Youssef Nabil Becomes First Living Artist to Exhibit Inside Musée d'Orsay's Orientalist Galleries

The Musée d'Orsay has opened its painting galleries to Youssef Nabil for 'To Dream Again (De rêver encore),' on view from May 19 to September 13, 2026. Nabil, born in Cairo in 1972, is the first living artist invited to exhibit inside the museum's 'Artists in North Africa' rooms. Curated by Sylvain Amic and Nicolas Gausserand, the show is part of the Mediterranean Season 2026 and France's Bicentennial of Photography (2026–2027). Nabil's hand-coloured silver prints are placed alongside 19th-century Orientalist works by Eugène Fromentin, Étienne Dinet, Alexandre Cabanel, and Jean Lecomte du Noüy, as well as Symbolist pieces by Odilon Redon and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. The exhibition unfolds across five rooms, tracing Nabil's journey from childhood in Cairo to exile and self-portraiture. It includes two films: 'The Room' (2025), a dialogue with Marina Abramović, and 'I Saved My Belly Dancer' (2015) starring Salma Hayek and Tahar Rahim. Nabil's work reframes Orientalist tropes, presenting women as confident and self-assured. The title references Caliban's monologue in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest.'