Exhibition guide

The famous gallery from May 23 to June 20, more than thirty years of commitment to contemporary creation. However, it is not a question of going back on a completed path, but of asserting a living continuity. 30 years and over is not a retrospective. It is a declaration of intent, that of a gallery that cultivates its raison d'être: to accompany artists and to enhance current artistic practices.

Visit details

  • Dates: From Saturday 23 May 2026 to Saturday 20 June 2026: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 11:00 to 18:00 Tuesday from 14:00 to 18:30
  • Venue: Les filles du Calvaire, 21, rue chapon, Paris
  • Price: free
  • Audience: All audiences
  • Source: Event page

About the exhibition

Through a work by artist, the exhibition brings together those who today embody the history and identity of the gallery. 30 years and over reflects a long-term dialogue between the gallery and artists, emerging or confirmed, whom it accompanies. This faithful dialogue, nourished by experiments and taking risks, reflects its constant commitment to contemporary art in all its forms, and particularly to the French scene, which it contributes to radiating on the territory and abroad.

This exhibition affirms a permanence that is measured not only in years, but in encounters, projects and artistic complicity. It is also a projection towards what remains to be invented. Here, thirty years is not a symbolic threshold, but a momentum: that of a gallery always moving, attentive to its time and resolutely oriented towards the future.

EDITO DE STEPHANE MAGNAN

Founder of the gallery The girls of Calvary

30 years of exhibitions, and all the mediums are concerned.

Maybe it takes to understand the gallery in this diversity, that I say where I come from: My tastes as a child, as a teenager, are always the same today, what's moving is the scopic impulse and the auditory impulse-image and music, harmony and dissonance- what fascinates me is intelligence and reasoning. My first loves are Greek, mythology, Italian painting and Flemish painting of the Renaissance, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi and mathematics. Great curiosity and great appetite.

My way of acting always starts with listening and exploring, welcoming ideas, images, and at some point, it's, I understand, I can decide. This may be the case, combined with the great fidelity of the accompanying team, which gives an impression of consistency to the gallery, which can only be seen with hindsight. I had the same functioning in my engineering profession – slow festival-

What the gallery shows is therefore far from being frozen; This reflects his political commitment to a rapidly changing world where democracy is constantly under attack. It is a very demanding profession that can be described in several ways: the discoverer's side, the "associate courier" and the merchant's side. They are constantly present, not always easy to combine but very exciting.

It seems to me that the inaugural thunder blow for contemporary art today was in 1974 the prize of the Venice Biennial awarded to Rauschenberg: this was the origin of this abundance of creation that we see today; Everything was possible! His gallerist, Leo Castelli invented at that time the model of the contemporary art gallery that still prevails today. The first fair was held in Cologne in 1967, followed quickly by the one in Basel in 1970.

And we are still there.

What has changed is the proliferation- of artists, galleries, fairs, biennials, all kinds of monster initiatives- for better and for worse. This is what makes the profession that we do extremely complex in terms of discernment in order to remain faithful to its values and not allow ourselves to be submerged by a multiform and recovery capitalism.

More recently the internet and its avatars have given an extra impetus to the "all is good" ; the online network is a remarkable tool but that only shows "fhantoms" of works and therefore absolutely needs the gallery to see "in real". The artist's necessity is to show and be shown, if not not to exist in the contemporary world.

The galleryist is therefore the one who takes the risk, after the artist who takes that of creation, of showing works that are safe values only for him, without any certainty of selling, contrary to what the museums or institutions exhibit: artists already widely recognized. He is a modest actor of contemporary art that completely surpasses him but whose field is not likely to dry up.

30 years therefore, as proof of hope and tenacity for this gallery which was born from the unlikely encounter of a group of friends with a remarkable place. Fino has when? The bet remains.

HISTORY OF GALERIE

text written by Marie Magnier, director of the gallery

Founded in Paris in 1996 at 17 rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, the gallery The girls of the Calvary imposed themselves from its opening as an influential actor in the contemporary artistic scene. Very early, she distinguished herself by accompanying photographers, at a time when this medium did not yet occupy the central place that it holds today in the art market and in institutions. The gallery has played a major role in the recognition of contemporary photography, in these demanding and singular practices.

Faithful to its role as a discoverer, ga