A Month Before Art Basel Paris Opens, Director Clément Delépine Unveils the Program

Next month, Art Basel Paris—rebranded from the unwieldy Paris+ par Art Basel—will inaugurate the newly renovated Grand Palais. The fair comes amid a wave of optimism in the City of Lights after a largely successful Olympic Games this summer, with hopes that it might restore some energy to an art market grown stagnant amid high interest rates, wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and the American presidential election.

“There is definitely a dynamism in Paris right now, which is palpable,” Clément Delépine, director of Art Basel Paris, told ARTnews. Take, for instance, the city’s dazzling and wonky Olympic opening ceremony, which he called “a signal to the world that Paris was ready for you, to welcome you from wherever you come from.”

Delépine’s team, too, is ready. They have been preparing for the fair, which runs October 16 to 20, for two years, ahead of its much-anticipated move to the monumental Grand Palais, with its Art Nouveau architecture and glass ceilings. The new space also has over 38 percent more surface area than the previous temporary venue—more than 100,000 square feet—which has allowed the fair to add 40 additional galleries for a total of 195 exhibitors and expand the fair’s programming.

 “We’ve tried to redefine everything beyond the new name, but also to preserve what was distinctive of Paris,” said Delépine.

New features include a larger emerging gallery sector called Emergence, which will be perched on the balconies surrounding the building’s central nave, made newly accessible thanks to the renovation. In addition, the fair will introduce Premise, a new section dedicated to curatorial projects by nine newly participating galleries that challenge the art historical canon. One of the presentations, by London’s Gallery of Everything, will show paintings by Ukrainian-born, New York-based artist Janet Sobel (1893-1968), an Abstract Expressionist whose drip technique preceded Jackson Pollock.

“We needed a space for curatorial freedom,” Delépine said, adding that the section is designed as a meeting place that encourages “visitors to slow down and listen to the stories being told to them.”

A free, public program of exhibitions and installations held in venues across the city has ballooned to nine locations, with one pending confirmation, and it boasts a new official partner: fashion brand Miu Miu.

But fair expansion aside, smaller and midsize galleries told ARTnews in early July that participating in Art Basel’s fairs amid the art market’s slowdown have presented existential challenges due to the high incurred costs. While Delépine said he could not discuss internal agreements with galleries, he offered that he has not “notice[d] anything that leads me to believe that the works on view at the fair will be any safer than they were in 2023 or 2022.”

“We already anticipate a number of masterpieces from galleries,” he added.

This includes several presentations echoing institutional exhibitions in the city, from works by Tom Wesselmann, also featured at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, to Surrealist masters, in a nod to the Centre Pompidou’s blockbuster exhibit on the movement. For one, Brussels’ Vedovi Gallery is bringing an important René Magritte work from 1965, Le Sourire Du Diable.

“You don’t bring a Magritte to any fair if you don’t feel you can sell it,” Delépine said, remarking on the impressive number of “very ambitious applications” his team received from dealers hoping to be selected for the Paris event. “There is definitely trust and confidence in what this fair can do.”

Perhaps, but the financial crunch is real, and in one apparent bow to market stresses, a record ten booths, according to Delépine,  will show collaborative projects with other galleries, with the advantage being a splitting of costs. London’s Emalin and  Commonwealth and Council, with locations in Los Angeles and Mexico City, for example, will jointly present works by Nikita Gale, known for her immersive environments, as well as works by Leslie Martinez and Daiga Grantina.

Delépine said he invited applicants to “be creative” in dealing with the historic building’s idiosyncrasies and limited space, and in opting to join forces rather than bank on a solo proposal, they rose to the task.  “It was a fantastic surprise for us and an interesting way to turn what could be perceived as a weakness into a strength,” he said.

Other highlights include a booth by New York’s Di Donna pairing works by Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam with Cuban sculptor Agustin Cárdenas and French painter Yves Tanguy. Paris’s Applicat-Prazan is dedicating its space to “landmark” Surrealist paintings, and Landau Fine Art is bringing a 1909 painting by Alexej von Jawlensky, titled Spanische Tänzerin, which has remained unseen for decades. The Modern Institute from Glasgow, meanwhile, will show must-see site-specific sculptures by British Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce, which respond to the Grand Palais’ architecture.

The Art Basel shop, curated by Sarah Andelman of former Paris concept store Colette, will premiere a capsule collection of streetwear nodding to the fair’s 1975 yearbook cover, by the fair’s brand, AB by Art Basel. Plus, a range of new apparel and other products designed in collaboration with the artist collective Claire Fontaine, will be up for grabs, along with other limited-edition products by Art Basel exhibitors and brands.

In an apparent bid to encourage visits beyond the opening previews, a playful new program of installations at the fair, called “Oh La La!” will be unveiled on the weekend days of the fair. The idea is to creatively hang rarely exhibited and “unusual” multimedia works, many of which appear to have a comedic bent.

Delépine conceded that there is “a lot of pressure” for Art Basel Paris to meet the art world’s expectations, though he doesn’t appear worried.

“There is so much positive energy and so much support and everyone wants to see us succeed,” he said. “So we’re going to do just that.”