Fragments of Paris: Jacques Villeglé and Urban Art
75003 Paris
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5:45 pm.
Last admission to the exhibition at 4.45 pm.
Closed on Monday and on certain bank holidays.
Full rate : 15 €
Rate : 13 €
Discounts and free admission
On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Jacques Villeglé (27 March 1926, Quimper – 6 June 2022, Paris), the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris is proud to host an exhibition devoted to the artist, called Fragments of Paris: Jacques Villeglé and Urban Art.
Affiches lacérées marouflées sur toile
© Fonds de dotation Villeglé, Adagp, Paris, 2026. Photo DR
A key figure on the French art scene, Jacques Villeglé developed a distinctive approach characterized by the practice of collecting posters from urban spaces. Through these fragments ripped from the walls of Paris, he transformed the ephemeral traces of the French capital into a unique visual language, at once poetic and documentary. His prolific body of work invites visitors to discover the history of the city through the torn posters and graphic signs he reconfigures into artworks, while also allowing the public to explore his connections to the various forms of contemporary urban art.
The exhibition is organized as a journey through groups of works structured by Jacques Villeglé’s vision, as seen in his writings. His works are juxtaposed with photographs, audio archives, music, film excerpts, interviews, and personal accounts, many of which are exhibited here for the first time.
The exhibition focuses on a practice that is situated at the intersection of poetry and urban archaeology. For Villeglé, Paris was an open-air studio where every wall held the potential of a work in the making. Villeglé’s wanderings take visitors through four neighbourhoods of the capital, where he often sourced the materials needed for his works: Porte Maillot, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Montparnasse, and the Marais. The exhibition also reveals the historical dimension of Villeglé’s work, which captures authentic snapshots of the urban landscape at a given moment of history. His works therefore, evoke the political context, struggles and protest movements, and elections—both local and national—mirroring a Parisian society in constant evolution. By collecting, dating, and indicating the location from which these posters were taken, Jacques Villeglé—who often describes himself as a “historian-collector”—gathered material that preserves the memory of historical changes and global upheavals.
GENERAL CURATOR
Valérie Guillaume, Head Curator, Director of the Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris
SCIENTIFIC CURATORS
Émilie Gandon, Chief Heritage Curator, Head of the Sculpture and Architectural and Urban Heritage Departments at the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
Jennifer Heim, Heritage Conservation Officer, Head of the Posters, Prints, and Wallpaper of the Graphic Arts Department of the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Antoine de Baecque, professor at the École normale supérieure –Street ART(s) chair, ENS/Renault
Sophie Duplaix, Chief Heritage Curator in charge of the Contemporary Collections at the Musée national d’Art moderne / Centre Pompidou
Charlotte Guichard, professor of art history at the École normale supérieure –Street ART(s) chair, ENS/ Renault
Nicolas Gzeley, member of the administrative council of the Fédération de l’Art Urbain and president of the artistic and scientific council of the Centre Arcanes, centre national des archives numériques de l’art urbain
Patrick Marcolini, lecturer in art philosophy at the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3
Fanny Schulmann, curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Valérie Villeglé, daughter of Jacques Villeglé, responsible for the Fonds de dotation Villeglé
