Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The sun-filled Grand Palais helped elevate Art Basel Paris to much more than a trade fair for its first day there on Wednesday, providing an imposing backdrop to this fair’s mix of good-quality historic and contemporary art.
Coming just one week after London’s Frieze fairs, comparisons were inevitable — and few venues can compete favourably with the Grand Palais (although its glass roof made for a humid environment). The two cities “are siblings, they complement each other”, said Jo Stella-Sawicka, senior director at Goodman Gallery, which made early sales of work by Alfredo Jaar, William Kentridge and Ghada Amer (up to $600,000). Art adviser Arianne Piper described each fair as “totally different”, explaining that “Frieze is, as it started out, a fair for cutting-edge art; Art Basel Paris is even more of a classic fair now it is in the Grand Palais.”
The French fair certainly has more 20th-century hits among its 195 galleries, including a 1949 Picasso (Gagosian Gallery), two 1966 Gerhard Richter family paintings (David Zwirner) and a Leonor Fini (Alison Jacques; a 1949 self-portrait on paper sold for €45,000). There are also some exciting up-and-coming artists in its small Emergence section for 16 galleries, well-placed around the first-floor balcony. Highlights here include Lou Fauroux at Exo Exo (price range €3,000-€30,000), Lungiswa Gqunta at Whatiftheworld (one work sold for about €25,000) and Bruno Zhu at What Pipeline (up to $35,000).
There were mixed reports sales-wise, with activity relatively slow, although White Cube’s $9.5mn sale of Julie Mehretu’s painting “Insile” (2013) topped the charts on opening day. Some galleries on the first floor behind the balcony had a tougher day with less visibility. Nonetheless, most exhibitors were pleased by a strong presence of US collectors in particular. “The market is down, as we all know,” said Art Basel chief executive Noah Horowitz. But he adds: “I have never been part of an event that has been this anticipated.” The fair runs until Sunday.
New this year in Paris is a fair brought by the US New Art Dealers Alliance and organised in partnership with The Community, a curator-led project. Called The Salon and running from October 17-20 in a former office building in the 10th arrondissement, the fair hosts 37 commercial contemporary art galleries and 15 non-profit spaces from across the world, with the largest cohort from New York. “Paris is very attractive to people right now,” said Heather Hubbs, executive director of Nada. Highlights include a solo showing of work by Pope.L, from his estate, called You Are What You Eat (prices up to $175,000) — co-presented by New York’s 52 Walker and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. “Being here costs a quarter of what it would [at Art Basel Paris] so we can create a real project,” says gallery co-founder Lucy Mitchell-Innes.
The new fair joins the nearby, 10-year-old Paris Internationale, which has a mix of 75 established and young galleries in a former telephone exchange (October 16-20). Its brief — to bring either one or two artists to its spacious booths — makes for a good-looking, raw alternative event. Of the potentially competing new fair in town, Paris Internationale director Silvia Ammon says: “It is exciting that Paris has become so desirable.” Among the new joiners to her fair this year is The Breeder from Athens, which made early sales of work by Maria Hassabi (€23,000-€25,000).
Sotheby’s shook off recent news of its high debt levels to open in a new, light-filled building on the corner of rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and Avenue Matignon in Paris this week. Previously home to the now-shuttered Bernheim-Jeune gallery for nearly 100 years, the aim is “to be an auction house for 2024”, says Marie-Anne Ginoux, managing director of Sotheby’s Paris.
As such, the renovated building offers more experiential potential, including a wine cellar for tastings, galleries for non-selling exhibitions and a restaurant to open next month. A “salon” area fits with the hushed luxury shops of the 8th arrondissement, with handbags, watches and jewellery for sale at fixed prices. At the opening, these included a 2024 Hermès alligator and gold Birkin 20 bag priced at €111,600. “Millennial and Gen Z clients don’t always want to wait for the auction calendar, so there’s an opportunity to buy all year round,” Ginoux says.
Live auctions will be held in a ground-floor saleroom with high windows looking on to the street. They kick off with a 26-lot “Surrealism and its Legacy” sale, part of a week estimated to bring in between €43mn-€61mn.
Dubai’s Nika Project Space is the latest to open in Paris’s growing Komunuma art district, in the north-eastern suburb of Romainville. Komunuma means community in Esperanto, and was created as a collaborative effort in 2019 by galleries including Jocelyn Wolff and Air de Paris. The complex is in a former factory developed by Groupe Fiminco, which also runs its own private art foundation on the site, and there are now eight commercial galleries in the zone.
Veronika Berezina, who founded Nika Project Space last year, says she chose the area “because of its collaborative and creative feel, similar to where we are in the Al Khayat Avenue in Dubai”. The lower rents of the Paris suburbs “give us more freedom for bold programming”, she says. Her first show is of Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh, who uses the processes of food preservation as a metaphor for feelings of displacement (until October 27).
Berezina says that the aligned openings of the Komunuma galleries, which are an hour’s Metro ride from central Paris, help bring in “art professionals, curators and the international community”. The area marks its fifth anniversary with a DJ’d “K-Night” on October 19 while Berezina also has a booth of Bamieh’s work at the Asia Now art fair in Paris this week (prices up to €12,000).
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
