Artist Paulina Olowska was roaming around Pace’s booth wearing a nun habit, occasionally ringing a bell inside the Grand Palais on Wednesday. It felt fitting: there is something almost holy about this venue, with its towering domed ceiling of glass and opulent steel pillars that occasionally gather in corners into florets; and certainly something ritualistic about how the art world gathers together, year over year, like a harvest festival all throughout the fall.
That is, with a small hiatus between when it comes to the Grand Palais. Art Basel is finally in the place where it set out to be several years ago, when it won a bid for the beaux-arts icon, beating out the stalwart fair FIAC. The former fair seems to be not much more than a whisper in the wind by now. But, unlike Frieze London, which flipped their floor plan this year, the Swiss fair brand kept to some of the palace traditions. Its atmosphere feels welcome and familiar, though the quality of work is certainly better than the FIAC days. Hauser and Wirth, who were regulars at FIAC like many of the dealers on the main floor, were kiddie corner to their old spot on the FIAC floor plan. Many of the other powerbrokers who loomed large at FIAC are similarly situated here in prime corner real estate. Call it continuity.
Pace Gallery booth installation views, Art Basel Paris 2024. © Pace Gallery. Photo by: Sebastian Opellion
Pace invited Olowska to curate their presentation, which she called “Mystic Sugar;” the walls are deep purple, creating a new moody feeling for a showing of several artists in the gallery’s program, including a massive painting by Olowska on offer for $250,000. A $750,000 wall piece by Louise Nevelson loomed quietly nearby a sculpture of a woman crumpled up on the floor, by Kiki Smith, on offer for $950,000. More expensive works, with undisclosed prices, linger in their back room.
For its part, Hauser and Wirth has also brought a booth of works by a variety of artists in the gallery—including a titan of a Philip Guston with large drooping tears. There is a particularly intimidating Louise Bourgeois spider that is bolted to the wall, with what sounds like a very locked-in price tag of $20 million.
We all thought this work might be the big talking point of the booth, and it is; but it is sharing the spotlight with a “surprise” Kasimir Malevich that the gallery brought, a secondary market piece dated to 1915. Its soft cubist elements seemed to glow in the frame, set against a deep blue wall.
Installation view, Hauser & Wirth at Art Basel Paris, 2024. Courtesy the artists / estates and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur
“Some people think they do not need to come because they take their decisions before,” Marc Payot, president of Hauser and Wirth, told me. Rewarding clients for coming and experiencing their art in-person was part of the motivation to not release news of the Malevich in their preview send-outs.
The small canvas, which had been in the Stedelijk collection for years, has an impeccable provenance history, said Payot, in an artist’s market that has had some historic issues with fakes. There is no price named, but, given the artist and the museum history, one can only guess. The Malevich was on hold around midday. The come-and-see approach is being taken up especially creatively at Pilar Corrias, where Sophie von Hellermann willl paint VIP visitors’ dreams tomorrow and Friday. And Olowska will be doing astrology readings later this evening at Pace’s party. I can think of more than a few dealers who would like to know what the future of the market holds, should it be written in the stars.
Herein lies at least one takeaway: there is a noted desire to draw clients to show up in-person (and stay a while). It echoes what I heard at Sotheby’s headquarters on Monday morning, where a group of fresh-eyed executives stood amongst around millions worth of art, including masterworks of Surrealism and Arte Povera. Their expanded location in Faubourg Saint-Honoré has a flexible layout where they plan to host different events. To respond to the “needs of their clients in the 21st century,” the auction house is seeking to create more on-site experiences for buyers, said head of Sotheby’s France, Mario Tavella. There is, for example, a wine-tasting cellar.
Art Basel Paris 2024 at the Grand Palais. Courtesy of Art Basel
At Art Basel, wine is not for sale (yet, though a lot of other items are at the Art Basel Shop), but you can get a glass of cold Ruinart on the terrace—and you might need it. The Grand Palais—which is by some measures a very opulent greenhouse—was swelteringly hot on an unseasonably warm VIP day, a feeling heightened by what seemed like particularly crowded halls.
