Vanity Fairs
Art Basel Paris, The Salon by NADA & The Community, Thema – Paris
Welcome to Paris ‘Art Week’. As I mentioned in my last missive, the French have come for Frieze week hard, with Art Basel Paris slapping down in the refurbished Grand Palais as the headline act, like the Taylor Swift of the art world; a host of other openings and events (Martine Syms, who is great, seems to have had about five of these herself); and other fairs big-and-small flogging their wares and jostling for both insta and hard $€£ attention. I saw a load of stuff, I also missed about a billion things, but here’s what went down in town.
Art Basel Paris (October 18–20th, 2024)
Let’s be honest, if you were gonna go you’ve probably gone, and if you’re taking a toss on the decision to get a €44 ticket (under 12s go for free) then it’s probably not going to be me who decides what you do over the next 24 hours (like all these shows, it runs until the end of Sunday 20th).
It’s always something of a fashion parade, but for all the sartorial drip on show, the big news was the literal leaks coming from the roof. The Grand Palais cost a lot of money to refurb ($500 million according to CNN) but it might have been a good thing to make sure that things were shipshape when there’s even more expensive art sitting underneath it. I was informed by one insider that the pot plants dotted around the space were a last minute attempt to cover up the worst of any dreaded water ingress (by placing them under the drips), but obviously this wasn’t going to work. And when the heavens opened on Thursday, the cupola at the top, situated bang above the middle of the fair, leaked directly onto the big blue chip galleries.
At first the issues seemed limited to the walkways between booths, where monotone splatter paintings started to develop on the floor, but soon we had some casualties, and I watched as a steady stream of water dribbled onto a Carmen Herrera at Lisson Gallery, and panic began to set in as handlers leapt in to remove works. In any case, Hauser & Wirth had got a covering over their booth anyway, and apparently the leaks were plugged up top by Friday morning,
There were other teething problems, as you might expect. All the signage on the booths had developed air bubbles, which made it look like it had been applied with a UHU glue stick, and had apparently caused a major meltdown with one of the Swiss directors of the show. Later, a friend showed me a picture of a Thomas Hirschhorn work which fell off the wall of one of the big booths and hit a visitor.
I reminded myself that the Swiss German for Schadenfreude is Schadenfreude, but TBH, the slightly un-Helvetian ricketyness of the whole shebang made what was quite a staid collection of stands located near the Netjets lounge and Tourist board concessions on the ground floor a lot jollier.
Complaining about a megafair for megawealthy collectors seems trite. But the big Swiss cheeses of Art Basel make a lot of money off the ordinary punters too. A bottle of water is €5. A tiny canapé sized tarte au citron with a whisper of meringue on top costs €8.50. I was snuck into the ‘Collectors Lounge’ by a friend, where the champagne is €25 a glass. As one London gallerist quipped to me: “I’ve got to marry an heiress and move to Switzerland”.
But I don’t want to moan and groan – there’s good stuff to see too. I am biased because Sadie and Pauline and the rest of the team are always charmers, but I think the Sadie Coles booth, which features a great video work/installation from the aforementioned Martine Syms, was one of best of the big galleries. Elsewhere on the main blue chip drag, Tom Wesselmann is a big feature. The Pop artist is being shown in a big show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton that runs through to next February, with about 150 of his works alongside a load of major Pop stars like Warhol and Lichtenstein. And a number of galleries had his big, sexy (often derided as sexist), paintings on sale. If you want a palate cleanser from these, then Miriam Cahn at Mayer Riegger does just that.
And TBH a lot of the big galleries have a strong focus on woman artists, including Camille Henrot, Maria Lassnig and Rita Ackermann at the aforementioned Hauser & Wirth. Swiss-Japanese artist Leiko Ikemura is getting a lot of attention at fairs right now, and there was a trio of her beautiful works at Tim Van Laere. LA-based, Japanese-born painter Asuka Anastacia Ogawa also has a delightful showing at Blum of her odd androgynous characters.
