Paris+ Art Basel brings together French roots this year

The second edition of Paris+ by Art Basel embraced its French essence. Basel's newest project came at the most unexpected moment. The second exhibition focuses on its location.

Paris+ par Art Basel debuted last summer at the Grand Palais Ephemera. This year, the fair has expanded its program for the public.

After the worst of the Covid pandemic, it wouldn't surprise anyone if art fairs simply survived into 2022.

There has been a strong expansion instead, with two new exhibitors from the biggest brands in the field, Frieze Seoul and Paris+ by Art Basel.

Art fair with a new vigor

"I thought there would be consolidation," said dealer David Zwirner. "To the surprise of everyone, the art fair model is back with renewed vigor. "

He added: "I was 100 percent wrong. "

Mr. Zwirner, who has 11 galleries around the world, including the Paris space he opened in 2019, will be featured at the second Paris+ exhibition this week, Friday through Sunday. In addition to him, 153 other dealers will be represented at the Grand Palais Ephemera, due to the restoration of the Grand Palais a temporary replacement.

Since he will be attending 16 different fairs around the world this year, Mr. Zwirner pays a lot of attention to the differences between them.

"In my opinion, a fair is successful if it supports different price categories, and that's one of the beauties of the Art Basel franchise," he said, comparing it to a fair that was considered France's leading event in the field, the International Fair for Contemporary Art, or FIAC, founded in 1974.

"FIAC did not support high price points," he said, noting that the fair, as a group event, has its own special energy.

"We all interact with each other," Mr. Zwirner said.

Amphasis on figurative works and portraits

His Paris+ presentation this year will emphasize figurative works and portraits, including new paintings by American artists Lisa Yuskavage, Elizabeth Peyton and Kerry James Marshall. Mr. Marshall's "Black and Partly Black Birds in America: (Magpies and Baltimore Orioles)" (2023) is part of a series on race in the context of John James Audubon's classic The Birds of America.

Unique features of Paris+

Max Eduard Hetzler of the Max Hetzler Gallery noted that there was consistent interest from collectors at last year's Paris+ exhibition; usually the most significant transactions occur during the preview for VIP visitors.

Mr. Hetzler, whose father Max founded the gallery that now has spaces in Berlin, Paris, London and Marfa, Texas, will show, among other works, the painting "Masquerra of Beauty" (2023) by Gulia Andreani.

The management of Art Basel is also very attentive to the differentiation of its events, given that the brand also organizes fairs in Miami Beach, Hong Kong and in their original location, Basel, Switzerland.

"The offerings should be different and distinctive," said Noah Horowitz, Art Basel's executive director, especially considering the Basel event was held in June, not far from Paris.

This year's Paris+ will have just over half the number of dealers than the Basel fair, though the number of galleries will increase slightly when the event moves to the Grand Palais, which is scheduled for 2024.

"There is a difference in scale between the events, and this guarantees the"We're going to see more of this than at a regular fair," Mr. Horowitz said, pointing to Blum & Poe Gallery of Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo, which will present a solo exhibition of sculptures by self-taught artist Lonnie Holley.

Clement Delepin, director of Paris+, noted another trend among the booths in the Emerging Galleries section for emerging artists.

"I see a lot of large scale video installations based on video games and computer graphics or graphics created by artificial intelligence," he said. An example is Shanghai-based Bank Gallery, which will present a new video by Chinese artist Lu Yang.

Local character and community programs

Organizers also emphasize the local nature of the event. "We want the fair to feel French," Mr. Horowitz said.

He mentioned two Paris dealers, Galerie Anne Barrault and Edouard Montassue. Last year they exhibited in the Emerging Galleries section, and this year they moved to the Galleries section, for the major players in the art world.

The goal of incorporating local flavor is promoted through the fair's public program. "The fair is very much dependent on the context of the city," Mr. Delepin said.

Paris+ has expanded its program for the public and will include an outdoor exhibition in the Tuileries Garden, one of the city's most famous public spaces, dedicated to nature called "The Fifth Season." This exhibition has been co-organized with the Louvre and will include the sculpture Five Marble Leaves (2023) by Swiss artist Claudia Comte.

The Conversations public conversation program will be held at the Pompidou Center this year. A panel discussion, "10 Things You Need to Know About Buying Art in 2023," is scheduled for Thursday.

"Last year, it was held on a boat docked on the Seine," Mr. Delepin said of Conversations, adding that despite the view of the Eiffel Tower, the location was uncomfortable.

Unique works at the fair

One of the local dealers represented at the fair, Galerie 1900-2000, has been in the same space in the 6th arrondissement, on the Left Bank of Paris, since 1981.

One of the owners, David Fleiss, said last year's Paris+ was "incredible because it attracted a new audience of really serious collectors".

This cannot be attributed to the city's appeal alone. "It's also because of Brexit," Mr. Fleiss said, referring to Britain's exit from the European Union in 2020. "Some collectors have left London. "

The 1900-2000 Gallery, which also has space in New York, specializes in surrealism, a movement that favored a stacked salon-style presentation of works. That's why Mr. Fleiss is doing what he's doing. "We like a crowded booth," he said. - "We're filling it completely, just like they did. "

One of the 60 works on display will be a photomontage book by Claude Kahn (1894-1954), a French artist who worked in photography, sculpture and other media, with four original drawings.

Mr. Fleiss said the book "Aveux non avenus" ("Deniable Confessions") (1930) is quite rare. "I've never seen it before and I won't see it again," he said.

Sometimes dealers isolate individual works from such a book and sell them separately. "We could sell them for more than the book, but we don't want to destroy a piece of history," Mr. Fleiss said.

The Pace Gallery is drawing inspiration for its booth from a major concurrent exhibition, "Mark Rothko," at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which will run from Wednesday through April 2.

Themed booth will feature works by Virginia Jaramillo, Robert Longo, Mary Kors and others. Leo Villareal's entry, the electronic work "Eclipse Nebula" (2023), is made of LEDs, acrylic, aluminum and special software.

"We talked to our artists and asked them to respond to Rothko," said Mark Glimcher, president and CEO of Pace Gallery. - "I thought five or six artists would want to do it, but we got 36. "

Some artists created new work specifically for the presentation, while others offered old work. (Pace Gallery has also selected works from the legacies it represents.)There are so many options that Pace will change works each day of the fair, offering an entirely new exhibition.

Mr. Glimcher noted that Pace has been presenting Rothko's legacy since the late 1970s.

"He's the epitome of abstract art," Mr. Glimcher said of Rothko's continued popularity. - "We, as humans, are capable of abstraction. "

Fans of sculpture