Palais d’Iéna-Conseil économique

l’art en plus worked with the art exhibitions at the Palais d’Iéna – Conseil économique, social et environnemental from 2017 to 2022.

The Palais d’Iéna in Paris, a reinforced concrete masterpiece designed by architect Auguste Perret in the 1930s, has been home to the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) since 1959. Creativity has always been present in the building, with pieces of furniture designed by Pierre Paulin and Martin Szekely, and tapestries created by artists at the Beauvais, Aubusson and Gobelins factories. For the CESE and all its organizations headquartered there, opening its doors to the arts is a reminder of the importance of culture in public debate.

For several years, at the time of the FIAC and now Art Basel Paris, the Palais d’Iéna has invited a curator or artist to design an exhibition in dialogue with the modern classicism of Perret’s monumental spaces. Exhibitions are conceived in collaboration with the artist’s gallery and on loan from collectors and institutions. After the British artist Antony Gormley, the Italian Francesco Vezzoli, the Franco-Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez and the Brazilian Artur Lescher, a group show in 2018 retraced a century of suspended and abstract sculpture (1918 – 2018). Italian arte povera icon Giuseppe Penone presented his monumental work Matrice di linfa in 2019. Brazilian artist Lucia Koch took over the space for the first edition of Art Basel Paris in 2022.