Paris+ par Art Basel, the ‘youngest’ of the Art Basel fairs, follows a different format, offering an overview on man-made culture – fashion, art, cinema, music, design – and nature
PARIS+ par Art Basel at its second edition in October 2023
After holding its Swiss edition in June 2023, international contemporary art fair Art Basel is ready to open doors in Paris. Inaugurated in October 2022, Paris+ par Art Basel is the ‘youngest’ of the Art Basel fairs and follows a different format. Considered to be one of the epicenters of the international cultural scene, the French capital was chosen by Art Basel to offer a focus on fashion, art, cinema, music, and design.
This year Paris+ par Art Basel will be open to the public from 20 to 22 October at Grand Palais Éphémère, temporary venue of the Grand Palais, which is currently being restored and is expected to be reopened in 2024. In addition, there will be an extension on the Champ de Mars.
Galeries and Émergentes, – Galleries at Art Basel Paris+, two sectors with an international soul and a French core
The fair will be split into two sectors, Galeries and Émergentes. The former will host a selection of international galleries specialized in modern and contemporary art, which will showcase paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photography, video, and digital art. The latter will gather exhibitors presenting young and emerging artists through solo shows, with Groupe Galeries Lafayette as official partner.
For over a century the group has been supporting the art scenes, both emerging and confirmed in all sectors of creation. It commissions works to artists for in-store events and created arts-focused foundation Lafayette Anticipations. During the fair Galeries Lafayette awards every year an artist from the Émergentes sector. Chosen by an international jury, the artist will produce a new piece to exhibit at Lafayette Anticipations the following year.
Collectively, the two sectors will feature a hundred and fifty-four galleries from thirty-three different countries, thus reconfirming the international imprint already shown the previous year. Still, Paris+ par Art Basel will also stay faithful to its French roots, as among the galleries fifty-eight have spaces in France and thirty are only French.
Some established, emerging, and growing names in the arts sector at PARIS+ par Art Basel 2023
Among the hundred and forty galleries featured in the Galeries sector are international established names such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, Massimo De Carlo, Paula Cooper, Marian Goodman Gallery, David Kordansky Gallery, Galerie Lelong & Co., LGDR, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Thaddaeus Ropac and White Cube.
This year the main sector will also include four galleries that took part in the previous fair edition as emerging: Antenna Space, Galerie Anne Barrault, Carlos/Ishikawa and Edouard Montassut. It will be the first time at Paris+ par Art Basel for Bortolami, Kurimanzutto, Jan Mot and P.P.O.W.
The Émergentes sector will have fourteen spaces, with names such as Bank, Lyles & King, Marfa’, Seventeen, Parliament and Sans Titre. For some of them – such as Fanta-MLN, Felix Gaudlitz and Gianni Manhattan – this will be the first time ever at an Art Basel fair.
Paris plus turns the city center of the French capital into an open-air venue
As already seen in the previous edition, Paris+ par Art Basel will turn the French capital into an open-air venue for its public program. Free and open to all, the program consists in an artistic activation in various emblematic locations of the city.
This year works will be presented in five locations: in the Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine National du Louvre, on Place Vendôme, in the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris, in the Palais d’Iéna, and on the parvis de l’Institut de France.
La Cinquième Saison explores garden as a space of activity and cohabitation at PARIS+ par Art Basel 2023 – the inclusion of man within nature
La Cinquième Saison is an exhibition of public artworks that will be displayed at the Tuileries Garden. Organized in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, it is curated for the second year by Annabelle Ténèze, Director of Les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse and incoming Director of the Louvre-Lens Museum. The exhibition derives inspiration from the 2022 show, La Suite de l’Histoire, and explores garden as a mineral, aquatic, and vegetal space of activity and cohabitation.
The artworks on view dialogue with the surroundings and their inhabitants, from plants and flowing water to strolling visitors and animals. The exhibition promotes a reflection on how human beings can renegotiate their relationship to nature and inclusion within it, and get rid of anthropocentric and dominative dynamics.
A wave submerges Place Vendôme to question materiality, scale, and contextual ambiguity
Place Vendôme, one of the most iconic Paris squares, will welcome Wave, a five-meter-high aluminum sculpture, based on a mound of clay. Created by Urs Fischer and presented by Gagosian, the sculpture reflects the Swiss artist’s interest in materiality, scale, and contextual ambiguity.
