Normes Corps

"Body Standards" runs from April 3 to September 13, 2026, at the Palais de Tokyo.

Eight exhibitions are brought together, ranging from retrospectives to in situ interventions that question the architecture of the venue itself.

The common thread of the program is ableism: the season observes how health and performance norms classify and exclude bodies, then reverses this logic to make it a creative material.

A single ticket grants access to all eight proposals and invites visitors to compose their visit between formal metaphor and political commitment.

When fragility becomes a shared strength The season is conceived under the presidency of Guillaume Désanges, who also authored the introductory text. It starts from a precise term: ableism, the system that classifies bodies according to norms of health and performance.

It sorts, on one side, those it deems conforming and, on the other, those it considers deficient. Rather than a cause for pity, the season reverses the perspective: fragility becomes a common experience and even a creative strength.

It only takes an accident, illness, or age to fall outside the norm. This is, the season reminds us, perhaps the most shared experience of humanity.

Not all exhibitions address the subject in the same way: the program ranges from the most abstract works to the most openly committed.

Cathy de Monchaux, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Jesse Darling The Palais de Tokyo presents the first retrospective dedicated to Cathy de Monchaux, British sculptor, titled “Studio, Wounds and Battles, Desire is the Reiteration of Hope”. It brings together about fifty works, from 1984 to today, where velvet meets metal, lace meets rivets and bone.

Her sculptures play on seduction and threat, from intimate to monumental: from the boat-shaped basket Dreamboat (1986) to the metal unicorn Bronze unicorn (2025). The latter echoes the very first piece she kept, since her student years, as a totem.

Her titles reflect a writing process, such as Never forget the power of the tears.

Accessibility taken as artistic material This may be the most direct gesture of the season. Invited to the Païpe space, one of the least accessible areas of the Palais for people with reduced mobility, American artist Joseph Grigely makes it the heart of “This Is Where We Are”.

Deaf, he has worked for over thirty years on access: who enters, who moves around, who is denied a place or exchange. He devises what he calls an "access prosthesis" and turns accessibility, usually relegated to the margins, into a full-fledged artistic material.

His reflection takes the form of works, a printed publication, and models exploring, for example, how a staircase could also serve as a ramp. His Conversation Pieces are also included: notes written by hearing individuals to communicate with him, reassembled into fragmented narratives.

Benoît Piéron starts from long cohabitation with the hospital and, more recently, the discovery of his intersex condition — being born with sexual characteristics that do not fit the male or female categories. From this, he transforms waiting rooms and night lights into a sparkling, disorienting setting.