The exhibition will take diverse forms, beginning with light projections on the museum façade, on the Seine side, during the opening week in October. Excerpts selected by Holzer – ranging from artists' letters preserved in the museum's archives to literary or political writings contemporary with that period – will transform the exterior of the building and offer passers-by an immersive, almost timeless experience.
Inside, an LED installation designed specifically for the site, animated by coloured flows of text, will allow visitors to immerse themselves in content drawn from the history represented in the museum's collections and in dialogue with it. This luminous work echoes the transformation of the building, which passed from a 19th-century railway station to a modern museum: a bespoke programme, moving through the space, reflects the lively circulation of visitors and recalls the original function of the Gare d'Orsay.
Crossing a selection of works from the collections displayed in the domed galleries dedicated to history painting, naturalism and symbolism, the LED installation will engage in dialogue with Holzer's paintings executed in gold leaf, platinum and palladium. These canvases, in which erasure and concealment become visible, change over the days according to the shifting light of the Seine. Much of their content remains obscured, but traces survive of difficult and essential decisions, echoing the history paintings exhibited in the neighbouring galleries.
The exhibition will also present stone benches conceived in dialogue with the museum's architecture and its permanent collections. Made especially for the occasion, these new sculptures, many of which are engraved with texts from the period 1848–1914 represented at the Musée d'Orsay, will be placed in various spaces on the ground floor and in the galleries. The unusual tones of these benches respond to the remarkable diversity of stones used in the museum's sculptures and pedestals, in keeping with Gae Aulenti's original project.
Together, the works presented inside and outside the museum bear witness to the inseparable intertwining of past and present, and to the enduring bond that unites France and the United States.
Outdoor light projections over several evenings around the October 2026 opening (dates to be announced).