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JÉRÔME SANS

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Jérôme Sans

Born in 1960, Jérôme Sans is a curator, cultural agitator, and director of institutions, known internationally for his pioneering and transversal approach to new models of cultural institutions and exhibitions.

Sans was the co-founder and co-director of the acclaimed Palais de Tokyo in Paris from 1999 to 2006, a model imitated all over the world, like an iconic playground for artists and the public. At the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle (UK), one of Europe’s leading contemporary art centers, he built a diversified local and international program while reconnecting the institution with the British and global art scene, between 2006 and 2008. From 2008 to 2012, he was the director of the ground-breaking Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (UCCA), establishing it as the first private contemporary art foundation in China and the model for many private Chinese museum projects.

In addition to his publications, Sans was creative director and editor-in-chief of the French cultural magazine L’Officiel Art. He has curated numerous major exhibitions around the world, including the Taipei Biennial (2000), the Lyon Biennial (2005); major monographic exhibitions such as Li Qing at the Prada Rong Zhai Foundation in Shanghai (2019) and Erwin Wurm at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (2022); as well as public installations such as on Place Vendôme in Paris with Alicja Kwade (2022) and more recently with Bernar Venet (2023). Since 2022, he has also been accompanying the development of Lago/Algo, located in the heart of the Chapultepec Forest in Mexico City, where he presented group shows entitled ‘Shake Your Body’ in September 2022 and ‘Desert Flood’ in February 2023.

“Wherever I have been working in the world, I’ve always been living in between. Movement and challenges activate ideas.”

-Jérôme Sans
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'La Parabole de l’Histoire' by Bernar Venet, Exhibition
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'La Parabole de l’Histoire' by Bernar Venet, Exhibition

“A monumental parable of history.”

-Architectural Digest
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'La Parabole de l’Histoire' by Bernar Venet, Exhibition
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'La Parabole de l’Histoire' by Bernar Venet, Exhibition
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'All is Well' Exhibition, Noor Riyadh Festival
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'The Day the Sand Caught Fire' Exhibition, Noor Riyadh Festival
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'Earthtime 2.6' Exhibition, Noor Riyadh Festival
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Desert Swarm Drone Show, Noor Riyadh Festival
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'Decimal Clock (Blue and Orange)' Exhibition, Noor Riyadh Festival
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'We Rise By Lifting Others' Exhibition, Noor Riyadh Festival
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'Earth Listens When You Speak' Exhibition, Lago/Algo
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'Artist Against The Bomb' Exhibition, Lago/Algo
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'Earth Listens When You Speak' Exhibition, Lago/Algo
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'A Pilgrimage Through the River of Being' Exhibition, Lago/Algo
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INSTITUTIONS

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'As I Run and Run, Happiness Comes Closer,' Collection Laurent Dumas, Exhibition view
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'As I Run and Run, Happiness Comes Closer,' Collection Laurent Dumas, Exhibition view
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The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection (Wang Du), exhibition view at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
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The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection (Wang Du), exhibition view at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing

“The current generation of Chinese artists not only takes a new view of the contemporary world, but is also contributing to a veritable Chinese ‘cultural revolution.’”

-Jérôme Sans
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Yan Pei-Ming, Landscape of Childhood, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
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Zhang Huang, exhibition view, Hope Tunnel, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
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'Square Dreams' by Kader Attia, Baltic Center
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'Irrespetiv' by Kendell Geers, Baltic Center

“I always believed that art is life, and life is art. So they are all one and cannot be separated.”

-Jérôme Sans
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Michael Lin and Adel Abdessemed, Palais de Tokyo
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'Habibi' by Adel Abdessemed, Exposition Notre Histoire, Palais de Tokyo
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Wang Du exhibition, Palais de Tokyo
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Nari Ward exhibition, Palais de Tokyo

“Sans has grown the Palais de Tokyo within just a few years to France’s largest non-collecting museum of contemporary art and one of the most important arts institutions in Europe.”

-Artforum
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EXHIBITIONS

“Kwade’s work is very engaging – those spheres are like magnets. From old to young – everyone wants to touch because it gives you strength.”

-Jérôme Sans
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'Au cours des Mondes' by Alicja Kwade, Exhibition
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'Au cours des Mondes' by Alicja Kwade, Exhibition
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'Au cours des Mondes' by Alicja Kwade, Exhibition
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'Au cours des Mondes' by Alicja Kwade, Exhibition

“This installation highlights the drama of the line, the physical experience of matter, and the looming ecological emergency.”

