Art Basel Paris lights up the Grand Palais with works by Picasso, Richter and Leonor Fini

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The sun-drenched Grand Palais helped elevate Art Basel Paris to much more than a trade fair on its first day on Wednesday, providing a commanding backdrop to this fine mix of historic and contemporary art. fair

Just a week after London’s Frieze fairs, comparisons were inevitable, and few places can compete favorably with the Grand Palais (although its glass roof made for a damp atmosphere). The two cities “are sisters, they complement each other,” said Jo Stella-Sawicka, senior director of Goodman Gallery, which sold early works by Alfredo Jaar, William Kentridge and Ghada Amer (up to $600,000). Art consultant Arianne Piper described each fair as “completely different”, explaining that “Frieze is, as it began, an avant-garde art fair; Art Basel Paris is even more of a classic fair now that at the Grand Palais”.

The French fair certainly has more 20th-century hits among its 195 galleries, including a Picasso from 1949 (Gagosian Gallery), two Gerhard Richter family paintings from 1966 (David Zwirner) and an Leonor Fini (Alison Jacques; a self-portrait on paper from 1949 sold). for €45,000). There are also some exciting emerging artists in their small Emergence section for 16 galleries, neatly placed around the first floor balcony. Highlights here include Lou Fauroux at Exo Exo (price range €3,000 to €30,000), Lungiswa Gqunta at Whatiftheworld (one work sold for around €25,000) and Bruno Zhu at What Pipeline (up to $35,000).

There were mixed reports on sales, with relatively slow activity, although White Cube’s $9.5 million sale of Julie Mehretu’s painting “Insile” (2013) topped the charts on the day of the inauguration Some galleries on the first floor behind the balcony had a rougher day with less visibility. However, most exhibitors were pleased by the strong presence of American collectors in particular. “The market is falling, as we all know,” said Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz. But he adds: “I’ve never been part of such an anticipated event.” The fair lasts until Sunday.

New this year in Paris is a fair organized by the US New Art Dealers Alliance and organized in collaboration with The Community, a project led by the curator. Called The Salon and held from October 17 to 20 in a former office building in the 10th arrondissement, the fair hosts 37 commercial contemporary art galleries and 15 non-profit spaces from around the world, with the largest cohort in New York. “Paris is very attractive to people right now,” said Heather Hubbs, executive director of Nada. An individual exhibition of the work of Pope.L, from his estate, called you are what you eat (prices up to $175,000) – jointly presented by 52 Walker and Mitchell-Innes & Nash of New York. “It costs a quarter of what it would cost (at Art Basel Paris) to be here 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 features a mix of 75 established and young galleries in a former telephone exchange (October 16-20). Its aim, to bring one or two artists to its spacious stands, is an attractive and raw alternative event. Of the city’s potentially competing new fair, Paris Internationale director Silvia Ammon says: “It’s exciting that Paris has become so desirable.” Among the new additions to this year’s fair is The Breeder in Athens, which pre-sold Maria Hassabi’s work (€23,000-€25,000).

Sotheby’s pulled out of the recent news of its high levels of debt to open this week in a bright new building on the corner of rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and avenue Matignon in Paris. Formerly home to the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, now closed for almost 100 years, the aim is “to be an auction house by 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 unsold exhibitions and a restaurant opening next month. A ‘lounge’ area blends in with the 8th arrondissement’s quiet luxury shops, with handbags, watches and jewelery on sale at set prices. At the opening, they included a 2024 Hermès alligator bag and a gold Birkin 20 priced at €111,600. “Millennial and Gen Z customers don’t always want to wait on the auction calendar, so there’s an opportunity to shop year-round,” says Ginoux.

The live auctions will be held in a ground floor sales room with tall windows facing the street. They begin with a sale of 26 lots “Surrealism and its legacy”, part of a week that is estimated to bring between 43 and 61 million euros.

Nika Project Space from Dubai is the latest to open in Paris’ burgeoning Komunuma art district in the northeastern suburb of Romainville. Komunuma means community in Esperanto and was created as a collaborative effort in 2019 by galleries such as Jocelyn Wolff and Air de Paris. The complex is located 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 area.

Veronika Berezina, who founded Nika Project Space last year, says she chose the area “for its sense of collaboration and creativity, similar to where we are on Al Khayat Avenue in Dubai.” The lower rents in the Paris suburbs “give us more freedom for bold programming,” he says. Its first show is by Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh, who uses food preservation processes as a metaphor for feelings of displacement (until October 27).

Berezina says 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 celebrates its fifth anniversary with a DJ-led “K-Night” on October 19, while Berezina also has a stand of Bamieh’s work at the Asia Now art fair in Paris this week (prices from up to €12,000).

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