This Saturday, June 6th, Paris celebrates its Nuit Blanche 2026, with DJ and queer personality Barbara Butch, who also participated in the 2022 edition, as artistic director. This year, she is responsible for the entire program, from selecting the artists to the performances taking place throughout the city's arrondissements, continuing until the early hours. The chosen theme is love, "a universal subject, the best way to connect with others," as she told HuffPost. The poster for this year's event, designed by the duo Pierre et Gilles, depicts her at the center of a rainbow heart. The launch takes place on the plaza in front of City Hall at 19 pm, with a free DJ set lasting nearly three hours, followed by a giant video mapping projection that transforms the monument into a beating heart until 3 am. From 17 pm to midnight, trucks will roam Paris, displaying declarations of love filmed by members of the public.
A rich program, persistent tensions
The night's program included a shimmering pixel installation by Mathias Kiss at the Petit Palais, a gigantic floating heart by Milosh Łuczyński at the Grand Palais, the Château-Landon swimming pool transformed into a mythological landscape by Annette Messager, a luminous architecture by Marinella Senatore in Place Stalingrad inspired by the Luminarie of southern Italy, and a reinterpretation of Ravel's Boléro by choreographer Olivier Dubois with 50 dancers at the Carreau du Temple. But Barbara Butch's start in her new role has not been without its challenges. Following the announcement of her appointment, she was once again targeted by a homophobic and fatphobic hate campaign on social media, which the City of Paris reported to the public prosecutor. Five men are also on trial for cyberbullying after her performance at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, with prison sentences being sought. "I'm a target right now," she told HuffPost. On another front, elected officials from the La France Insoumise (LFI) party in Isère are calling for a cultural boycott of the artist and his removal from the Cabaret Frappé festival program in Grenoble, notably because of his signing of an open letter supporting the Yadan Law, controversial for its potential impact on freedom of expression regarding criticism of Israel, and his planned trip to Tel Aviv in June 2025. The mayor of Grenoble says she wants to guarantee "freedom of expression and the autonomy of cultural programmers." Barbara Butch, for her part, focuses on the essentials: "My ambition is to create something on June 6th. And above all, to make sure we talk about the invited artists because they are the ones who should be in the spotlight."
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