Between Frieze London ending last Sunday and Art Basel Paris starting on Wednesday, the two-hour ride on the Eurostar is the only time anyone involved in both mega-fairs can catch their breath. The turnaround is rapid for the 31 galleries who have decided to set up shop on both sides of the Channel. Those dealers are hoping Frieze’s decent results will carry over to Art Basel Paris’s new regal turf, the Grand Palais.
Before Frieze, talk of the apparent demise of London’s art scene—and of the ascent of Paris’s market—threatened to pour cold water on proceedings. It’s true: local auction results didn’t inspire confidence. The research firm ArtTactic recently found that auction sales in London were down by almost a third during the first half of this year; sales in Paris were up 12 percent during the same period. The report also fueled the narrative that Paris is gearing up to dethrone London as Europe’s art capital.
However, using such stats to forecast an art fair is unreliable, as we’ve just seen in London. “The auctions bombed last May yet Art Basel was a huge success for us just one month later,” Samanthe Rubell, the president of Pace Gallery, told ARTnews. “The fairs correlate much more closely with each other than with the auctions.” Her gallery did Frieze and is now gearing up for Art Basel.
All this bodes well for the third edition of the newly rebranded Paris fair. (Formerly, it was titled Paris+ par Art Basel, which did not exactly roll off the tongue.) The fair has moved from the Grand Palais Ephémère to the bigger Grand Palais, which recently underwent a $500 million facelift. A total of 195 exhibitors (up from 154 in 2023, and including 53 first-timers) from 42 countries are here. Sixty-five of the participating galleries operate in Paris.
Will Americans Steal the Show?
Ultimately, Art Basel Paris’s outcome will depend on who turns up on the two VIP days and splashes the cash (not taking into account pre-sold works, of course, which galleries tend not to talk about). So, what kind of crowd can we expect?
A Gagosian rep said the gallery is anticipating the same major private and institutional collectors in Paris that it also saw in London, while Rubell said, “It definitely feels like US collectors are leaning toward Paris.”
Sadie Coles, the founder of the eponymous London-based gallery appearing at both fairs, told ARTnews she’s expecting a “more local” crowd in Paris compared to Frieze’s global punters. That having been said, she also thinks American collectors will make a strong showing.
US collectors signed off on several big-ticket sales at Frieze, and several celebs and prominent art world names from across the Atlantic were spotted, including Agnes Gund, Catherine Lagrange, and Bill Murray, to name but a few. It seemed that some Americans remained abroad as well. Prior to Art Basel’s opening, ARTnews spotted collectors Robert Soros and Pamela Joyner in the galleries of the Musée d’Orsay.
David Maupin, the cofounder of Lehmann Maupin gallery, which is gearing up for its first Art Basel Paris, told ARTnews that he’d “heard many of our American clients are attending [Paris] and a number of our Asian clients, too.”
“I expect literally everybody to be here—collectors from Europe, the US, and Asia,” Lisa Offerman from the Tbilisi-based LC Queisser gallery told ARTnews. “This is one of the most global art fairs with a global audience.”
London-based art adviser Arianne Piper thinks Paris’s “elegance” will draw a different type of collector. “Each city brings its own unique energy, and while the crowd in London is always dynamic, Paris has a certain elegance tied to its deep-rooted cultural history,” she told ARTnews. “There’s something magical about both cities in different ways. We saw a strong presence at Frieze, so I’m exciting to see whether Paris can trump it.”
‘Not a Zero-Sum Game’
After reporting at Frieze last week, I’ve growing weary of the well-worn notion that London and Paris are battling it out for art world supremacy. But I had to ask.
“I don’t buy that narrative,” Piper said. “London remains one of the most exciting and culturally vibrant cities, even post-Brexit. Its multiculturalism and history make it a vital art hub for global collectors and most importantly artists. Paris is growing, yes, but rather than competing, I see the two cities as complementary. They each offer something distinct and valuable to the art market, and collectors are better off engaging with both.”
Pace’s Rubell also dismissed the idea of London’s waning status: “There was so much excitement building up to our Robert Longo show opening in London last week and people really turned out. Art centers are not a zero-sum game. The more, the merrier.”
What does Gagosian think about it? A gallery spokesperson told ARTnews, “Paris is indeed on the rise, but the UK is the third-largest art market in the world and accounts for 18 percent of global art sales, which is more than the rest of Europe put together. One market supports the other, so it’s not a zero-sum game.”
I asked a few galleries why they decided to sign up to both fairs. Gagosian said it participates in all the fairs organized by Frieze and Art Basel. Maupin told me that “Frieze is an important fair for us because we have a gallery in London and many of our artists are based there, so it’s essential for us to have a strong presence at the fair.”
“Similarly, as a gallery with a European outpost, it’s important that we continue to find new opportunities beyond London to promote our artists’ work and make new connections,” he added.
‘Exceptional’ Works Head to Paris
New this year at Art Basel Paris is the “Premise” sector featuring nine galleries presenting “highly singular curatorial proposals” including work made before 1900. “Oh La La!” is also a new initiative and invites galleries to display rarely seen work in their booths for 48 hours on Friday and Saturday.
Unlike Frieze’s reconfigured layout, which elbowed the mega-galleries to the back of the tent and gave the small and midsize operations more exposure at the front, the big galleries are given the limelight in Paris. Pace, Perrotin, Gladstone, Hauser & Wirth, White Cube, and Gagosian lie in wait by the entrance.
Lehmann Maupin gallery sold out its entire booth of 14 Billy Childish paintings (prices ranging from $50,000 to $100,000) at Frieze. In Paris, it’s showing a series of sculptures by Kader Attia, whose studio will be concurrently on-site at the Louvre through June 2025 as part of the museum’s “Guests of the Louvre” program. Works by Erwin Wurm, Calida Rawles, Teresita Fernández, and Liza Lou will also be at the booth.
Following on from Hauser & Wirth’s booth with works by American artist Charles Gaines in London last week, the gallery is offering pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Phillip Guston, Takesada Matsutani, and Ed Clark.
After the success of Pace’s Rothko-inspired booth at last year’s fair, the gallery has invited artist Paulina Olowska to curate the gallery’s offering this year. She’s included works by Lucas Samaras, Louise Nevelson, and Kiki Smith. “Artists always have a unique perspective on the work of their forebears and can help us to see familiar things in new ways,” Rubell told ARTnews.
As for Gagosian, the gallery spokesperson told me that for the first time in Paris, its presentation is in two parts. It has “exceptional modern works” by Picasso, Pollock, Frankenthaler, Fontana, Klein, and Wesselmann, among others, at the Grand Palais, and the gallery is also debuting several new contemporary works at its nearby Paris HQ.
