Jenny Holzer Floods Musée d'Orsay With 750 Texts in Light and Stone

Jenny Holzer will project roughly 250 texts by 34 authors, including Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola, across the Seine-facing facade of the Musée d'Orsay from October 18 to 22, 2026. The projections, titled ÉCLAIRÉ, run nightly between 7 pm and 11 pm and can be viewed freely from the riverbanks. They open J'ai Vu (I Saw), the American artist's exhibition at the Paris museum, which runs from October 20, 2026 to February 21, 2027.

Altogether the exhibition assembles more than 750 distinct texts drawn from 424 sources and 73 authors — potentially the most extensive body of written material Holzer has ever gathered for a single show. Developed in collaboration with the museum, the selection draws on writings from the period represented in its collections: artistic correspondence, political commentary and historical accounts, largely dating from 1848 to 1914. Rather than simply revisiting the 19th century, Holzer lets its voices confront the present. The subjects range from the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune to colonialism, anarchism, labor movements, military corruption and the everyday realities of Haussmann-era Paris.

What happens inside the galleries?

A monumental, site-specific LED installation carries the exhibition through four galleries dedicated to history painting, naturalism, symbolism and Gustave Courbet. Streams of brightly colored text move through the spaces, introducing historical voices into rooms traditionally dominated by paintings and sculptures. The installation responds to the architecture and to visitor circulation, recalling the building's original function as a 19th-century railway station. Once a place for moving passengers, the former Gare d'Orsay now transports words.

Holzer also introduces 19 stone sculptures — 17 benches and two columns — distributed throughout the museum's ground-floor galleries and public spaces. Created specifically for the exhibition, these works include GO TOGETHER, 2026, a Minervois marble bench with granite legs carrying a Van Gogh letter to his brother Theo from August 10, 1874, and MAD JUST NOW, 2026, a Cipollino Verde marble column with a white Carrara marble band and a Sarrancolin-Beyrède marble base, engraved with a 1915 letter from Mary Cassatt. Each stone variety was researched for its origin and character, establishing a material dialogue with the museum's existing sculptures and pedestals. Unlike the moving LED displays, the inscriptions invite a slower encounter with language, turning familiar architectural elements into objects that demand closer reading.

Where does the exhibition turn political?

In the history painting gallery, Holzer presents a new body of work centered on war and conflict. Historical works from the permanent collection hang alongside her own paintings, made with gold, platinum and palladium leaf, which reference recent international conflicts. The metallic surfaces are based on partially redacted documents; they conceal substantial portions of their original texts, leaving visible fragments that raise questions about secrecy, accountability and the boundary between legitimate confidentiality and the concealment of wrongdoing. A separate gallery overlooking the Seine extends the presentation, where natural light transforms the reflective surfaces throughout the day.

One work, Teaching Robots, 2026, combines metal leaf and oil on linen, and stands near COULEUR INNOMABLE, 2026, a Sarrancolin-Beyrède marble bench engraved with a Claude Monet letter to Alice Monet from February 14, 1901. Others carry words by Berthe Morisot and Camille-era correspondence, anchoring the installation in the museum's own period.

By bringing these competing perspectives into the same space, Holzer constructs a portrait of history that resists any single interpretation. Projected in light, carved into stone or partially erased beneath precious metals, the words expose how closely the anxieties of the past resemble those of the present. For practitioners, the show demonstrates how a listed Beaux-Arts landmark can host contemporary media art without permanent intervention — every projection, LED stream and bench operates within the existing envelope, and the benches remain as functional furniture. Whether the engraved pieces stay after February 21, 2027, the museum has not said.