Jörg Zutter travels to Art Basel in Paris and discovers an eclectic and inclusive pitch
Notwithstanding a shaky political and cultural environment in France’s capital, Art Basel Paris stood out like an unshakeable cliff, a beacon of confidence.
Paradoxically, the difficult circumstances and general feeling of social insecurity had at least one positive impact on the current situation, namely the flourishing of the international art market, especially in modern and contemporary art. Several factors are responsible for this: first the attractive, light-flooded (and newly spruced up and renovated) transparent architecture of the Grand Palais; and the high-quality offerings from both international mega galleries and smaller, younger and often very dynamic and risk-taking new galleries from all four continents, many from Europe and especially from France.
A total of 206 participants (29 included for the first time) were playfully spread across the basement and the first floor, occupying its unique elevated balconies and walkways surrounding the interior of the splendid Art Nouveau structure in cast iron and plate glass.
Of further importance is the professional preparation, promotion and mediatisation of the Paris fair by Art Basel, organizer of overall four international art fairs worldwide (the one in Miami Beach opening in December, and a fifth in February next year in Doha).
Appeal
For many collectors the Paris fair is the most exciting in terms of its very special cultural and architectural appeal in the heart of the French capital, attracting around 73,000 visitors (12.3 percent more than last year). Nonetheless, the main fair (of the four satellite fairs) is still considered by high-profile collectors and connoisseurs to be Art Basel in Basel. However, in an insecure economic context this may change, and another question is whether the art market can sustain a total of 300 fairs worldwide, or whether downsizing is imminent, with repercussions also for Art Basel and the MCH group to which it belongs.
The mood and confidence among many dealers and collectors were optimistic, as also reflected in the positive sales results of the first days, which, incidentally, were echoed in the astonishing results achieved by the two sales of modern and contemporary art held by Christie’s and Sotheby’s, a stone’s throw away from the Grand Palais.
However, numerous galleries were somewhat cautious with their offerings and often gave priority to “safe” artists (simultaneously or recently celebrated in Parisian museum shows), such as Gerhard Richter (Fondation Louis Vuitton), George Condo (Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris), Philip Guston (Musée Picasso), Bridget Riley (Musée d’Orsay), and Barbara Chase-Riboud (Louvre, Musée Guimet) etc.
Perhaps it was indeed this strategy, geared primarily towards commercial success, that was a characteristic of this fair and especially of many large Anglo-Saxon galleries. A sign of a transition or a turn? Ten years ago, the opposite was true: Parisian museums and exhibition institutions lagged behind the commercial galleries in terms of topicality, as became evident from former editions of FIAC (the fair which was swallowed up by Art Basel four years ago).
The London-based White Cube gallery’s top sales confirm the previous observations. These include: Julie Mehretu with a painting of 2007 (USD 11.5 million), Alexander Calder with a mobile (USD 4.85 million), Georg Baselitz with a canvas of 1989/2023 (€2.5 million).
Showcase
The Swiss mega gallery Hauser & Wirth (with most important branches in the UK and the US) undoubtedly led this successful league, reporting sales including Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild of 1987 (USD 23 million), a composition of 2016 by George Condo ($4.5 million) and a Concetto spaziale of 1965–64 by Lucio Fontana ($4.14 million). David Zwirner presented a Gerhard Richter exhibition in his Paris gallery space, which was, in a sense, an addition to the one at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. At the fair instead he showcased paintings, of course, by Richter (fig. 1) but also by Joan Mitchell, Luc Tuymans (fig. 2), Martin Kippenberger (whose painting sold for USD 5 million) and a stunning hanging iron mesh sculpture not surprisingly reminiscent of a pendant Japanese rice paper lamp by Ruth Asawa (sold for USD 7.5 million) as well as works by Marlene Dumas, On Kawara, and Bridget Riley.
The Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac, tirelessly active on the world stage (just opening a new branch in Milan) attracted special attention with an extremely versatile booth and also with impressive sales, dominated by works by Georg Baselitz, his bronze sculpture Cowboy of 2024 (USD 4 million) and four canvases (each for approximately USD 1–1.5 million), followed by the sumptuous canvas, Solemn Entry of Louis XIV 1667 of 2016, by Elizabeth Peyton (USD 1.3 million) echoing an eponymous painting by Adam Frans van der Meulen at Versailles Palace.
By the way, parallels with the art of the past occurred in many booths: Pace couldn’t resist showcasing a portrait by Modigliani, Jeune fille aux macarons of 1918 (with a price tag of c. USD 10 million, fig. 3), thereby taking on the competition with Parisian auction houses, where Sotheby’s celebrated a new record with a wonderful portrait of a young girl from Cagnes-sur-Mer by the legendary Italian Montmartre painter, Elvire en buste of c. 1918 (sold for EUR 26,982,500).
The multination Gagosian gallery even went one step further by including – in addition to works by Picasso – a 17th-century panel painting by Rubens (basically the gallery merely replicated a model that had already set a precedent in London, where the contemporary art fair Frieze has been integrating old masters in its Frieze Masters section for years). The Virgin and Christ Child with Saints of c. 1611–14, a decent but not exceptional Rubens, had been offered and sold (for $7.1 million, fig. 4) at Sotheby’s New York in January 2020. But what was the reason for its rather provocative inclusion? A trailblazer for a new selling strategy, an appetizer for the main course? Whatever the answer may be, this Flemish old master was also an enticement for more appealing sales opportunities of a few contemporary artists.