One dealer on the main floor lamented that she had forgotten to wear sunscreen. And VIPs all around the corridors were gladly wearing sunglasses. A delicate 1934 work by Meret Oppenheim on a canvas scroll that was on view at Michael Werner gallery was sold by midday and was luckily on the north-facing wall in a quiet piece of shade. And a large heater sculpture at Lia Rumma, on sale for €700,000 ($760,900) by Arte Povera artist Gilberto Zorio, remained unplugged, turning it on only for clients who were willing to feel an extra bit of warmth.
View of Gilberto Zorio from Lia Rumma at Art Basel Paris
But the hotly attended VIP day, which made it hard to see work at moments, is generally welcome. “There is enormous energy in Paris in terms of the level of culture,” said Payot. “It is difficult to say where we are in this moment; the context [of the market] has not really changed. It is tricky, but we have seen a very strong week in London last week. And here, in Paris, there is more energy than I’ve seen in years before.”
“In a difficult moment, it is an oasis,” said Paris-based Alex Mor of Mor Charpentier (an apt metaphor, given the midday heat). “People seemed to saving up for Paris,” he added. Indeed, at the satellite fair of Paris Internationale, which had a bustling VIP day last evening one dealer told me that he “had not spoken French once today,” as evidence of the international drop-ins. While there are galleries flocking to the city, collectors are not moving here in year-round. They are visiting. And Paris is always worth a visit. Back at Pace’s booth, representatives from Seoul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong were all there near Arne and Marc Glimcher. Capitain Petzel also had their Asia rep on the ground. In other words, Europeans, Americans, and a powerful showing of Asian buyers are in town.
There were some good-humored groans from dealers who had been at Frieze just last week, those who basically had to spin on one heel and head across the Channel to come to Paris. Most of them reported good experiences in London and were already feeling optimistic about Paris. “We had low expectations from the fairs,” said a spokesperson from a prominent U.S. gallery in the main sector but, gladly, they said, they found out they were very wrong.
“At every fair I have done this year, the numbers have been 30 percent more than previous years—in some cases double,” said Vanessa Carlos of Carlos/Ishikawa. “And it is not just the case for our star artists. It is something I am seeing across the board, including with our younger artists. When I talk to my colleagues, they say the same thing. While we do need to analyze the closures of several galleries this year more deeply, the toxic conversations around the market are not completely connected to what I experience or hear anecdotally, and it is not helpful to the artists in the end.”
Booth view of work by Libasse Ka at Carlos/Ishikawa at Art Basel Paris.
Carlos is presenting new works by a talented young painter, the 26-year-old artist Libasse Ka, who she had met via his chance encounter with one of her artists, Oscar Murillo. Carlos showed me a selfie Murillo took with Libass, who was working at an electrical store at the time. In the picture, he is wearing a blue shop uniform. After glancing at his work, Murillo gave him money for a year, no strings attached, to make more of it. The booth was entirely sold out.
Martin Wong Our Lady of the Lower East Side (1990). Courtesy of the Martin Wong Foundation and P·P·O·W, New York Copyright Martin Wong Foundation. Photo: Ian Edquist
At P.P.O.W. is a particularly special painting by Martin Wong, a secondary market work that was happily hanging out in the shade too, with an undisclosed price. The New York gallery skipped Frieze for the first time in a decade. They seemed sure that Wong would meet a knowing audience in Europe, thanks to an extensive retrospective of his work that went from Berlin to London in 2023. But if you want to see it (no, you cannot have it, because it was sold to a European collection by midday), you best go by tomorrow—the gallery is participating in the inaugural Oh La La, which sees 35 galleries transform their booth hangs entirely on Friday and Saturday.
As the sun did a welcome dip below the perimeter of the domed glass, things cooled off and guests began to filter back out into the early evening to various seated dinners and cocktail hours. Dealers had tired smiles on their faces, even if things were still to be determined. The Grand Palais was a return to form for the art world, even if the world at large feels like it has shifted greatly in recent years. “There is a real appetite for quality,” Payot mentioned, “And, for non-cynical comments. That is on a global level.”
Art Basel Paris is on view from October 18 through 20, 2024.