All eyes were riveted on Art Paris, the modern and contemporary art fair that came to an enthusiastic close on Sunday September 13 under the sunny vault of the Grand Palais. The art market’s first major event in over six months, this 22nd edition, which brought together 112 galleries from 15 countries, ended with a resounding success.
Quality visitor numbers despite the health situation
Overall attendance was 56,931. The strict application of sanitary measures led to a voluntary lowering of the visitor capacity to 3,000 people at any given time, instead of the 5,000 authorized in the Grand Palais, and to a modification of the vernissage flows, which were smoothed out over the entire length of the show during private morning openings from 10am to 12pm, in order to guarantee a high level of safety for exhibitors and visitors alike, and avoid any crowds. While the number of general public visitors was down 10% on 2019 (which welcomed 63,257 people), attendance by collectors and heads of institutions leapt to +25% on 2019, with a total of 23,218 professional and VIP guests.
All visitors underlined Art Paris’s boldness and tenacity in staging a physical edition against all odds, after being postponed in the spring, reinvented online, and reborn from September 10 to 13. This historic edition saw an unprecedented rallying of all French collectors and institutions, who turned out in force to support the work of the galleries and artists they represent. They also underlined the vitality of the French art scene, embodied by Gaël Charbau’s focus, the quality of the galleries’ displays, which blended the generations, such as Pauline Pavec’s stand, which orchestrated a meeting between Jacques Prévert and the very young artist Mathilde Denize, and the upmarket nature of the gallery list, with the arrival of heavyweights such as Perrotin.
The fair welcomed some thirty circles of museum friends, mainly from France (due to travel restrictions) and numerous personalities such as Brigitte Macron, Roselyne Bachelot, Catherine Frot, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, Alain Ducasse….
Seventy guided tours were organized for collectors with the help of the Observatoire de l’art contemporain. Nearly 450 journalists were accredited.
Solid sales on track
This year’s show was a test for the art market, and the numerous sales, with attractive average prices ranging from €5,000 to €30,000, belied even the most pessimistic forecasts.
On the historical front, Galerie Jean-François Cazeau sold a Giacometti drawing and a Chaissac sculpture for over €100,000; AD Galerie sold two César sculptures from the 1950s for €150,000 and €200,000 respectively; Galerie Traits Noirs sold 7 works by Miró, Hartung and Fontana for between €7,000 and €80,000.
On the contemporary side, Galerie Perrotin was delighted with its first participation at Art Paris, selling some fifteen works in a price range from 2,000 euros to 120,000 euros for sculptures by Jean-Michel Othoniel. The Jeanne Bucher Jaeger gallery also participated for the first time, selling some twenty pieces by its Portuguese artists Miguel Branco and Rui Moreira at prices ranging from 500 euros to 20,000 euros. Yvon Lambert was delighted to have found takers, among others, for two paintings by Nathalie du Pasquier at 25,000 euros each. At the close of the fair, Galerie Nathalie Obadia confirmed better sales than in 2019, with some twenty sales in a price range from 10,000 to 200,000 euros for a Shirley Jaffe Estate canvas. Galerie Daniel Templon sold a dozen works, including two diptychs by Abdelkader Benchamma at 40,000 euros each.
Collectors’ attention was also drawn to monographic exhibitions, with several sell-outs, notably at Galerie Univer/Colette Colla, and the Canadian gallery Christopher Cutts in Toronto.
As for the young galleries, they receive special financial support from the fair, which donates all of its ticket sales (110,000 euros) to these young structures weakened by the crisis. Some of them performed extremely well. Galerie Pauline Pavec sold some thirty works, with Prévert drawings priced between €2,900 and €3,900. In the Promises sector, dedicated to young galleries less than six years old, the African scene attracted the interest of collectors and institutions: Afikaris sold all its artists, including paintings by Cameroonian artist Jean David Nkot at 15,000 euros. The Abidjan gallery Véronique Rieffel was also successful, selling a “carré de survie” by Togolese artist Clay Apenouvon for 25,000 euros. Galerie Bessières summed up its participation with a “C’est génial!” (It’s great!), with a dozen works selling for between 2,700 and 10,000 euros for geometrically inspired canvases by Stephen Ormandy.
All the galleries surveyed reported having sold to new customers, the vast majority of them French, confirming the commitment and mobilization of French collectors for this exceptional and landmark event. They also emphasized the strong presence of institutions and top-level collectors, corroborating the significant increase in professional visitors this year.
Art Paris, the first modern and contemporary art fair to occupy the ephemeral Grand Palais on the Champ de Mars in April 2021
The first post-confinement art fair in the world, Art Paris will also be the first modern and contemporary art fair to take over, from April 8 to 11, 2021, the ephemeral Grand Palais on the Champ de Mars: a spectacular 21st-century temporary structure designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, at the foot of the Ecole Militaire and in line with the Eiffel Tower, which will house Parisian events at the Grand Palais until it reopens for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Art Paris would particularly like to thank its exhibitors, who believed in this edition of the resistance, and the collectors and art lovers who turned out in large numbers despite the pandemic. Art Paris also warmly thanks its partners:
The Art Newspaper, Antik Batik, Artsy, Beaux Arts Magazine, BFM Business, Chabé, Connaissance des Arts, Diptyque, Euronews, IDEAT Contemporary Life, IESA, Immersion 3D, L’Observatoire de l’art contemporain, Le Figaro Magazine, Le Journal des Arts, Le Quotidien de l’Art, Madame Figaro, Magic Event, Museum TV, Point de Vue, The Wall Street Journal, No More Penguins, OnlineViewingRoom.com, Point de Vue, RMN – Grand Palais, Ruinart, The New York Times, and all the media partners and Parisian institutions involved in the VIP A Paris en septembre program.
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