Smaller generally seemed to be better here and also I loved the Brett Goodroad paintings on copper at Greene Naftali. Sadly, unlike Frieze, which front loaded the smaller galleries, at Art Basel Paris it’s easier to miss the more emerging talent which is mostly in the spaces up the stairs. The always excellent Sans Titre are showing an ‘ode to rest’ (including a big painted paper bed) by Tanja Nis-Hansen, Jessy Razafimandimby and Agnes Scherer. Elsewhere, Jill Magid’s neon flowers caught my eye, as did Argentine artist Patricia Iglesias Peco’s painted florals.
The Salon by NADA & The Community (October 17–20th, 2024)
Like Paris Internationale, this fair is actually quite a large undertaking, pretty much occupying a whole office block on rue du Paradis. Held in collaboration by New York based NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and Paris’s The Community, The Salon features a bunch of delightful work from medium to smaller galleries, and while some of the tags will still make you wince, there’s plenty of stuff priced just right for the pioneering collector. And the roof didn’t seem to leak at all.
Highlights from the galleries included roving artist collective Aziimut, which has some dark figurative drawings by Yoann Paounoff, and Kendra Jane Patrick gallery which is showing intensely jacquard tapestries depicting online life by Qualeasha Wood.
Colleen Herman at Olympia is a riot of handpainted (literally - she doesn’t use a brush) oil and spray paint on raw linen canvases that are gestural and vibrant, and well worth spending time with. Shary Boyle and Muriel Ahmarani Jaouich were also excellent finds at Patel Brown with their respective takes on surrealist ceramics and hieroglyphics-inspired painting.
At P.A.D there were silly-sexy-sloppy mirrors marked with naughty Franglais phrases by Marissa Delano, which sat alongside Rory Rosenberg’s series of painted and laser-etched ‘holes’, while Megan Barnes has some funky ceramic scenes at Lefebvre & Fils. Painter Thomas Jeppe showed giant cartoonish pictures of wind turbines, trees and clouds for SALTS. Vlada Ralko’s satirical oils and Kateryna Lysoveno’s raw watercolours are the stars at Ukrainian gallerist Max Voloshyn’s booth. Simon Buret at Nil offers classical yet brightly sensual figures, and Blake Daniels’ paintings are big and intoxicating, with a whiff of Peter Doig that doesn’t quite overpower them.
Repping London, Janina Zais has an excellent booth called ‘Don’t Grow Up it’s a Trap’ at Goswell Road, which is full of her spraypainted wigs, and shots of Looney Tunes body and face painting on her friends. And for more colour, Colombian artist Francisco G. Pinzón Samper’s works in pencil blend 60s psychedelia with Freudian psychosexual drama.
Embaja from Puerto Rico has brought some beautiful work from the island, including Chaveli Sifre’s spiritual masks, glasswork and ceramics; and copper and wax multimedia pieces by Claudia Peña Salinas.
Meanwhile, Marco Bizzari’s cool palette post-pointillist paintings at Night Cafe were a good reminder that not everything is splattered neon-bright and messy. Similar restraint was on show with Georgia McGovern’s austere Americana canvases of barns and houses.
Thema (October 15–20th, 2024)
I popped into Design Miami, which had all the kind of beautiful things you’d expect including an incredible cabin in the garden by Jean Prouvé and a section focused on the stunning woodwork of Jean Touret. Over the road at the Hôtel de Guise (72 Rue de L’université) is design and art fair Thema, which I think is really one not to miss/one to catch next time.
I loved loved loved the candlesticks and vases by Pascale Risbourg, next to Aussie fashion designer and artist Kym Ellery’s enveloping metal chair. Expensive ways to play backgammon are something of a theme here, with both Aurélien Caoudal’s bright blue marble set and another big grey French stone table next door by Sandra Benhamou. You can’t miss the excellent things by Galerie Jag because they’re in the entryway, but you really mustn’t skip the downstairs kitchen in the courtyard which L’Oeil de KO has packed out with stunning tableware and sculpture.
If you’ve got this far - chapeau ! Thanks! FIN !