BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD

When a Knot Is Untied, a God Is Set Free Musée d'Orsay 17 September–15 December 2024 Paris

Press Release

Eight Paris museums celebrate the life and work of Barbara Chase-Riboud. Born in 1939, this living artist has been working for seven decades, traveling all over the world and developing an unparalleled mastery of form. The exhibition, spread across eight sites, includes a collection of monumental sculptures which demonstrate the power of bronze and silk, essential elements of the sculptor’s work, weaving connections between cultures, stories, and substances. At the Musée d’Orsay, five of the artist’s works will be exhibited in the clock room on the 5th floor.

In the Musée d’Orsay’s famous clock room, an emblem of modernity, five aluminum and silk sculptures will be on display. In juxtaposition with one of the large clocks on the museum’s facade, they question the notion of time.

Barbara Chase-Riboud opens up new possibilities in sculpture, combining bronze with silk and wool, creating pieces whose solidity and fluidity do not contradict one another, but rather create a new, mobile form, at once human and abstract.

Named after a collection of Barbara Chase-Riboud’s poetry, published in 2014, the exhibition “When a knot is untied, a god is set free” is spread across eight sites. It gives visitors a host of opportunities to come into contact with the artist’s work, through sculpture, drawing, and poems created from 1958 up to the present day.

About the Artist

Barbara Chase-Riboud is a visual artist and sculptor who for over five decades has produced abstract sculptures rooted in themes of history, identity, and place. Chase-Riboud was the first Black woman to graduate with an MFA from Yale University and, along with Betye Saar, one of the first Black women to exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is also a bestselling novelist and an award-winning poet.

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Also Exhibiting at Musée d'Orsay

All Exhibitions

JENNY HOLZER Jenny Holzer: J’AI VU Musée d'Orsay 20 October 2026–21 February 2027 Paris

JAD BESTAUTTE Echoes of the Invisible Musée d'Orsay 13 October 2026–3 January 2027 Paris

MAURICE DENIS Maurice Denis: Illustrating Christian mysticism Musée d'Orsay 8 October 2026–10 January 2027 Paris

RICHARD PEDUZZI Vertigo: Richard Peduzzi at Orsay Musée d'Orsay 6 October 2026–17 January 2027 Paris

About the Gallery

The history of the museum, of its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first “work of art” in the Musee d’Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914.

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Address

Esplanade Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Paris
France

Opening Hours

Tuesday – Sunday
9.30am – 6pm
Closed Monday

Musee dOrsay contemporary art institution in Paris France

Musée d'Orsay

Esplanade Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Paris, France

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/

Opening hours

Tuesday – Sunday
9.30am – 6pm
Closed Monday

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