-Art Basel
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'Athens by Night,' Exhibition, Lago/Algo
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'Athens by Night' and 'Pia Camil,' Exhibition, Lago/Algo

“A utopian dream of the 1960s became a new reality in 2022, a place where after two years of lockdown, we can be reunited with nature and reconnected to time and art. A place to share, to live, to reinvent our future.”

-Jérôme Sans
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'An Impending Disaster,' Exhibition view, Desert Flood, Lago/Algo
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'We Are All In The Same Boat,' Superflex, Exhibition, Desert Flood, Lago/Algo,
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Things and Something to Remember Before Daylight, Galerie Almine Rech
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Things and Something to Remember Before Daylight, Galerie Almine Rech
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Things and Something to Remember Before Daylight, Galerie Almine Rech
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Things and Something to Remember Before Daylight, Galerie Almine Rech
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'ONE MINUTE FOREVER' by Erwin Wurm, Exhibition
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'ONE MINUTE FOREVER' by Erwin Wurm, Exhibition
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'ONE MINUTE FOREVER' by Erwin Wurm, Exhibition
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'ONE MINUTE FOREVER' by Erwin Wurm, Exhibition
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'Rear Windows' by Li Qing, Exhibition
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'Rear Windows' by Li Qing, Exhibition

“Li Qing initiates here a new form of poetry in Prada Rong Zhai, one which belongs to an imaginary society and that lives in its past dreams, but also within his own work of today, continually questioning: how to be closer to the reality of things?”

-Jérôme Sans
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'Rear Windows' by Li Qing, Exhibition
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'Rear Windows' by Li Qing, Exhibition
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'The World of Saha' by Yu Hong, Exhibition
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'The World of Saha' by Yu Hong, Exhibition
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'The World of Saha' by Yu Hong, Exhibition
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'The World of Saha' by Yu Hong, Exhibition
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'ELDORAMA,' Tripostal, Lille Exhibition
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'Experiencing Duration,' Lyon Biennale, Exhibition
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'Experiencing Duration,' Lyon Biennale, Exhibition
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'Experiencing Duration,' Lyon Biennale, Exhibition
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'Experiencing Duration,' Lyon Biennale, Exhibition

“If ‘Expérience de la Durée’ succeeds (and it does), it is because it offers alternative temporalities to the speedy capitalist trajectory that shapes so much of our lives.”

-Frieze
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BRANDS

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Cartier Art Dialogues: Beyond Boundaries
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Cartier Art Dialogues: Beyond Boundaries
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'Voyages Immobiles – Le Grand Tour'
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'Voyages Immobiles – Le Grand Tour'

“Sans tells a multi-scale story that gradually unfolds from a personal level to a global one, but also a means to escape the ordinary experience of another reality, and refresh our view of the world while stationary.”

-Whitewall
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'Voyages Immobiles – Le Grand Tour'
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'Voyages Immobiles – Le Grand Tour'
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Swarovski 'Digital Crystal, Beijing'
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Swarovski 'Digital Crystal, Beijing'
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Swarovski 'Digital Crystal, Beijing'
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Swarovski 'Digital Crystal, Beijing'

“If you look properly, you will see that something is happening here, the energy, the dynamics of things, the presence. All of these artworks make the complete experience of moving through this lobby something unique.”

-Jérôme Sans
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Le Meridien
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Le Meridien
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Le Meridien
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Le Meridien

“Sans gives Le Meridien a greater access to emerging artists around the globe, and the ability to grow LM100 family further, thus keeping dialogues, discoveries and creations flowing."

-Eva Ziegler, Global Brand Leader, Le Meridien
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URBAN DEVELOPMENT

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Metro Station Pont Cardinet, Paris, 2020
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Metro Station Pont Cardinet, Paris, 2020
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Rives de Saône - River Movie, 2013
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Polygone Riviera, Cagnes-sur-mer, France, 2015

“Art is no longer confined to sanctuarized – and well-defined – cultural spaces outside commercial spaces. On the contrary, it is now exhibited right in the middle of the shops.”

-Numéro
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PUBLICATIONS

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Daniel Buren: 'CRISS-CROSS'
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Daniel Buren: 'CRISS-CROSS'
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Adel Abdessemed – 'Catalogue raisonné des cartons d’invitation'
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Adel Abdessemed – 'Catalogue raisonné des cartons d’invitation'

“When I work with an artist, it is never once. We collaborate recurrently. It is never flirting, but the chance to push our limits together long-term and learn something new.”

-Jérôme Sans
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'Cuba Talks'
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'Cuba Talks'
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'In The Arab World...Now'
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'In The Arab World...Now'
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Purple magazine
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Purple magazine
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L’OFFICIEL Art
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L’OFFICIEL Art

JÉRÔME SANS