From 14 June 2025 to 2 February 2026, in an exceptional collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, the Centre Pompidou-Metz will be presenting an unprecedented exhibition dedicated to the creativity of copyists. Copying was central to the classical tradition. Copying the works of great artists is a tool for learning about the canons, techniques and stories. Absorbing their expertise and adopting their mastery is a pathway to knowledge and artistic creation, from the most academic to the most contemporary.
About a hundred of contemporary artists have been invited to make copies at the Musée du Louvre, following the footsteps of many of their predecessors, both famous and little known. The guests invited to perform this act of decoding, investigating and understanding, juggling old forms and new, include painters, draughtsmen sculptors, video artists, designers and writers. They offer different ways of copying and different conceptions of the copy and of the status of the works exhibited, in a tension between originality and duplication.
For this exhibition, each participating artist was given the following invitation by curators Donatien Grau (Head of Contemporary at the Louvre) and Chiara Parisi (Director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz):
“Imagine a copy of a work of your choosing from the collections of the Musée du Louvre.”
As part of Copyists, Yohji Yamamoto presents a unique interpretation inspired by Portrait of a Man with His Doublet Half Open by Lucas Franchoys (Netherlands, 17th century).
Yohji Yamamoto on his inspiration:
“The piece this gentleman wears seems baroque. But I like to look at it in terms of rigor: the rigor of black and white; the rigor of the cuts, the sleeves, the apparently overwhelming fabric that has been measured. He looks dreamy in it.”
In a piece like this, from the 17th century in the Netherlands, we can find a source for a contemporary displacement; bringing back layers, making a piece that is at once rigorous and exuberant. What was once fashion can now be rebellion: and sometimes looking into the past, and not be limited by it, can be the greatest rebellion.”
This reflection, both poetic and conceptual, embodies Yamamoto’s enduring dialogue with history, craftsmanship, and the politics of form.
COPYISTS
In exceptional collaboration with the Musée du Louvre
From June 14, 2025, to February 2, 2026 – Gallery 3
Curators: Donatien Grau, Head of contemporary at the Louvre
Museum, and Chiara Parisi, director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ
1, parvis des Droits-de-l’Homme
CS 90490 – 57020 Metz
