Fourth edition

For its fourth edition, from October 21 through 26 (VIP Preview October 20), during Art Basel Paris, OFFSCREEN Paris will again exhibit avant-garde, historical, and contemporary artists, working with installations and experimental practices around image-based work. This year, OFFSCREEN will take over a new venue: La Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, a historic landmark set along the Seine, in geographic continuity with the Grand Palais.

OFFSCREEN functions as a curated salon in a site-specific architectural exhibition. Each artist is presented by their gallery in a solo presentation, developing an immersive walkthrough that feels nothing like a fair. Participation is limited to maintain a coherent curatorial trajectory.

OFFSCREEN has an established and highly selective voice to introduce specific bodies of works to an international community of collectors, connoisseurs, curators, and museum directors. In addition to the thousands that come independently, OFFSCREEN also hosts a yearly curatorial residency, to foster deeper connections throughout the week.

Under the supervision of Founder and Artistic Director Julien Frydman, OFFSCREEN maintains its unique position as both artistic curation and commercial event. Supported by Lombard Odier, Dior Parfums and Cultish by Publicis Luxe, and widely lauded by visitors, professionals and collectors, it is a must see highlight of Paris Art Week in October.

A new venue: La Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière
Once a renowned home to site specific interventions at the end of the 20th century with installations and performances by Anselm Kiefer, Bob Wilson and Lucinda Childs, Nan Goldin, Bill Viola, Christian Boltanski and others in Festival d’Automne, the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière has been largely forgotten in the current cultural sphere. Following its two remarkable former venues, Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild and Grand Garage Haussmann, OFFSCREEN is happy to reintroduce the space during this pivotal moment in the art calendar. LA.M Studio will once again create the exhibition design.

La Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière was originally designed by Louis Le Vau, architect to King Louis XIV. He passed away before completing the project, and Libéral Bruant, designer of Hôtel des Invalides and Notre-Dame des Victoires completed the task. The massive church is built in the shape of a Greek Cross, with four naves and four chapels that ring around a central section topped with a soaring octagonal dome with windows and an oculus allowing for the passage of light. This structure allows for distinct areas for different works to have their own presence while also offering an interwoven dialogue between the various presentations.

Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière - AP-HP has a dramatic and important history. Before it was a hospital, in the 17th century it was a hospice, used as a detention center for “degenerate” women. In the 19th century, the space transitioned into a medical establishment focused on neurological and mental health. Still with a focus on “insane and incurable” women, the asylum was home to early pre-psychiatric studies and treatments for madness by Philippe Pinel and Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol. In the late 19th century, Jean-Martin Charcot carried out his famous studies on hysteria and hypnosis here, including his immense output of early photographic documentation of physical hysterical symptoms as explored in George Didi-Huberman’s classic 1982 text Invention of Hysteria.

OFFSCREEN dedicates this fourth edition to co-founder Jean-Daniel Compain, who passed away earlier this year.