Surprises
Certainly, Jeff Koons’s “gazing ball” painting, highlighting a reflective blue sphere fixed on a copy of a landscape by the revered French painter Nicholas Poussin, as well as a fleshy portrait by Jenny Saville and a slightly soft porn canvas of three graces, Supermoon (2025) by John Currin (fig. 5). Max Hetzler’s booth was full of surprises, particularly the works by William N. Copley, Sarah Crowner, Jeremy Demester, Günther Förg, Grace Weaver and Sabine Moritz.
The painting presented by Albert Oehlen, Greifen of 2004, doubtless a great poetic work, stylistically a bit of a roller-coaster between figuration and abstraction, is given a new lease of life, so to speak, in the artist’s double exhibition at Hetzler’s and Gagosian’s (fig. 6) Paris galleries, where with blueish and swinging heroines the artist pays homage to Picasso’s athletic beach figures from his neoclassical period.
A number of medium-sized galleries on the ground floor took different, often unexpected paths, among them Sadie Coles from London featuring, Matthew Barney, Alvaro Barrington (fig. 7), William N. Copley, Isabella Ducrot and Sarah Lucas, among others. The neugerriemschneider gallery from Berlin also amazed with a few astonishing works as, for example, a flat greenish Lego relief of Leonardo’s Last Supper by Ai Weiwei, a sophisticated reflective glass bullet relief Pluralistic Vision (2025) by the Icelandic–Danish light artist Olafur Eliasson, as well as a monumental semi-abstract beach landscape, Wave (2023) by Swedish painter Andreas Eriksson (fig. 8).
Other galleries, in turn, stood up to diversity, avoiding the display of a motley collection of different artistic trends, and chose to present one single artist as, for example, the Nahmad Contemporary from New York which put together a notable Picasso exhibition including a painting of the artist with an astonishing price tag (USD 45 million). Many new discoveries could be made among the more risk-taking galleries on the upper floor, especially in the division “Premise” (uniting specific curatorial proposals).
Abstract
Particularly noteworthy among these participants was the Parisian gallery Eric Mouchet with a monographic show of the abstract-constructivist artist and filmmaker Ella Bergmann-Michel (1986–1971). Another astonishing booth was the one of Frittelli arte contemporanea of Milan, proposing the monographic show of Eduarda Emilia Maino (1930–2004), known by the pseudonym Dadamaino, who was friends with Lucio Fontana and developed an original post-Dada style, as became evident in her perforated canvases, the white and black Volumi (fig. 9).
Also of interest were finally the booths on the balconies of the same level dedicated to emerging artists.
As at other art fairs, at Art Basel Paris it can also happen that at a certain moment the visitor’s capacity of perception or concentration for the colourful display, the different styles and visual messages around him, wanes and that he feels trapped in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of booths and corridors and that all his senses mutate into grotesque cornucopia. In such surreal moments, the organic architecture and natural daylight streaming through the glass dome of the Grand Palais truly work wonders, calming every collector’s heart and filling it with new vitality and a sense of direction.
Perhaps this enchantment is the reason why some gallery owners and art lovers claimed that in a few years’ time, the Paris fair would oust Basel as the main venue. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Paris casts a positive shadow over the fair. This is also evident from the interactions between the various outdoor projects sponsored by individual galleries and spread across the city, mostly monumental sculptures or installations. These begin right in front of the Grand Palais with a gigantic rabbit-human figure, Usagi Greeting (440) of 2025 by Leiko Ikemura (sold by Lisson Gallery for c. USD 925,000, fig. 10).
In the Musée du Petit Palais, a magnificent Beaux-Arts architecture building opposite the fair, a provocative sculpture by Julius von Bismarck was exhibited in the huge right-wing hall, alluding to Germany’s colonial past in South Africa. The monumental two-part sculpture The Elephant in the Room (2023) is on the one hand an equestrian statue of Otto von Bismarck (who was instrumental in implementing Germany’s colonization of Africa) and on the other hand a taxidermy giraffe both collapsing and reassembling inspired by push puppets (proposed by gallery Sies + Höke from Düsseldorf, fig. 11).
Playful
The exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce (Pinault Collection) also provided stimulating and unexpected points of contact with the fair. Under the title “Minimal”, the concept of minimalist art from the 1960s has been reconsidered, in other words freed from its narrow American-European constraints and extended to Asian, Latin American and African-American male and female artists. Including artists also present at the fair, among them the American Meg Webster with an exciting sculpture arrangement in the Bourse’s magnificent central rotunda.
Webster was presented at the Paula Cooper gallery with a romantic Moss Bed, Twin of 1986/2025 (priced at $200,000) together with many other minimalist artists who also reappeared at the Pinault show. Another Afro-American artist present in the “Minimal” group show, Melvin Edwards, simultaneously had his first European museum show at Palais de Tokyo.
Ultimately, it was this playful cultural interweaving in the vibrant urban city space of Paris that made the fair so exciting. To all this can be added the unconventional, often ecologically oriented artists of the Fondation Cartier collection, who were all assembled in a very inventive way in the inaugural show in the new premises of the foundation opposite the Louvre designed by Jean Nouvel.
Text and images: Jörg Zutter
Header image: Art Basel Paris
Images 5, 6: Gagosian, Paris
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