By Night

By Night is a tribute to the eponymous exhibition held at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in 1996. In May 2025, the Fondation Cartier closed the doors of its iconic building on Boulevard Raspail in Paris, preparing to reopen — after a night lasting several months — in the new spaces designed by architect Jean Nouvel at 2 Place du Palais Royal. By Night offers a selection of works by artists from several continents, all of whom share a fascination with the night. The works in this selection express the creative emotion that the night inspires in their creators, whether it be wild nights, urban nights, celestial and starry nights, chimerical nights, sleepless nights, noctambulant nights, nights of waiting, nights of desire — all these nights captured through the artists’ eyes, in the silence and darkness of nature or the luminous chaos of cities. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness He called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." Book of Genesis.