Exhibitions

What’s on at the moment

Gen Z

19.09.2025 – 01.02.2026

Twenty years after opening its doors to emerging photographers with the landmark exhibition reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Photo Elysée reaffirms its commitment to supporting young talent with Gen Z: Shaping a New Gaze.

This new exhibition brings together the work of 66 international artists, primarily from Generation Z – broadly defined as those born between the mid-1990s and 2010 – to explore the concerns of this generation.

L is for Look

19.09.2025 – 01.02.2026

Co-produced by the Institut pour la photographie in Lille and Photo Elysée, L is for Look explores children’s photo books, from their industrial boom in the 1930s to the present day. Although this type of publication remains marginal in the publishing landscape, it bears witness to the evolution of our perception of photography, the history of education, and the status of children in Western societies over more than a century.

Children’s photobooks have benefited from the emergence of new image-centered teaching methods. Photography is finding its way into all areas of children’s literature, from picture books to fiction, including works with educational, pedagogical, or creative aims. By renewing this publishing genre, it is also opening up to new and original forms, thanks to the collaboration of graphic designers, artists, illustrators, and authors.

Giulia Essyad. Prix Gustave Buchet

12.09.2025 – 11.01.2026

Inspired by the architecture of transitional spaces, Giulia Essyad transforms the MCBA’s Espace Projet gallery into a sensory and spiritual labyrinth. Recipient of the 9th Gustave Buchet Prize, the Lausanne-born artist explores the mechanisms of desire and commodification through an immersive installation that weaves together DIY technologies, digital imagery, and personal memories.

The Collection

Permanent presentation

« Come and see here what you won’t see elsewhere! » is the slogan for the permanent exhibition, laid out chronologically over two floors to showcase treasures from Vaud’s art collections, with some three hundred works dating from the eighteenth century to the present day.

 

Other exhibitions

Encounter iced sound 2.0

MUSICAL PAVILION

Ramon Landolt and Caterina Viguera
Encounter Iced Sound 2.0

Plateforme10, 18.09 – 10.10.2024

(Access closes from 4 October)

An urban pavilion for listening to the music of glaciers. A harmonious collaboration between a musician and an architect. A work that brings beauty to disappearing glaciers.
This immersive installation offers a unique experience: listening to the music of glaciers in a specially designed urban pavilion. Using recordings of the sounds of disappearing glaciers, Landolt composes a work combining electronic music and natural sounds, creating a symphony dedicated to the fragility of our environment. Viguera has designed a triangular wooden pavilion, open to natural light, to provide a listening space where these sounds mingle with urban noise, symbolising the dialogue between nature and urbanisation.
Project as part of the exhibition Regarder le glacier s’en aller www.artforglaciers.ch

 

Isabelle Tanner x Naturéum - Ante Ceramicum

ISABELLE TANNER X NATURÉUM – ANTE CERAMICUM

Opening: 15 November

Echoing the Naturéum’s ‘Spécimens 24’ exhibition

Ceramist Isabelle Tanner is taking over the Le Signal L space at Plateforme 10 with a proposal from Naturéum and mudac.
Between split and fired stones or recomposed segments of land, Isabelle Tanner invites us to compare wild rock and ceramic art.
Metamorphism and issues relating to global warming are at the heart of this work.

Ceramic day: 19 January

Free admission. From 15 November to 16 February 2025.

Open Wednesday to Monday, 10am to 6pm (until 8pm on Thursdays).

Upcoming shows

Vallotton Forever. The Retrospective

24.10.2025 – 15.02.2026

Lausanne, the birthplace of the artist Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), is hosting the largest retrospective of his work ever, a tribute marking the centennial of his death. Part of the Plateforme 10 arts district, the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA), home a very important collection of Vallotton’s output, and the Fondation Félix Vallotton, a centre for documentation and research, are taking a novel approach to an artist known for his lucid mind, critical spirit, and biting humour.

Vallotton. The Ingenious Laboratory

24.10.2025 – 15.02.2026

In conjunction with Vallotton Forever, featuring the artist’s masterpieces, this small-format show focuses on the origins of Félix Vallotton’s work, exploring the various phases of his growing output in a surprising range of mediums, including illustration, engraving, painting, even writing.

Lehnert & Landrock

31.10.2025 – 01.02.2026

Photo Elysée offers a critical reinterpretation of the photographic archives of the Lehnert & Landrock studio, which have been part of the museum’s collection since 1985. Active in North Africa in the early 20th century, Rudolf Franz Lehnert (1878–1948) and Ernst Heinrich Landrock (1878–1966) constructed and disseminated an iconography of the Orient intended for a European audience, deeply marked by the colonial context of their time.

The original archives are exhibited alongside contemporary works by Nouf Aljowaysir and Gloria Oyarzabal, which explore the history and legacy of colonial representations.

Times in Tapestry

07.11.2025 – 08.03.2026

mudac and Fondation Toms Pauli are proud to present an exceptional exhibition dedicated to tapestry as a vector for social and political discourse.

Les Monstrueuses

07.11.2025 – 22.03.2026

In 2025, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts of the City of Lausanne (mudac) will give Swiss designer Kévin Germanier carte blanche to take over the museum with the same originality and creativity that have characterised his approach to fashion for several years.

Otobong Nkanga. I dreamt of you in colours

03.04 – 23.08.2026

MCBA, in collaboration with the Musée d’Art moderne, Paris, is presenting a major exhibition devoted to the work of Otobong Nkanga. Conceived in collaboration with the artist, it will run from 10 October 2025 to 23 February 2026 in Paris, then from 3 April to 23 August 2026 in Lausanne.