PARIS.- David Zwirner will present Au 108 rue Vieille du Temple, a group exhibition at the gallery’s Paris location that celebrates the legacy of the gallery space and its history—both as the former site of Galerie Yvon Lambert and since 2019 as David Zwirner Paris. This expansive presentation marks forty years since the inauguration of Lambert’s gallery at the same address, 108, rue Vieille du Temple, on 20 September 1986.

Au 108 rue Vieille du Temple highlights the affinities between Galerie Yvon Lambert and David Zwirner and showcases the artist-centric approaches that both gallerists have shared. Since opening his first gallery in Paris in the 1960s, Lambert was among the earliest to champion several artists who now form a foundational part of the David Zwirner program; he is celebrated for bringing postwar avant-garde American art to France and supporting many important French and European artists. The exhibition presents thirty-two international artists who have shown with Yvon Lambert or David Zwirner over the years, many with both. Their work illustrates the transatlantic dialogue that shaped Lambert’s tenure as a gallerist and continues to resonate in an increasingly global art world. As Lambert has recalled, “To open a gallery you just need a space and the best artists. The thing that interests me has always been the true artists, the ones who bring something genuinely new.”¹

The exhibition features works by Francis Alÿs, Carl Andre, Miquel Barceló, Robert Barry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jean-Charles Blais, Christian Boltanski, Robert Combas, Dan Flavin, Nan Goldin, On Kawara, Anselm Kiefer, Barbara Kruger, Bertrand Lavier, Louise Lawler, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman, Giulio Paolini, Nathalie du Pasquier, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Andres Serrano, David Shrigley, Niele Toroni, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Lawrence Weiner, and Jordan Wolfson.





Based in Le Marais since 1977, Yvon Lambert was the first gallerist to establish a gallery in the neighborhood. When Lambert relocated his gallery to a former factory on rue Vieille du Temple, he created an opportunity for artists to show increasingly ambitious work. Presented in that same iconic, glass-ceilinged space, Au 108 rue Vieille du Temple is at once an homage to Lambert’s pioneering vision and a celebration of his continued impact on the landscape of contemporary art. This is the first exhibition at David Zwirner Paris to be presented across both floors of the gallery, spanning the full ground floor as well as the naturally lit second-floor spaces that the gallery expanded to include in 2024.

Works on view range from intimate works on paper and minimalist sculpture to photography and large-scale paintings—installed in juxtapositions that reflect the diversity, conceptual rigor, and considered approach of the two galleries’ programs across decades. Highlights include Pan (1980; Collection Lambert en Avignon, CNAP), a suite of seven drawings by Cy Twombly whose palette of reds and black evokes the exhibition poster the artist made for his 1986 solo show that inaugurated Galerie Yvon Lambert at 108, rue Vieille du Temple. Works by Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle, and other pivotal figures of the New York scene recall Lambert’s frequent travels between the city and Paris, as well as the gallerist’s critical achievements in bringing their work to a French audience.

Major paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat are exhibited, including She Installs Confidence and Picks his Brain Like a Salad (1988; Collection Lambert en Avignon, CNAP), which debuted in the artist’s solo show at Galerie Yvon Lambert in 1988. Works by Francis Alÿs, Dan Flavin, On Kawara, Barbara Kruger, Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, and Jordan Wolfson demonstrate the affinities between the two gallery programs, while those by Jean-Charles Blais, Christian Boltanski, Robert Combas, Nathalie du Pasquier, and Bertrand Lavier nod to Lambert’s lasting embrace of French artists. Palmsonntag (2006), a monumental mixed-media work by Anselm Kiefer, exemplifies the artist’s distinct interpretation of themes of alchemy, mythology, and history—among the many themes that have inspired and informed Lambert’s singular vision.

Reflecting Lambert’s ongoing commitment to artist’s books and editions, displayed alongside the artwork is an extensive selection of exhibition ephemera and special publications gathered from the deep and renowned archive of Galerie Yvon Lambert.

Two decades after opening his first gallery in Paris, Yvon Lambert moved to 108, rue Vieille du Temple, which he inaugurated in September 1986 with an exhibition of works by Cy Twombly, following over a year of renovations by the French architect Jean-François Bodin. This opening heralded a new chapter in the rich history of the skylit space, which was operated in the early twentieth century by a family-run business, Létang Fils, producing kitchen molds.

In this new location, Lambert continued and expanded his legacy of promoting significant minimal, post-minimal, conceptual, and avant-garde artists. Lambert also broadened his focus to include painting, photography, and video, and continued to organize exhibitions that featured renowned artists of the time. His program at 108, rue Vieille du Temple was active for almost three decades until 2014.

In 2000, Lambert inaugurated the Collection Lambert in Avignon. In 2012, he made a generous donation of over 500 works from his personal collection to the French state.

The project led by Yvon Lambert, alongside his daughter Ève, continues to evolve today at 14, rue des Filles du Calvaire. Bringing together a bookshop, a publishing house, and an exhibition space, the venue reflects the natural evolution of a commitment that has remained unwavering in its support of artists and contemporary creation.

David Zwirner founded his gallery in 1993 on Greene Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. Opening with an exhibition of new work by Franz West—the artist’s first solo show in the United States—Zwirner immediately established the artist-centric ethos that has remained central to the gallery’s program for over three decades. Among the artists Zwirner championed in the gallery’s first years are Stan Douglas, Toba Khedoori, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades, Diana Thater, Luc Tuymans, and James Welling.

David Zwirner Paris opened at 108, rue Vieille du Temple in October 2019 with Frenchette, an exhibition of new works by Raymond Pettibon.

In 2024, the gallery underwent renovations by Selldorf Architects and Studio Razavi to preserve the building’s historic architectural features—most prominently the “Eiffel-style” skylight from the late nineteenth century—and expanded to a newly renovated and designed second-floor space.

Since its opening in Paris, David Zwirner has organized forty exhibitions including solo presentations of work by Francis Alÿs, Dan Flavin, Isa Genzken, On Kawara, Gerhard Richter, Dana Schutz, and Luc Tuymans, among others.

Notes:

Yvon Lambert, interview with Donatien Grau, “Gallerist’s Page,” Flash Art (February 18, 2016), accessed online.