What to see at Perrotin this summer: Future relics, ancient souls, and concrete caves:
- Jun 29
- 2 min read
Perrotin is anchoring its summer calendar with three major solo exhibitions across its European footprints. From grand-scale urban interventions in Paris to archival excavations in London, here is your essential guide to what's on view.
Paris (Marais) | JR: Les esquisses de la Caverne
Dates: June 5 – July 25, 2026
Running concurrently with his massive public art project La Caverne du Pont Neuf (eneded yesterday) which reimagines Paris' oldest bridge as a massive cave of printed fabric — JR’s fifth solo show at Perrotin acts as the intimate, indoor counterpart to his public spectacle.
The gallery space displays his intricate preparatory sketches, photo-montages, and lithographs. Much like the planning drawings of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, these works expose the behind-the-scenes mechanics and creative evolution of his illusions.
Paris (Matignon) | Otani Workshop: The Shape of Our Butts, The Shape of Our Souls
Dates: June 11 – July 25, 2026
A premier figure in modern Japanese ceramics, Shigeru Otani (working under the moniker Otani Workshop) takes over the Matignon space with an evocative, mildly uncanny exploration of childhood, memory, and ancient form.
The exhibition balances technically brilliant bronzes with raw, wonderfully rough-hewn clay pieces. His signature wide-eyed, silent figures invoke the innocence of childhood, while carrying a subtle, anxious undercurrent that feels deeply tied to historical memory.
London | Daniel Arsham: Time Fold
Dates: June 4 – August 8, 2026
Staged at Perrotin's London outpost at Claridge’s Brook’s Mews, Time Fold is a museum-scale, two-decade survey of Daniel Arsham’s "fictional archaeology." The show features his iconic crystal-eroded classical busts of Zeus and Pericles alongside calcified pop-culture relics like vintage Pentax cameras and space posters.
The real highlight of this exhibition is a rare treasure for art historians: a collection of five gouache drawings from Arsham's private archives (2007–2010), shown publicly for the first time. They prove his concept of the decayed, calcified future was completely mapped out long before the sculptures made him a market superstar.
This article highlights Perrotin’s summer 2026 programme, focusing on three major exhibitions across its Paris and London spaces under the theme of “future relics, ancient souls, and concrete caves.” It explains how artist JR presents preparatory sketches and visual studies for his large-scale public installation La Caverne du Pont Neuf in Paris, offering insight into the creative process behind his illusion-driven urban interventions. In Paris Matignon, Otani Workshop explores memory, childhood, and emotional form through ceramic sculptures that blend playful innocence with unsettling depth, while in London, Daniel Arsham’s “Time Fold” brings together two decades of his “fictional archaeology,” featuring eroded sculptures of classical busts and modern objects reimagined as future fossils. Overall, the programme reflects how contemporary artists use archaeology, memory, and material…
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