieu Est Libéré

Entitled “Quand un Nœud est Dénoué, Un Dieu est Libéré”, this celebration offers the audience a constellation of encounters with works by Barbara Chase-Riboud across eight partnering museums. Sculpture, drawings and poetry, dating from 1958 to today… Each institution explores a story through a site-specific installation that converses with the permanent collection and the architecture of each Parisian institution.

Eight Parisian museums join forces for this exhibition: Centre Pompidou, Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Palais de la Porte Dorée, Palais de Tokyo, Cité de la Musique, and Philharmonie de Paris.

This exhibition is made possible by the support of the Ford Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. This exhibition is curated by Erin Jenoa Gilbert and Donatien Grau, advisor for contemporary programmes at the Musée du Louvre, in collaboration with the institution.

Mao’s Organ, at musée Guimet

In mai 1965, the sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud accompanies photographer Marc Riboud, whose collection is deposited at musée Guimet, on a voyage to China that will leave an everlasting mark on her. She considers this trip fundamental to her work. She quickly feels that her outlook moves away from her Western art education, at it did in Egypt. 

The sculpture Mao’s Organ, 2007 presented at Musee Guimet was completed after the artist’s most recent trip to China in April of 2007. Mao’s Organ’s composition recalls Chase-Riboud’s observations of the reclining stone Buddhas in China that she described as “beautifully calculated pattern of flat overlapping folds that are incised as drawing rather than carved as sculpture.” This monumental sculpture will be presented alongside a series of archival photographs taken by Marc Riboud and the artists personal collection of Chinese Seals acquired during her first trip to China in 1965.

At the Centre Pompidou 

October, 15 2024 – January, 6 2025
In dialogue will the other rooms or the National Museum of Modern Art, A set of monumental sculptures by Barbara Chase-Riboud will be presented within a gallery of the permanent display to showcase the range of her work.

At the musée du Louvre

October, 9 2024 - January, 6 2025 
For the very first time, the work of a female artist is presented under the Louvre Pyramid: Barbara Chase-Riboud invites the viewer to enter the monumentality and fragility of her work with The Golden Column. Two works from the Cleopatra series will be displayed in the collections of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, as well as Egyptian antiquities, showcasing the figure of Greek and Egyptian princess who was the last ruler Ancient Egypt.

At the musée d’Orsay

September, 17 2024 - December, 15 2024
Five aluminium and silk sculptures are presented in the Salon de l’Horloge, the epitome of modern time. They questions the concepts of time and femininity that are dear to Barbara Chase-Riboud.

At the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac

October, 15 2024 - January, 13 2025
The museum showcases the work of Barbara Chase-Riboud for the first time by exhibiting a monumental sculpture at the entrance of the permanent collection galleries. The presentation of this sculpture in which the activist artist explores the possibilities of materials and researches new forms reveals the relationship between Chase-Riboud sculptures, the collections and the architecture of the museum. 

At the Palais de la Porte Dorée

October, 1 2024 - January, 12 2025 
The Salon des Laques is a Art Deco masterpiece, and the period fascinated the artists. Two of her sculpture, questioning colonial interactions and the feeling and being far from for, echo the sumptuous lacquered boards Jean Durand, with matte and shine reflecting one another.

 At the Palais de Tokyo

October, 17 2024 - January, 5 2025
Barbara Chase-Riboud conceived her recent series Standing Women of Venice in response to Giacometti’s Walking Man: each sculpture is named for a woman poet she admires. Some works from the series will be presented along with a series of recordings and texts by Barbarba Charse-Riboud, who is a sculptress and a poet.  

At the Cité de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris

October, 12 2024 – January, 13 2025
Barbara Chase-Riboud has dedicated a recent series to musicians, the last one honoring Josephine Baker. It is exhibited in the open spaces of the Philharmonie.

Biography of Barbara Chase-Riboud

In 1999 Barbara Chase-Riboud was the first living female artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The recipient of numerous awards, in 1996 she was knighted by the French government as Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2021 she was awarded the AWARE Prize for Outstanding Merit and the Artistic Prize from the Simon and Cino and Del Duca Foundation. In 2022 she was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center the French Legion D’ Honneur. 

Her work has been acquired by numerous museums including the France’s National Collection of Plastique Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Guggenheim, Tate Modern, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, SFMOMA, Berkeley Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Glenstone Museum, Yale University Art Museum, Colby Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.