ART FAIRS:Art Paris Art Fair 2020
Since it was inaugurated in 1998, Art Paris Art Fair has become a highlight on the International Art calendar and a major event on the Paris scene. In 2006, Art Paris was one of the first events to take up its quarters under the glass roof of Grand Palais, and has been back every year. Art Paris has become a meeting point for professionals of the Modern and Contemporary art markets, the exhibition each year draws a growing number of loyal collectors and art-lovers.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Art Paris Art Fair Archive
Open to all forms of artistic expression, Art Paris Art Fair offers a broad vision of art from the post-war period to the present day. Bringing together more than 150 galleries from over 20 countries for its 22nd Edition, Art Paris will showcase a two-fold “Focus”, turning to both the French contemporary art scene and invites visitors to discover four dynamic cities: Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid and Porto. In parallel, the “Solo Show” sector will be dedicated to monographic exhibitions, while “Promises” sector continues its support to young and emerging galleries. New participants make up 31% of the 2020 selection and 5 countries will be represented for the first time: Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, the Ivory Coast and Turkey. Each year, to support of the French scene, Art Paris invites a curator to engage critically and historically with a selection of projects by French artists presented by participating galleries. In “Common and Uncommon Stories”, Gaël Charbau brings together the work of 22 artists, most of which were born in the 1980s, responding to the notion of the narrative and the ambiguous interplay between singularity and universality in storytelling. He has also been invited to write a text presenting each artist and their work. Spread across the various sectors of the fair, the participating galleries and curated by Carolina Grau, in “Southern Stars: An Exploration of the Iberian Peninsula” 25 galleries will present works by a selection of 77 artist and constitute a historical and contemporary journey delving into the various Spanish and Portuguese art scenes. In parallel, projects including a video programme, site-specific installations, and conferences at the Instituto Cervantes and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris will highlight the creative effervescence flourishing in this part of Southern Europe. Since 2015, Art Paris has encouraged the presentation of monographic exhibitions by inciting galleries to present specific single artist-focused projects. The 2020 edition of “Solo Show” will feature around 20 solo shows distributed throughout the fair. “Promises” will host 14 young galleries from Abidjan, Brussels, Lima, Lisbon, Rome, Sofia, Marseille and Paris, many of which will be exhibiting at Art Paris for the first time this year. The galleries will each be presenting between one and three emerging artists and benefit from financial sponsorship from the fair. A site-specific installation presented by Marisa Ferreira, “Lost Future” (2020) takes its inspiration from Le Corbusier’s “Plan Voisin” (1925). “Lost Future” evokes the gap between the utopian ambitions of the 1970s and the current property boom that pays no heed to the history and identity of cities such as Porto and Lisbon. The “Plan Voisin” was a solution for the center of Paris, drawn between 1922 and 1925 by Le Corbusier. The plan for 1925 seems to be a direct transposition of the diagram of Contemporary City for three million drawn in 1922. Included are buildings available in a regular orthogonal grid occupying a very important part of the right bank of the Seine. The space is highly structured with two new traffic arteries pierced through the city, one on the east-west, the other on a north-south. Their role is not limited to the organization of Paris, as were the advances of Haussmann: they pass through the fortifications and the suburban area. They have the ambition to link the capital to the four corners of the country, the major French and European cities. The crossroads at the intersection of these two avenues is the center of the plan, the center of the city in central France. Le Corbusier opposed the idea of building a new administrative city in the periphery (that is La Defense) and proposes to build at the foot of Montmartre, demolishing the Marais neighborhood opposite the island of the City’s new command center that it considers necessary for the vitality of the country.
Info: Art Paris Art Fair 2020, Artistic Director: Guillaume Piens, Guest Curators: Gaël Charbau and Carolina Grau, Grand Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, Paris, Days & Hours: Wed (1/4) 12:00-18:00, Opening 18:00-22:00 by invitation only, Thu (2/4) 11:30-20:00, Fri (3/4) 11:30-21:00, Sat (4/4) 11:30-20:00, Sun (5/4) 11:30-19:00, Admission: Adults and children over age 10: €28, Students and groups of 10 or more: €14, children under age: 10 free, www.artparis.com
