Rick Owens’s ‘Temple of Love’ Retrospective at Palais Galliera

The Palais Galliera in Paris presents 'Temple of Love', a retrospective dedicated to Rick Owens, running until January 4, 2026. Owens serves as artistic director alongside curator Alexandre Samson. The exhibition transforms the fashion museum into a sanctuary, featuring over 100 silhouettes displayed as icons. The show traces Owens’s career from his early days in Los Angeles, including his first collection with Goddess Bunny. The first room is dark with brown felt walls (homage to Joseph Beuys), symbolist works by Gustave Moreau, and mannequins on pedestals like gargoyles. The second room introduces natural light for the first time in a fashion exhibition at the museum, with garments arranged in a tight formation. The third room features a fountain with a life-size statue of Owens urinating into a metal basin, alongside videos and photos of erotic acts, pissing practices, and bondage objects. The final room is a literal bedroom: Owens and Michèle Lamy’s bed from Los Angeles, with unmade sheets, used pillows, and shelves of books (Breuer, Huysmans, Mapplethorpe, Steichen). Lamy, Owens’s wife, muse, and oracle, is the face of the show, appearing on posters across Paris. The exhibition is organized not by collections but by existential tribes: freaks, dissidents, eternal romantics. Owens’s approach is described as autobiographical, referencing fragility and decay.