The mound of clay upon which the aluminum wave is located still bears the marks of Fischer’s hands. These tactile details invite visitors to consider the relation between the sculpture’s model, which the artist pressed, kneaded, and squeezed with his own hands, and its monumental scale. Fischer likes to play with scale distortions, illusion, and juxtaposition to disorient and bewilder the viewer. At the same time, he uses natural figures to explore themes of perception and representation, while challenging traditional art values and pushing material to their extremes. He believes that landscape is very elementary, but that every object composing it has its own expression and they all together build a big picture, making life precious.
A multidisciplinary journey across man-made culture and nature at Paris plus 2023
The Seventeenth century chapel of Paris’ Fine Arts academy will host a multidisciplinary exhibition that aims at exploring the overlap between man-made culture and nature. Created by Jessica Warboys and presented by Gaudel de Stampa, it will combine a multichannel video and sound installation with a collage of unstretched paintings. To make these the British artist brushes the canvas with beeswax, immerses it in wild bodies of water, and then sprinkles it with mineral pigments on the shores.
Her video work, entitled This tail grows among ruins, stages the journey of a candle through various sites where nature and culture intersect, from the Biblioteca Joanina in Coimbra, Portugal, to the pine forest surrounding the Arvo Pärt Center in Laulasmaa, Estonia. The soundtrack was composed by Morten Norbye using the amplified sounds of bats, who inhabit the Biblioteca Joanina and protect its manuscripts from insects. Nature is often at the center of Warboys’ creation, since the artist sees it as both a coworker and an inspiration.
Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto face to face at Palais d’Iéna during Paris+ par Art Basel
Palais d’Iéna is a former museum designed by Auguste Perret and entirely built-in reinforced concrete for the 1937 Paris World Fair. During Paris+ par Art Basel it will display a duo exhibition by Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto. The project is designed by art historian and curator Matthieu Poirier, specialized in abstract art, and supported by Galleria Continua.
Sheila Hicks makes sustainability colorful and dialogues with Paris’ grandeur
American artist Sheila Hicks has been living and working in Paris since 1964. She is renowned for creating installations predominantly made of fabric, a material she considers a source of inspiration and an antidote to traditional artistic classifications. These principles are also at the base of Vers des horizons nouveaux, a monumental sculpture that will be located in front of the Pont des Arts and the Institut de France. The project is presented by Galerie Frank Elbaz together with Meyer Riegger and Massimo Minini.
The sculpture is a six-meters-high column covered in strands of sustainable, waterproof textile. The fabrics are multicolor and will be put in dialogue with the surrounding buildings, with their muted tones typical of Paris’ historical architecture. The bond between textiles and cityscape, which the artist thus creates, will remind viewers that those materials are a constant in their lives. From clothes to furniture, from interior decoration to painting canvas, fabric is versatile, can take different forms and live multiple lives by being reused.
Conversations at Art Basel – the Paris edition 2023: investigating contemporary cultural discourse with the Centre Pompidou
Paris+ par Art Basel will also share a talk program, Conversations. Realized by curators and writers Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, the program will be hosted by and presented in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, in the Marais quarter.
This year Conversations will include nine talks aimed at investigating contemporary cultural discourse. The program will pay a tribute to avant-garde figures such as Chantal Akerman, Belgian film director, screenwriter and artist, and Antonin Artaud, French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor, and theatre director. There will be an inquiry of the intersection between art collecting and fashion. Contemporary myths, from the Walt Disney Studios to drag culture, will be analyzed. Connections between Paris, the Maghreb and the Caribbean are to be retraced and discussed. Moreover, the Paris event will feature formats from other Art Basel’s Conversations programs, such as the Premiere Artist Talk, and The Artist and The Collector.
PARIS+ par Art Basel
PARIS+ par Art Basel is the French edition of the international contemporary art fair Art Basel. From 20 to 22 October 2023 the fair will run its second edition. With a different format from the other Art Basel fairs, the Paris event combines indoor exhibitions of established and emerging artists with open-air installations scattered across the city center.
The fair main venue, divided into two sectors, Galeries and Émergentes, will be located at Grand Palais Éphémère, with an extension to the Champ de Mars. The public program this year will involve the Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine National du Louvre, Place Vendôme, the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris, the Palais d’Iéna, and the parvis de l’Institut de France. Moreover, a series of talks will be held in and in cooperation with the Centre Pompidou.
