October is the month the art world flocks to Paris, with a number of fairs taking place and outstanding museum exhibitions opening. It is also prime time for galleries to put their brightest, most exciting artists on display, and the 2024 season does not disappoint. Here is a selection of six gallery shows to see in the French capital during Art Basel Paris.

Jacqueline de Jong
‘Disasters’
Galerie Allen
October 12 – December 21, 2024

Galerie Allen presents Dutch painter and sculptor Jacqueline de Jong’s first posthumous show – though it was planned in collaboration with the artist until her passing in June. De Jong was known for being staunchly political, turning the focus of her Surrealist, Grimm fairytale-like paintings to current events. The five paintings in this show, three of which were made in the past year, cast an unflinching look at the violence and horror of disasters facing the world today, from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to the immigration crisis in the Mediterranean. The works also have a certain flatness which echoes that of a screen, highlighting how these atrocities start to take on a feeling of inevitability when seen so often.

Rashid Johnson
‘Anima’
Hauser & Wirth
October 14 – December 21, 2024

Rashid Johnson continues his exploration of spirituality and animism in his latest solo show at Hauser & Wirth. The exhibition marks the gallery debut of his ‘God Paintings’ and ‘Soul Paintings’ series (both 2023–24), each featuring densely layered compositions and a leitmotif of vesica piscis – a symbol that references the mystical third eye and soul-searching. The paintings are accompanied by roughly textured bronze sculptures and his latest film Sanguine (2024), which explores themes of love and care across three generations of his family. The show demonstrates the breadth and evolution of Johnson’s artistic practice; how he can find fresh ways of approaching the concept of interiority from both a personal and a universal perspective.

Bob Smith
‘From Space Countries Have No Borders’
Emanuela Campoli
October 14 – December 21, 2024

Travel underpinned US artist Bob Smith’s practice. Impressions from his time living in Morocco and Spain and his trips around the Middle East and Europe lingered in his work long after he returned to live in the United States. Smith was active in New York’s avant-garde scene of the 1970s and 1980s, and some of the realist drawings and paintings shown here reflect the grunginess and bleakness of the city in that era. More represented, however, are the dreamy landscapes of Smith’s imagination, which bring together small details from the different cultures he experienced. Particularly interesting are his intricate dioramas, which he called ‘boxes,’ encapsulating miniature worlds and ideas. The box Tiznit Morocco (1980) uses sea green and different shades of blue to create an underwater realm filled with amorphous shapes. The sole identifiable element is a black-and-white photo of a man, presumably the artist, against a palm tree-studded background, situating the scene somewhere between memory and dreamscape.

‘Arte Povera. Charting a Revolution’
Tornabuoni Art
October 14, 2024 – January 18, 2025

Forget Turin – Arte Povera has a new home in Paris this fall. While the Pinault Collection is hosting a sprawling exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce focused on the birth of the movement, which began in the late 1960s with artists using commonplace materials like rocks, earth, and rope in hopes of subverting the commercialization of art, this show at Tornabuoni Art showcases its revolutionary nature through a selection of historical works and large-scale installations. The pieces on view, including Michelangelo Pistoletto’s first reflective canvases, Giulio Paolini’s Casa di Lucrezio (1981–82), and Alighiero Boetti’s Mimetico (1967), created a defining grammar for Arte Povera.

Mimosa Echard
‘Lies’
Galerie Chantal Crousel
October 15 – November 16, 2024

No material seems to be off-limits for Mimosa Echard: Cherry pits, latex, sage, fish roe, amethyst, aluminum, glass, vinyl glue, pearls, and beads have all made their way into her paintings, which are so thick with texture they almost become sculptures. For ‘Lies’, her second show at Galerie Chantal Crousel, Echard continues her exploration of the natural processes that occur when two materials react with one another – the bleeding of one dye into another, the oxidization of metal, or the absorption of a liquid into a porous substance. Here, her metallic tableaux combine veils and charms with a series of photographs taken at a Parisian shopping arcade, juxtaposing the artifice of consumerism with rusted metal.

Moffat Takadiwa
‘The Reverse Deal’
Semiose
October 12 – November 16, 2024

From a distance Moffat Takadiwa’s wall hangings seem like sumptuous, colorful tapestries, but upon closer inspection it becomes clear they are made from the detritus of consumerism and globalization: dirty, yellowed computer keys; splayed toothbrush heads; metal belt buckles. These sculptural works reflect the environment in which they were made: Takadiwa lives in Mbare, a suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, near one of the country’s largest recycling hubs and where the informal local economy revolves around the sale of secondhand goods from Europe. This show continues the themes explored in his presentation for Zimbabwe’s pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. By highlighting the exportation of Europe’s trash to Africa, his retrieval and transformation of the waste, and its eventual return to Europe as valuable works of art, Takadiwa draws attention to consumerism, inequality, post-colonialism, and the environment.