Palais de Tokyo removes Cameron Rowland's Martinican flag work amid neutrality controversy

Cameron Rowland's work Replacement (2025), which replaced the French flag outside Palais de Tokyo with the Martinican flag, was removed just one day after the exhibition Echo. Delay. Reverb. American Art, Francophone Thoughts opened. The institution's director cited neutrality principles, referencing circulars issued after France recognized Palestine by former home secretary Bruno Retailleau. Lawyers advised Rowland that the Martinican flag, adopted by a French territorial authority in 2023, did not violate neutrality and was protected under copyright law. Curated by Guggenheim chief curator Naomi Beckwith, the exhibition explores how American artists have absorbed and transformed French and francophone thought since the 1960s. It includes works by Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, Cindy Sherman, Pope.L, Ellen Gallagher, Firelei Báez, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, organized into thematic sections like 'Institutional Critique' and 'Abjection in America'. The show references thinkers including Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Frantz Fanon, and Édouard Glissant, with a documentary section on Sylvère Lotringer's Semiotext(e). Running through 15 February 2026 at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the exhibition's removal of Rowland's flag has sparked debate about institutional self-censorship and selective application of neutrality principles under France's right-wing government.