Admirez les tous ! Une exposition hommage à Pokémon

What better place than the Musée en Herbe — a fun, joyful, and intergenerational venue — to celebrate Pokémon's 30th anniversary?

) begin their visit with a return to the origins of the saga. Heading back to 1996: the birth of a global phenomenon, a true Pokémania that has brought together all generations for nearly thirty years.

The first part of the exhibition unfolds like an immersive time capsule, plunging visitors into the 1990s.

Here, you discover a portrait of its creator, Satoshi Tajiri, the very first Japanese and French cards, preparatory drawings for the animated series, as well as vintage booster packs and goodies that have become cult items.

Giant Game Boys will even allow visitors to replay the very first Pokémon games. The exhibition then explores the profound influence of Japanese culture on the Pokémon universe.

Yōkai masks, prints, and sculptures will interact with their equivalents from the game, revealing the close links between folklore, spirituality, and contemporary imagination.

Visitors can thus enjoy the resemblances between Ludicolo and the Kappa, Barbicha and the Namazu, or Tengalice and the Tengu.

Nods to art history also punctuate the journey: Alphonse Mucha, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch, and Vincent van Gogh have been subtly reinterpreted by Pokémon card illustrators. Their works will interact with these mischievous creatures in an unexpected play of mirrors.

The exhibition will also highlight contemporary artists who pay tribute to Japanese pop culture and the Pokémon universe, underscoring how porous the boundaries between art, video games, and popular culture have become.

Takashi Murakami is one of the most emblematic examples; Jean-Michel Basquiat already paid homage to Gigantor in the early 1980s. Finally, the journey concludes with a selection of works showing how the Pokémon imagination continues to inspire contemporary creation.

Daniel Arsham, Katherine Bernhardt, Brusk, H