Didier Fusillier to Lead Grand Palais in Paris

Didier Fusillier has been named the new president of Paris’s Grand Palais, the vast, historic glass-and-steel complex of exhibition spaces overseen by the French government body Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais (RMN-GP). Fusillier will succeed Chris Dercon, who exited the position last October to helm the Fondation Cartier, also in Paris, and who sparked somecontroversylast January by giving the October slot at the venue—for forty-seven years occupied by the FIAC fair—to the new Paris+ par Art Basel. Fusillier was previously president of the Public Establishment of the Park and the Great Hall of La Villette, a role he first took on in 2015 and again in 2020. Before that, Fusillier was the longtime director of the Maison des arts de Créteil (MAC), where he founded Lille 3000, a citywide arts triennial. At the Grand Palais, Fusillier has his work cut out for him; in addition to attracting a broader and younger audience, he has been tasked with managing a deficit at the RMN-GP of €8 million (about $8.6 million) and with steering the palace’s restoration in the run-up to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

He will also collaborate closely with the Centre Pompidou, which plans to temporarily migrate some of its collection to six of the Grand Palais’s galleries while Pompidou’s main site undergoes extensive renovations from 2025 to 2030..