2023-10-20 13:22:16
In France, the highest terror alert level applies again after the fatal knife attack on the French teacher Dominique Bernard on October 13, 2023. Almost exactly three years to the day after the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, President Emmanuel Macron blamed “Islamist terrorism” for the attack in Arras, northern France.
Thousands of soldiers were then sent out on patrol across the country to protect city centers and tourist attractions. On October 14, 2023, the Louvre in Paris and the Palace of Versailles were evacuated because the museums received a written bomb threat. A few days later, six French airports were evacuated after email threats.
The increased security precautions in the Grand Palais Éphémère on Paris’ Field of Mars seem appropriate. Around the temporary tent construction, in which until Sunday, October 22nd, 2023, the Art fair “Paris+ par Art Basel” is running, impact protection barriers are intended to protect against an attack. All visitors must open their bags and flank metal detectors. A few meters further on, however, there is no longer any sign of a threat. The global crises, the ongoing war in Ukraine, Hamas’ terror against Israel seem to have been ignored.
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Justification of terror
While Art Basel in Basel opened with a video artwork of a burning ship, which could only be read as a political statement, in this Paris edition one looks in vain for comments that break open the aesthetic sphere of art appreciation. At best, Galerie Neu has an installation at its stand asking the question: “Is Freedom Therapeutic?” However, the conceptual artist Claire Fontaine has been asking this question for many years and the answer is more than ever: Obviously not!
Second Paris+ started successfully
Shortly before the start of the fair, Noah Horowitz, the CEO of Art Basel, wrote a letter to Paris+ visitors as “members of a global cultural community” whose “essential values are humanity, mutual respect and dialogue,” condemning Hamas. Terror. “The humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is worrying,” he says in an interview with this newspaper, “working in the world of culture is even more a privilege,” even if it is “isolated to a certain extent.” The fact that his trade fair, which is really about bringing people together, started off full of energy against this background also makes him hopeful.
Painting by George Condo at the Hauser & Wirth gallery stand
What: AFP
In this sense, Art Basel is certainly a social phenomenon, but first and foremost it is an international multi-million dollar business with its own rules. And in Paris you got the impression that this world was still okay. Collectors from France and Europe, but also from overseas, traveled to Paris in large numbers. Customers in particular came from the United States of America and Asia, who make the trade in contemporary art a high-speed business. Gallerists and trade fair organizers confirm this almost with some surprise.
Millions in sales at the “second most important art fair”
Already on the afternoon of the first day of sales, the industry’s mega players were overwhelmed with euphoric reports of completion. The David Zwirner gallery from New York announced that it had sold works of art for $20 million, including a painting of flowers and birds by Kerry James Marshall, who is otherwise known for heavier fare. The gallery owner immediately declared Paris+ to be the “second most important art fair after Art Basel in Basel”.
Zurich gallery Hauser & Wirth, which also just opened its new branch with a Henry Taylor exhibition in Paris, reported sales of more than $12 million, led by a neo-Cubist portrait of a woman by George Condo. Salzburg’s Thaddaeus Ropac was at around $5 million on the first day, with an early Rauschenberg in the lead. And the Paris top dog Mennour scratched the 3.5 million mark. Many of these powerful deals were probably initiated in advance, but are now contributing to the trade fair’s reputation.
Eric Fischl’s painting “Last Look Mirror” was on sale at Skarstedtim Gallery
Quelle: © Eric Fischl/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt, New York
However, the successes do not hide the fact that 2023 is a transition year for the second Paris+. Only founded in 2022, it replaced the traditional Fiac trade fair. In 2024 it will move to the renovated Grand Palais, which many consider to be the most beautiful venue for an art fair. Then at the latest it will become clear whether she has developed her own identity in the Art Basel quartet (in addition to Basel, also in Hong Kong and Miami Beach).
Around Rothko
This year, many traders sought to join forces with the private institutions that are very influential in Paris. The various foundations of private collectors and companies are naturally more closely linked to the art trade than public museums. Mark Rothko’s spectacular retrospective is taking place at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. More than 100 works from all creative periods can be seen in the Frank Gehry Building in the Bois de Boulogne.
She impressively shows the painterly class of the great American abstract. And also the value that lies in this entire work. The pictures there are mostly on loan from museums and therefore not for sale. But there are also works in private hands and the artist’s estate. And that’s what New York’s Pace Gallery is working with, showing a homage to Rothko at its curated exhibition stand. In the center is a yellow-orange-red painting by Mark Rothko himself – price on request: 40 million dollars.
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The figurative and very narrative American painter Dana Schutz is being honored at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris – the exhibition is supported by Galerie Zwirner, which successfully sold one of her paintings at Paris+ (for $850,000). The architecturally ambitious Lafayette Anticipations showroom in the Marais district is showing an exhibition by the 30-year-old, currently very popular, representational painter Issy Wood. She will be represented at the trade fair by Michael Werner.
In the program of Paris+: Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto in the Palais d’Iéna
Quelle: Courtesy of Paris+ by Art Basel
Such monographic exhibitions by contemporary artists are hardly possible without the support of their dealers. The brilliant exhibition program in Paris (including Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Palais d’Iena, Mike Kelley at the Bourse de Commerce, Kehinde Wiley at the Musée du Quai Branly, Sophie Calle at the Musée Picasso) reflects this mutually fruitful collaboration .
You can see a lot of blue-chip art at Paris+, right at the entrance, where the big galleries have to make do with exhibition booths that are far too small. Discoveries (few) are more likely to be found in the back tent of the Grand Palais Éphémère. Barbara Wien from Berlin, for example, reveals a fine overview of her conceptual program, including a piece of underwater power cable turned into a sculpture by Nina Canell, the poetic video “Sea and Flowers”, in which Shimabuku releases flowers into the water, but also surprising graphics by Éric Baudelaire, who show how artificial intelligence can be brought together with the technique of etching, which is almost forgotten in contemporary art (3500 euros).
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Parliament from Paris presents the ceramic artist Charlotte Dualé in a solo show. The artist, who lives in Berlin, overcomes the boundaries between fine arts, design and crafts, which have always been more permeable in France than elsewhere. Fitzpatrick from Paris sold an LED sculpture by Mathis Altmann to a foundation for 20,000 euros and a painting by Arthur Marie to a private collector for 15,000 euros.
Among the “Galéries émergentes” supported by lower stand rents, Seventeen from London impresses with a mysterious video and sound installation by Joey Holder. The young gallery shows a mysterious video and sound installation by Joey Holder.
Joey Holder, „Daphnia“, 2023, bei Seventeen Gallery
Quelle: © Joey Holder/Courtesy Seventeen Gallery
It tells about “cryptids”, fictional or perhaps not so fictional creatures and life forms. The glittering images and sounding Tetrapak installations by Tromarama ($3,500 to $12,000) at the Chicago-based Document Gallery are also Technoid.
The most up-to-date associative contribution comes from the Dvir Gallery from Tel Aviv. It’s not a comment on the current situation in Israel, says the gallery owner, but you can interpret the trade fair stand like this: On the walls hang burnt and punctured canvases by Douglas Gordon, on which light-hearted, frivolous scenes from softcore magazines are barely visible, but also Traces of religious illustrations. In between there are sculptures by Bri Williams, they are toy horses like from an old-fashioned children’s carousel, now overturned, half-destroyed and strangely homeless.
Works by Douglas Gordon and Bri Williams at the Dvir Gallery booth
Those: Photo: Sebastiano Pellion from Persano
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