Jeu de Paume, Paris, France
October 16, 2026–January 31, 2027
Jeu De Paume presents Stan Douglas's largest retrospective in Paris in over 30 years, highlighting the breadth of his practice, which combines film and video, photography, installation, and theatrical elements. The exhibition will present works dating from the 1980s to the present, notably his installations (Hors-champs, 1992; The Secret Agent, 2015) and his photographic series (Crowds and Riots, 2008; Disco Angola, 2012; Penn Station, 2021). Douglas exploits the conventions of these different media to develop a unique language, where literature, music, documentary, and fiction intersect. Music, and jazz in particular, is present in many of his works and constitutes, for the artist, a privileged lens through which to address issues of race, class, and social inequality.
The exhibition also includes the recent video installation Birth of a Nation (2025), in which Douglas furthers his explorations by reinterpreting DW Griffith's eponymous 1915 film—a foundational work of Hollywood cinema, celebrated for its technical innovations but also condemned for its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and its stereotypical representations of black characters—by deconstructing its images and narratives in order to expose the underlying prejudices.
Since the late 1980s, Stan Douglas has developed an ambitious body of work that questions how history is constructed, represented, and transmitted. Through complex narrative devices, he highlights the mechanisms by which images shape our perception of reality and reveal the social, political, and cultural tensions specific to each era.
The exhibition is curated by Gloria Moure and Marta Ponsa and co-produced with the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), where it will travel in Autumn 2027.
Learn more at Jeu de Paume.
