Paul Olivennes

Paul Olivennes is an artistic director, exhibition curator, and publisher. He is the founder and artistic director of MAGMA, an artistic and editorial platform created in Paris in 2023, and develops projects with artists, museums, foundations, galleries, and cultural institutions internationally.

MAGMA is organized around a publishing program — an annual review and a series of artist editions — alongside exhibitions, performances, films, and public programs. Its publications have been developed with artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers including Elizabeth Peyton, Patti Smith, Sophie Calle, Charles Ray, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Lucas Arruda, Pol Taburet, Jonathan Glazer, among others, and present previously unpublished archives of René Char, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, or Agnès Varda, alongside a sustained engagement with emerging artists. MAGMA has developed institutional partnerships with the Centre Pompidou, the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection. Exhibitions include Archive of the Future (Paris, 2025) and the London presentation of Merry Alpern's Dirty Windows at TRAMPS; performances include a collaboration with Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection.

In parallel with MAGMA, Paul Olivennes produces exhibitions, cultural projects and commercial work. He writes critical and curatorial texts for artists and institutions — including essays for Carlotta Amanzi (Hauser & Wirth) and Elizabeth Peyton (David Zwirner). In 2024 he co-curated a performance by Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective at the Palazzo San Fedele in Milan, and art directed a campaign for Bottega Veneta.