Art Basel Paris 2024: wise as a picture, expensive as a diamond

Installed on two levels, the 194 galleries benefit from the overhead light of the nave and the upper galleries of the Grand Palais. The concentration of American and German merchants is impressive. From Matthew Marks to Nahmad Contemporary, everyone brought merchandise of excellent quality but with wise content, without provocation or excess. All the major international brands that have created an office in Paris (Michael Werner, Gagosian, Marian Goodman, Skarstedt, Pace, White Cube, Hauser und Wirth, David Zwirner, etc.) are present at the heart of the fair. The prices are up to the level.

Unlike the 2000s of the FIAC at the Grand Palais where historical works mixed on the gallery stands with fresh creations, today they are relegated to the rear part of the nave. Thus, the first galleries facing the entrance offer today’s sure values. In the front row, Gerhard Richter, Tomas Saraceno and Marlene Dumas. We also find the artists highlighted in museum exhibitions, from surrealists like André Masson, Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali (also at the Center Pompidou) to Tom Wesselmann (Louis Vuitton Foundation) and Hans Josephson (Museum of Modern Art in Paris) .

If tapestry has disappeared this year, ceramics remain omnipresent. Earthenware creations abound, from the kurimanzutto gallery to PPOW. It was at the latter that we discovered the installation Everything Must Go Vases by Ann Agee. Seen in 1994 in the “Bad Girls” exhibition put on by Marcia Tucker at the New Museum, this American artist plays on the tenuous boundaries between kitsch and traditional forms. Here she offers S-shaped vases, diagonal or contrapposto, which she displays on a yellow fabric in her own style.

Throughout the stands, the surprises pile up. First impact upon entering Matthew Marks with a De Kooning that belonged to Ellsworth Kelly. Then, a huge acrylic on Kiegecell, a cellular plastic, by Jean Dubuffet at Gladstone. Then an impressive alabaster sculpture by Anish Kapoor, which resembles a Chillida, and the immense column of stacked chairs by Alicja Kwade at Mennour. A few steps further, two pretty blue heads hand-stitched by Louise Bourgeois at Xavier Hufkens as well as a bronze profile by Mark Manders. Without forgetting Miriam Cahn and Francisco Troppa at Jocelyn Wolff.

Very few one-man shows punctuate the aisles. Make way for multi-artist exhibitions which allow galleries to appeal to all categories of collectors. Among the fine staging efforts, the drawings of Annette Messager placed on uterus wallpaper (Marian Goodman) or the evocation of the career of the merchant Wilhelm Uhde (Dina Vierny). Responding to both monographic and spectacular criteria, the Eva Presenhuber gallery comes out on top with the square and colorful canvases of Tschabalala Self, an African-American artist, which dialogue with the sculpture of a heroine inspired by Saartjie Bartmann in Paris.

How can we not repeat our joy at finding the Grand Palais, closed for work until the end of the Olympic Games. As a Nice snub, the Loevenbruck gallery found a painting by Gilles Aillaud (which was celebrated last year at the Center Pompidou) showing a marabout in a zoo. Under the metal balcony of the Grand Palais, painted green, this work seems to overshadow the decor that shelters it. Behind its green gates, the bird gazes at the visitor with amused eyes and must make fun of all the people crowded there to find the latest novelty. Amazing!