Louise Nevelson

Fifty years after her last exhibition in France (1974) and thirty years after her death, the Centre Pompidou-Metz presents Louise Nevelson. Mrs. N’s Palace, the first retrospective of this magnitude in Europe devoted to the artist Louise Nevelson (Kiev, 1899 – New York, 1988). This exhibition celebrates an artist whose legacy continues to resonate within the contemporary art scene as well as the world of fashion. Nevelson transformed twentieth-century sculpture into a total and immersive experience.

Sometimes linked to Cubism, Constructivism, or the Dadaist and Surrealist practices of collage, her work extends far beyond these affiliations. If Jean

Arp referred to Schwitters as his “imaginary grandfather,” Nevelson’s own artistic world encompasses a history of the arts where dance and performance—central to this exhibition—play a decisive role.

This dimension took shape in exhibitions conceived as true “atmospheres” or “environments”, radically expanding the field of sculpture, echoing Allan Kaprow’s theories on happenings and Rosalind Krauss’s notion of the “expanded field.”

In 1958, at Grand Central Moderns in New York, Nevelson staged her first large-scale environment, Moon Garden + One, which included her first

“wall”, Sky Cathedral—a vertical homage to her adopted city. Every detail was deliberate; anything that disrupted the installation was excluded. She paid particular attention to lighting, for the first time enveloping some of her works in blue light, heightening shadows and disorienting the viewer in the darkness. The viewer’s entire body was invited to engage in the scene, experiencing a reimagined theatricality.

This early experiment—when the very term “installation” was still in its infancy—was followed by Dawn’s Wedding Feast, created for the Sixteen Americans exhibition at the MoMA in 1959, and The Royal Tides at Martha Jackson Gallery in 1961. These installations are being reactivated in unprecedented form for this exhibition, highlighting how profoundly Nevelson’s environmental thinking embodied the culmination of her interdisciplinary explorations.

For twenty years, Nevelson studied eurythmy with Ellen Kearns, a form of bodily expression aimed at discovering vital energy and creative force. Combined with her fascination for Martha Graham in the 1930s, this study transformed her life and work, starting with her early terracotta sculptures depicting articulated dancing bodies in motion. Her discovery of Mexico and Guatemala in 1950 infused her work with a monumental dimension, blending geometry and mysticism. Under these dual influences, her environments became increasingly colossal, enveloping, totemic, and sacred. Nevelson created spaces to explore rather than sculptures to confront, carving out a singular path within the American artistic landscape of the 1960s.

In the “walls” that brought her renown, Nevelson elevated the discarded debris of New York into vertical sculptures, unified under monochrome veils—most often black, but sometimes white or gold. A world of forms emerged, shaped by an artist who described herself as an “architect of shadow and light.” These recycled fragments, transformed into abstract columns, can also be seen as reconstructed dwellings—alternative refuges or palaces—later evolving into the Dream Houses series in the early 1970s, echoing the rise of feminist thought.

The fascination her “walls“ inspire likely arises from the aura of mystery they radiate. Each environment is charged with a narrative Nevelson composed around mythic figures and landscapes—motifs already present in her early prints—opening a world that exists only in moments of suspended perception, where time folds between dusk and dawn, between the ruins of the old and the promise of the new.

For her final environment, completed in 1977 and titled Mrs. N’s Palace, Nevelson created what was perhaps her own legend. “Mrs. N“ was the nickname given to her by her Manhattan neighbours. After witnessing the dismantling of several of her immersive installations—conceived as dissociable wholes works—Nevelson devoted thirteen years to the realisation of this monumental piece, now permanently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which received it as a gift from the artist. A veritable life-sized shrine, Mrs. N’s Palace seeks to engulf the visitor

completely. Through this total experience, it crystallises Nevelson’s relationship with space. By borrowing its title, the Centre Pompidou-Metz exhibition pays tribute to the artist’s majestic creative vision.

The first French-language monograph dedicated to Louise Nevelson accompanies the exhibition. It retraces her artistic journey through the lens of

performance history and her pivotal role in the emergence of installation art. The publication includes an introductory essay by curator Anne Horvath and contributions from Marie Darrieussecq, Hélène Marquié, Laurie Wilson, Elyse Speaks, Maria Nevelson (the artist’s granddaughter), and Laureen Picaut.

A complementary programme will animate the exhibition, celebrating the figures who inspired Nevelson, particularly from the world of dance. This will offer opportunities to reinterpret the work of iconic modern choreographers—from Mary Wigman, Loïe Fuller, and Martha Graham to her friend and collaborator Merce Cunningham—within the context of contemporary performance.

(opens in a new window) Learn more at www.centrepompidou-metz.fr.