Paris Olympics Force Galleries to Close, Leaving Dealers in a Tough Spot

Many galleries in Paris’s Saint Germain des Près area, one of the city’s major art hubs, were unexpectedly forced to close on Thursday, due to security measures put in place for the upcoming Olympic Games’s opening ceremony taking place next week.

Interviewed by ARTnews, dealers said that clients had no way of getting to these spaces and that the public could not see shows that were expected to be on view. With no clients able to come in, many galleries in the area have closed early for the summer break.

In the last week, metal fences were erected along streets in central Paris. Even for those who live or work in the areas close to the river, or have paid attention to the news, the sight of these fences was still a bit of a shock. “It’s quite regrettable,” Galerie Forest de la Divonne director Virginie Boissière said, “that the fences were installed on June 28 without warning.” She said the fences slowed down foot traffic since then.

“It’s a veritably disastrous, prison-like context for all the businesses,” Galerie George-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois founder George-Philippe Vallois said, whose gallery had planned to be open through the Olympics.

The fences are meant to keep the general public out of what is being termed the “gray zone,” a controlled area near the Seine’s banks. People who need access to this zone were told in advance to apply for QR codes that could be used for entry. Some galleries said they weren’t told. Laurence Esnol, founder of her eponymous gallery, said she received no advice. “It’s a lack of respect for the galleries and businesses,” she said.

Before the zone was fenced in, there were reassurances from the Paris prefecture, which controls the police, that businesses would still be accessible by customers. But as enforcement of the gray zone commenced on Thursday, this was not the case.

And even with the QR code system in place, there have been problems. The prefecture had said that customers just had to say they had an appointment with a certain hairdresser, restaurant, or art gallery and they’d be let in, but as galleries found on Thursday, this didn’t work.

Dealer Charlotte Ketabi, a founder and director of Ketabi Bourdet gallery, said a French-speaking collector had an appointment on Thursday to visit the space, but that collector was denied access. Ketabi said she gave the collector an email to use as proof of an appointment, but the police officer blocked his access anyway. “It’s that one client you miss that can ruin a sale,” Ketabi said.

She called Vallois, who also used to be president of the Comité Professionel des Galeries d’Art, an industry group that represents most of the art galleries in France and liaises with authorities. “The advice wasn’t discordant,” Vallois said to ARTnews, “but, rather, little and even less-specific communication.” The Comité didn’t respond for comment by publication time.

Former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said in June that a commission would be established to figure out how to indemnify businesses affected by closures like this, except there’s no guidance at all as to how the amount of compensation will be decided. (Currently, only an email address exists with regard to the commission.)

When it comes to art galleries, the problem with this exacerbates: they don’t have predictable income that can be pro-rated like a clothing store. Ketabi Bourdet’s experience shows how clients’ appointments are integral, as well as the erratic nature of art sales.

July is typically a “good month” for business, as Esnol put it, and the marketing of the Olympics made galleries feel like this would be a boom time. “We were actually encouraged to participate in the Olympiade Culturelle,” Ketabi said, adding that she and other dealers were told that people—especially rich people, given the high ticket prices—who don’t normally come to Paris would be coming specifically for the Games. This meant potential collectors for dealers.

When galleries can’t even get their clients in, the hope of getting anyone else through the door has vanished. With non-motorized zones set up beyond the gray zone that will come and go throughout the games after the opening ceremony, shippers can’t get in. “We’re still a young gallery,” Ketabi said. “We have important costs: rent, electricity, our people.”