The Petit Palais, Museum of the Fine Arts of the City of Paris, is hosting until January 2026 an unprecedented temporary exhibition: Bilal Hamdad – Paname.
This free exhibition highlights a young contemporary artist whose works reveal a living, diverse, and sincere Paris of today.
Through a series of paintings, drawings, and canvas paintings, Bilal Hamdad captures the faces, walls, and lights of the capital as they are no longer seen.
In the museum galleries, the exhibition unfolds like an urban stroll: a poetic journey between Barbès, la Goutte d’Or, and Saint-Denis, blending modern art, abstraction, and social figuration.
A Contemporary View of Paris
Born in Paris in 1993, Bilal Hamdad belongs to a generation of artists who tell the story of the city from the street.
His universe draws inspiration from tagged walls, torn posters, migrants sleeping under bridges, and passersby crossing the city without ever meeting.
In his artworks, painting becomes a language: the layers of acrylic, collages, and textures evoke the memory of sidewalks, the invisible stories etched into the asphalt.
The Petit Palais Museum, accustomed to the permanent collections of old masters, here creates a strong dialogue between past and present.
This modern and contemporary art exhibition breaks with the fixed image of museums: it brings the soul of Paname (a nickname for Paris) into a heritage setting.
The artist transforms the art museum into a living space, almost like a studio.
An Exhibition Connecting Art and the City
The route, conceived as an artistic stroll, opens with a series of abstract paintings and figurative portraits where browns, beiges, and bluish tones mingle.
Hamdad paints Paris as a living organism: the walls breathe, the shadows move, the passersby become light.
His painting, both abstract and lyrical, evokes cubism or expressionism, while remaining deeply human.
The contemporary canvases exhibited in the museum rooms engage in dialogue with the large formats of the neighboring art collections.
Some works recall the geometric abstractions of Kandinsky or the color vibrations of Zao Wou-Ki.
But Hamdad adds a social, political, and poetic note.
He paints the city as a territory of collective memory, a space of passage and transformation.
The Petit Palais is no stranger to opening its doors to contemporary creation, but rarely has an urban art exhibition found such resonance here.
By exhibiting this young painter, the museum aligns itself with institutions like the Centre Pompidou and the Palais de Tokyo, which blend modern art with a social perspective.
Painting the City: Materials, Gestures, and Emotions
In Paname, the pictorial material is at the heart of the process.
Brushes, brooms, and sometimes even fingers leave visible traces.
Each painted canvas becomes a fragment of urban archive.
The artist plays with layers of oil paint and acrylic on canvas, sometimes enhanced with gouache or pencil.
You can sense the rhythm of the city, its pulses, its scars.
These contemporary works oscillate between abstraction and figuration, between outsider art and poetic realism.
Geometric shapes mingle with human silhouettes, and pigments spread on the canvas like faded memories.
Each modern painting tells a story — of a neighborhood, an encounter, an evening light.
A Museum Opening Its Doors to Contemporary Creation
The reception of an artist like Bilal Hamdad at the Petit Palais marks a turning point in the programming of Parisian museums.
Long dedicated to classical painting and decorative arts, the museums of the City of Paris now open their temporary exhibition spaces to contemporary creators.
This also serves to broaden the audience: here, visitors coming to admire 19th-century sculptures encounter enthusiasts of urban art and street art.
Following the example of exhibitions organized at the Museum of Modern Art of Paris or the Grand Palais, Paname offers a new vision of French artistic creation.
Free admission allows everyone — students, walkers, collectors, tourists — to discover the emerging artistic scene at the heart of a national museum.
The museum thus fulfills its role as a contemporary art center, both a place of memory and a laboratory of creation.
As the exhibition curator points out, “opening the museum’s doors to real life is reconnecting with the very spirit of the Fine Arts.”
Works and Themes: The Memory of the Invisible
Among the exhibited works, several series stand out:
- The Passersby, portraits of blurred silhouettes made with acrylic paint,
- Barbès My Love, a diptych in mixed media, where color blends with newspaper,
- Night at Porte de la Chapelle, a large contemporary canvas inspired by migrant encampments.
Hamdad aims to be a witness without judging: he observes and conveys. His abstract canvases do not seek perfect beauty, but rather a pictorial truth. He makes each mural painting a social and poetic mirror.
The Dialogue Between Modern Art and Heritage
The Petit Palais, with its 19th-century architecture and permanent collections, offers an ideal setting for this dialogue between past and present.
The museum’s vaults, gilded mosaics, and monumental sculptures welcome Bilal Hamdad’s modern artworks with striking harmony.
The artist thus situates himself within a continuity: that of Parisian painters who, from Courbet to Chagall, sincerely translated their times.
This major Parisian exhibition joins the important museum initiatives of the season, alongside the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Centre Pompidou, all committed to promoting contemporary creation.
A Sensitive Experience to Be Lived at the Museum
The exhibition Paname is experienced like a walk.
No artwork imposes itself; each is discovered slowly, like a fragment of life.
The Parisian museum, through its immersive scenography, invites visitors to feel rather than merely observe.
The guided tours and evening visits offered by the Petit Palais will deepen the understanding of these contemporary artworks and the artist’s creative processes.
Practical Information
📍 Petit Palais – Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris
Avenue Winston-Churchill, 75008 Paris
🗓️ Temporary exhibition “Bilal Hamdad – Paname”
📅 From October 1, 2025 to January 12, 2026
💰 Free admission
🎨 Contemporary painting – Works on canvas, mixed media, modern art
In Summary
With Paname, Bilal Hamdad brings the real city into the art museum.
His pictorial work, grounded in the present, pays tribute to Paris and those who bring it to life.
Between lyrical abstraction, urban figuration, and poetic realism, the artist offers a sincere portrait of the capital.
A powerful and necessary contemporary art exhibition, where the museum becomes a place of life, dialogue, and emotion.
