TOP: Free exhibitions to see in Paris
Paris and the Île-de-France region boast fifteen free exhibitions that have just opened, from the Carnavalet Museum to the Louvre Post Office, from the Swedish Institute to the Martel Gallery. They run from November 2026 to February 2027, and none require a ticket.
For the best free exhibitions of all time, see our best of permanent free exhibitions in Paris.
THE CARNAVALET MUSEUM'S FREE FAMILY WEEKEND The museum is opening its entire program to families for Children's Rights Day. Workshops, storytelling, songs, sensory tours, and a space led by an art therapist are available for children six months and older.
CARNAVALET MUSEUM - HISTORY OF PARIS
November 21 and 22, 2026
THE ROUSSARD GALLERY FESTIVAL AT THE LOUVRE POST OFFICE The fourth season for Sophie and Julien Roussard's urban art festival: four hundred works on two levels, some twenty artists, and live painting in the courtyard on weekends. Brusk's sculpture Postness is now a permanent fixture.
The Louvre Post Office
Until November 22, 2026
The Animal Artists' Exhibition in Bry-sur-Marne
For fifty years, sculptors and painters have been engaging with living, moving animals, and an independent jury selects around one hundred names from over three hundred applicants. The Hôtel de Malestroit hosts this fiftieth edition, with free admission, including the Sandoz and Baron prizes, just twenty minutes from the center of Paris.
HÔTEL DE MALESTROIT, BRY-SUR-MARNE
From November 14 to December 13, 2026
AN ACT OF ATTENTION AT THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE
Seven French and Swedish photographers brought together by Anna Danielsson and Stefan Jensen, with the Hasselblad Foundation, during the bicentennial year of photography. The title says it all: looking is an act, not a reflex. The Hôtel de Marle opens its doors to the public, in the heart of the Marais district, and takes its time.
SWEDISH INSTITUTE
From November 13, 2026 to February 21, 2027
IMMERSION, STEVE MCCURRY, AT THE POLKA GALLERY
The second installment of an exhibition combining prints and film: the gallery set up its cameras in Pennsylvania, at the photographer's home, before installing the work. The exhibition travels through India, Pakistan, and the United States, and admission is free. McCurry is best understood when he speaks for himself about his own images.
POLKA GALLERY
From November 12, 2026 to January 16, 2027
ENVERGURE(S), MAYA HAYUK, AT THE PAVILLON CARRÉ DE BAUDOUIN
American artist Maya Hayuk paints bands and interlacing patterns of color directly onto the walls, and most of the pieces shown in Ménilmontant originate on-site, in collaboration with Art Azoï. You have to go up to the Carré de Baudouin to see what happens when an abstraction derived from graffiti is displayed in a private mansion. Free admission.
BAUDOUIN SQUARE PAVILION
From November 7, 2026 to February 27, 2027
A CENTURY OF NEW YORKER COVERS AT THE MARTEL GALLERY
Before the printed cover, there is the sketch, the research, the rejected idea. The Martel Gallery is showing the originals that have shaped a century of The New Yorker, brought together by Françoise Mouly, the magazine's art director since 1993. A lesson in editorial cartooning as well as an American story, free admission on rue Martel.
MARTEL GALLERY
From November 6, 2026 to January 16, 2027
PHOTOSAINTGERMAIN, FIFTEENTH EDITION
Thirty-eight venues, galleries, bookstores, and institutions, for a photographic journey that treats the Left Bank as a single territory. PhotoSaintGermain celebrates its fifteenth edition and remains what it was at the beginning: a way to walk through Paris while looking at images, without ever paying an entrance fee. The 5th, 6th, 7th, and 15th arrondissements.
PHOTOSAINTGERMAIN
From November 5 to 28, 2026
GERARD MALANGA AT GALERIE DU JOUR AGNÈS B. He was twenty years old when Charles Henry Ford introduced him to Warhol, and he photographed the Factory from the inside, with the familiarity of someone who worked there. More than twenty years after Bande à part, Galerie du Jour agnès b. is re-hanging Gerard Malanga's New York, with the Bel Œil collection. Free admission to La Fab.
GALERIE DU JOUR AGNÈS B., LA FAB.
From November 4, 2026 to January 10, 2027
KEEP DANCING AT ESPACE FONDATION GROUPE EDF
Núria Guiu Sagarra and Tiler Gab open the third season of Dans(e) la lumière with a two-story installation where the movement ultimately escapes the control of the performer. Dance becomes something to be observed rather than a spectacle to be applauded, and Espace Fondation groupe EDF offers free entry on rue Juliette Récamier.
EDF GROUP FOUNDATION AREA
From November 4, 2026 to January 31, 2027
AGNÈS ROSENSTIEHL AT THE BNF
Mimi Cracra taught generations of children that it was okay to get dirty without getting in trouble. The BnF is dedicating its Donors' Gallery to sixty years of pioneering books by Agnès Rosenstiehl, who drew free-spirited little girls long before it became a publishing trend. Free entry at the François-Mitterrand site.
BNF, FRANÇOIS-MITTERRAND SITE
From November 3, 2026 to January 25, 2027
FRANK HORVAT AT THE MAISON DES ARTS IN ANTONY A bride in a white dress travels through Paris seated on a bus in 1961 for the pages of Vogue. Frank Horvat brought fashion out of the studio in the 1950s, and fashion photography never recovered. The Maison des Arts in Antony is bringing together some forty prints from his work with the Frank Horvat Studio, with free admission.
MAISON DES ARTS, ANTONY
From October 27, 2026 to January 10, 2027
PIERRE JAHAN AT THE JEAN-FRANÇOIS CAZEAU GALLERY
He photographed Parisian statues sent to be melted down during the Occupation, and the cruelty of these decapitated bronzes has lost none of its power. The Jean-François Cazeau Gallery retraces a broader career, from Surrealism to post-war construction sites, where Pierre Jahan always retained a taste for the incongruous detail. Free admission.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CAZEAU GALLERY
From October 24 to December 23, 2026
THOMAS HOUSEAGO AND THÉO MERCIER AT REIFFERS ART INITIATIVES
Two sculptors whose work is not expected to be exhibited together: the Englishman carves massive totems that seem to have emerged from an excavation, while the Frenchman stages bodies of sand ready to collapse. Reiffers Art Initiatives brings them together on Rue des Acacias, in a confrontation where matter becomes, by turns, both monument and dust. Free admission.
REIFFERS ART INITIATIVES
From October 23 to December 12, 2026
TRACEY EMIN AT WHITE CUBE PARIS
Following her retrospective at Tate Modern, Tracey Emin is hanging her first solo exhibition at the Parisian gallery on Avenue Matignon: paintings where the body unravels in long red streaks, and a few small bronzes placed there like confessions. The intimate violence of the British artist, entirely free to access.
WHITE CUBE PARIS
From October 20 to December 18, 2026
