Group shows included artists such as Philippe Parreno (1995), Franz West (1995), Sadie Benning (1995), Fischli & Weiss (1996), Mike Kelley (1996), Paul McCarthy (1996), Ugo Rondinone (1996), Matthew Ritchie (1997), Pavel Pepperstein (1999), and Robert McCollum (1999).
[1] From 2000 to 2006, Wahler ran the Swiss Institute in New York and curated large projects with artists such as Christoph Büchel, Jim Shaw, Ugo Rondinone, Valentin Carron, Urs Fischer, Takashi Murakami, Martin Creed, and Aleksandra Mir.
Wahler is known for creating a museum that breaks down barriers between high and low culture and different artistic mediums (such as architecture, fine arts, dance, literature, theatre, and music).
The solo shows have included such artists as Tatiana Trouvé, Peter Coffin, Steven Parrino, Jonathan Monk, Roman Signer, Christoph Büchel, Paul Laffoley, Joe Coleman, Loris Gréaud, Charlotte Posenenske, Micol Assael, Ceal Floyer, Michel Blazy, Ulla von Brandenburg, Camille Henrot, and Oscar Tuazon.
His later group shows dealt with the limits between what is visible and invisible: M, News From the Upside-Down]' (2007), La Marque Noire (2007), Superdome (2008), Gakona (2009), and Spy Numbers (2009).
[7] Wahler is the founder and director of a new structure, The Chalet Society, designed to encourage reflection on contemporary art institutions and to investigate new possibilities for exhibitions by testing forms, spaces, discourses, and protocols.
He only reigned for one night but had enough time to pronounce a number of predictions and appeal for the dawn of “poetic consciousness.” Launched in October 2012 in a pop-up site – a disused school in the heart of Paris – the Chalet Society presented a variety of extraordinary self-taught or unknown artists in collaboration with the Museum of Everything.
Shaw collected over the past 40 years diverse didactic material, creating “a breathtaking and expansive journey through the myths and beliefs of America.”[10] During his tenure as director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing (2016–2019), Marc-Olivier Wahler developed an exhibition program of solo and group presentations.
He presented long-anticipated projects, such as retrospectives of Michel Parmentier, as well as Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley; he curated the acclaimed group exhibition The Transported Man, where seminal artists such as Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Robert Gober, Anna Maria Maiolino, Charlotte Posenenske, and Paul Thek were in conversation with emerging artists, highlighting meaningful connections between historical and current art forms.