Annette Messager's Animal Bestiary at Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris is hosting 'Annette Messager: Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps', an exhibition of around 80 works spanning five decades. The show presents a bestiary of cartoonish and taxidermied creatures, including soft sculptures, readymades, drawings, photographs, and installations. Messager uses animals as proxies to explore human emotions, desires, fears, and intimacy. The exhibition is staged across three floors of the seventeenth-century hôtel particulier, integrating with the museum's hunting-themed collections. Notable works include 'L’Opération' (2011), a soft toy with its belly cut open and tools at its extremities, and 'Le Lapin chasseur', a taxidermy rabbit carrying a rifle, found at a garage sale. The show also features 'Les Qualificatifs donnés aux femmes' (1972), paper cards with pet-names for women, and 'Vingt-deux Expressions' (2025), Japanese-paper panels with French proverbs. The installation 'Mes Transports' (2012–13) comprises assemblages of sculpted human body parts on trolleys, placed against seventeenth-century paintings of dead animals. The exhibition runs through 20 September.