Paul Ardenne (born 4 October 1956) is Professor of history at the University of Amiens, and is also an art critic and a curator in the field of contemporary art.

He grew up in a family of farmers from Charente (for a while he, too, worked in farming), he studied literature, history and philosophy at the University of Poitiers and University of Toulouse, before completing a doctorate in history of art with Laurence Bertrand Dorléac at the University of Paris I (Contemporary Fine Art – Forms and Constraints). In Paris, he encountered the future contemporary art curator, Ami Barak, as well as Catherine Millet, founder/director of Art Press and José Alvarez, director of the publishing label Regard three figures whose positions on aesthetics influenced his own views.