Kennedy Yanko's sculptures and Ma Kelu's canvases are interspersed among the casts and frescoes of the Cité de l'architecture: a face-to-face encounter between contemporary art and heritage, for the duration of a season.

Acrylic paint poured directly onto the studio floor, dried, cut into large, supple sheets, and then thrown onto reclaimed metal frames. Kennedy Yanko installs these sculptures in the cast gallery of the Cité de l'architecture, facing the Gothic portals and their stone draperies. They engage in a dialogue with these folds, and with the underside of the structures: the armatures, the reinforcing steel, all the technical complexity that a building usually conceals from view. Metal and paint merge here like flesh and mechanics, in a style reminiscent of Cronenberg's universe.

A few rooms away, in the mural gallery, Ma Kelu hangs his canvases amidst the medieval frescoes. This Shanghai painter, founder of the No Name group outside the official art world since the 1970s, is exhibiting in France for the first time. His latest series is called Ada, after Bruce Lee's battle cry: a painting initiated without prior thought, jagged, monochrome forms floating on vast, untouched spaces. The juxtaposition is unsettling, because the figures in the frescoes also float against uniform skies. The Museum of Plaster Casts awakens for a dazzling season.

To continue: our top new exhibitions in Paris.

CITY OF ARCHITECTURE AND HERITAGE
From October 16, 2026 to January 3, 2027
1 Place du Trocadéro, 75116 - Metro: Trocadéro (Lines 6/9)
Open daily except Tuesdays, 11am-7pm, Thursdays until 9pm
Admission: €13 - Reduced rate: €10 - Free for under 18s