In 2022, Art Basel Paris – then called Paris + – opened on the day of a nationwide strike. The 2023 edition took place a week after the October 7 massacre carried out by Hamas in Israel. In 2024, rain leaked into the nave of the Grand Palais. Yet nothing seemed to shake Art Basel Paris, which for the past four years has taken over the slot that the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) held for four decades. Neither the spectacular theft at the Louvre on Sunday, October 19 – harshly criticized by the international press – nor France’s political instability, mocked abroad, appears to have dulled Paris’s allure in the eyes of the collector elite.
Since October 20, an unexpected euphoria has swept through the art world. At social dinners, conversations have centered on the new location of the Fondation Cartier, set to open to the public on October 25 – the breathtaking Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the odyssey of minimal art at the Bourse de Commerce. “If I ever have to choose between London and Paris, I’ll pick Paris. This is the heart of Europe, where things are buzzing, where there’s both an underground spirit and major museums,” said Dan Qiao, the young director of the Tank art center in Shanghai, who visited the Frieze fair in London the week before.
“I’ve learned to appreciate what Basel has to offer. But if one day I can’t attend both fairs, I’ll probably choose Paris,” admitted the Israeli collector Gil Brandes. “Here, you can do more than just look at art all day.” Clément Delépine, the fair’s director – who will soon leave to head Lafayette Anticipations (a contemporary art foundation) – summed it up: “If you wanted to be cool, you went to Berlin. If you wanted to do business, you went to London. Today, I feel Paris can offer you both.”
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