Just two days after London’s Frieze fair closed, the art crowd has been scurrying across the Channel to attend the opening of Paris’s leading contemporary art fair, Fiac (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain).
ARTKABINETT social network of fine art collectors will be in good attendance at this exciting event, and hosts an exciting party Friday evening October 22 at 8 PM.
The event, in its 37th edition, has been steadily improving over the last few years and now counts as one of the world’s top events in its field.
This year 195 dealers are exhibiting, with a swathe of prestigious newcomers or returnees, including London’s Victoria Miro, Los Angeles’ Blum & Poe, Berlin’s Contemporary Fine Arts, Mexico’s Kurimanzutto and Gagosian (from just about everywhere).
Adding to the buzz around the fair is the simultaneous inauguration of Gagosian’s newest space and ninth gallery, just off the Champs Elysées, with a show by the Rome-based artist Cy Twombly, and another, in its project space, of designer Jean Prouvé.
Fiac itself is held in two separate locations, both highly prestigious. Younger galleries are housed in a tent in one of the Louvre’s courtyards, the Cour Carrée.
This is the place to see the more cutting-edge – and more affordable – art. Among the works on show is a special project by Barry X Ball (seen right), a black marble piece, “Sleeping Hermaphrodite”, inspired by the Louvre’s famous Roman sculpture of the same name (Salon 94).
The Cour Carrée is also the site of the “Lafayette space”, a group of 16 galleries who have been subsidised by the department store of the same name – the store owners are big collectors of contemporary art.
The galleries are chosen by a panel and come from nine different countries, with newcomers including Mothers Tankstation of Belfast and Mexico’s Gaga Fine Arts; most are presenting solo shows.
The Cour Carrée opens on Tuesday and on Wednesday the Grand Palais flings opens its massive, wrought-iron doors for the second part of Fiac, with 114 exhibitors ranged underneath the soaring glass dome and on the side balconies.
This is where the heavy hitters are grouped, from Barbara Gladstone, Massimo de Carlo, David Zwirner, Eva Presenhuber, L&M Arts and Marian Goodman, to name just a few.
While the Cour Carrée is quite comparable to Frieze, the Grand Palais section is more like downstairs at Art Basel, with blue-chip works, more established artists and inevitably higher price tags. Victoria Miro is featuring Yayoi Kusama, Gladstone is showing Alighiero e Boetti and Hauser and Wirth has the current art sensation, Matthew Day Jackson.
There is also space for early 20th-century work with Arte Povera at Kewenig and German expressionists at Henze & Ketterer.
However, missing this year is the “modern project” (shown here from 2009), a specially constructed booth-within-the-fair which featured 24 seriously expensive works of art.
Among them a $35m Mondrian, a $20m Bacon and two Légers – brought by dealers such as Acquavella, Louis Carré, Gagosian, Richard Gray, Krugier, L&M, Malingue and PaceWildenstein (as it then was, before the split with Wildenstein).
Only a few of the works seem to have sold and some of the dealers have not returned, but next year, promise the organisers, there will be an exciting, as yet undefined, new project.
As always, a host of related events are on offer, from visits to collections, including the Maison Rouge, a non-profit space founded by Antoine de Galbert, to the current “must-sees”, Monet at the Grand Palais, Basquiat at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Murakami at Versailles.
There are no less than five satellite fairs, which vary from the established “Slick” on the esplanade of the Palais de Tokyo to the fledgling Cutlog, aimed at the youngest galleries and artists.
This is held in the Bourse de Commerce, near what was once Paris’ food market, Les Halles. The event isn’t quite as gritty as it sounds: visitors can get there in a fleet of Mercedes, which shuttle between the Grand Palais and the Bourse every 15 minutes (opens on Thursday).
