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Take the Large: Paris's newest art destination sits on an island
In sailor-speak, “le large” starts six nautical miles out. Follow the Seine downstream from Notre-Dame and you’ll reach the Large, a new art center opening October 17, 2026 on the Île Seguin, just outside Paris. RCR, the Pritzker-winning Catalan architects, wrapped it in copper scales and weathered steel.
The opening exhibition ("Moteur Imaginaire", October 17 to March 7, 2027) is curated by Cecilia Alemani, and if you remember the 2022 Venice Biennale, you know her work. The Italian curator, based in New York, directed The Milk of Dreams, the Biennale show that critics loved and more than 800,000 people came to see. Before that she spent fourteen years running the High Line's public art program, so she knows how to make art meet everyday life. For the Large's first show, she takes on the island's own story.
The island was once Renault's giant factory. In the late 1960s the company let artists in to build things with its tools and workers. The opening show is a mashup of those Renault-collection masterpieces and today's artists: 55 artists from 23 countries, 120 works, and 17 brand-new commissions. The theme is the car, the factory and the machine, and what they say about us.
The 1960s legends. Expect Jean Tinguely's kinetic machines, Jean Dubuffet, Victor Vasarely, Arman and Simon Hantaï, plus Robert Doisneau's photographs of the factory. Some of the Renault works haven't been shown in over 40 years.
Seventeen brand-new commissions. Ghana's Paa Joe carves a car-shaped coffin inspired by an 1899 Renault, in the tradition of sculpted coffins that celebrate a life. Bertrand Lavier paints a Renault Formula 1 car in swirling, Van Gogh-style brushstrokes, while Mohamed El Khatib piles a green Renault 12 high with luggage, a nod to immigrant families' road trips home. Bianca Bondi turns another Renault 12 shell into a slow-growing landscape of salt, water and plants, and Romuald Jandolo transforms a 1970s Renault Estafette van into a rolling chapel, part circus, part stained glass.
Théo Mercier pairs ancient ammonite fossils with shiny aluminum hubcaps, a collision of deep time and fast cars. Oliver Beer makes paintings shaped by sound waves, using recordings of the Seine itself. Neïl Beloufa lets you play the algorithm in an interactive sculpture where you must sort, rank or censor a stream of images. Zhenya Machneva hand-weaves nine tapestries, centered on the engine of her grandfather's Renault Kangoo.
Plan your visit
Free open house: October 17 and 18, with registration.
Tickets: €15, or €10 reduced. Anyone 26 and under gets in free.
Hours: 11am to 7pm, until 9pm on Fridays, closed Mondays.
Getting there: a 10-minute walk from Métro lines 9 and 15.
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