“What I would like is for collectors to explore Paris beyond the postcard,” Paris+ par Art Basel director Clément Delépine says ahead of the inaugural edition of the fair. “I would also want people who are perhaps intimidated or, not interested in visiting the fair, to find something about it whether that is a curated program of sculptures in the Tullieres, which is absolutely free, or a program of conversations with not necessarily artist but people like Jeremy O’Harris, illuminating. We aren’t a school per say, but we provide a context, the kind that might lead you to a masterpiece that you wouldn't see anywhere else.”
Image courtesy of the artist and Paris+ par Art Basel.
In this way the fair’s first edition, which officially opens to VIPs this Wednesday and runs through the weekend, has two audiences, much like the city in which it is situated: the tourists and the locals. Delépine and his team, who had less than a year to put the event together, took the two birds getting stoned approach–opting for an extensive conversation series that is open to the public, with or without fair entry, as well as an emphasis on off-site projects that sprawl out around the city, hoping to entice those that live there, as well as bring the out-of-towners to explore corners that they haven't previously tread.
Image courtesy of the artist and Paris+ par Art Basel.
This year’s Sites program, a large public work series curated by Annabelle Ténèze, puts this ethos into action. It grounds itself in the tourist friendly Jardin des Tulieries, but spirals outward like the city’s neighborhoods, with Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade covering Place Vendôme with her cosmos-inflected minimalism and Israeli artist Omer Fast bringing his immersive historical fictions to the vaulted ceilings of the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Image courtesy of the artist and Paris+ par Art Basel.
All these projects, whether conversational or physical, are the product of collaboration. The Sites exhibition not only required David Yurman’s financial backing, but also coordination with the Musée du Louvre and the Musée National Eugène-Delacroix. Partnerhships between public and private interests underpins not only Paris+ par Art Basel’s approach, but is also emblematic of the changes the city and its art world have undergone in the past 15 years–the same evolution that one could argue finally brought the prestigious fair to the capital. To illustrate this point, Delépine references last year’s Charles Ray retrospective, which spanned the Pinault collection and the Centre Pompidou.
Image courtesy of the artist and Paris+ par Art Basel.
He also cites the opening of public facing private foundations like the Galeries Lafayette, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and, of course, Paris Internationale, a satellite fair to Paris+ that Delépine helped found before taking his position this year. “For a long time, Paris’ future looked more like it's past, and now, culturally speaking, the city has changed again,” Delépine says. “It's much more welcoming than it used to be, while retaining its exoticism for foreigners. It’s a good Parisian moment and we plan on taking advantage of it.”
Paris+ par Art Basel will be held Oct. 20 to 23, 2022 at the Grand Palais Éphémère at 2 Place Joffre, 75007 Paris, France.
