ART FAIRS:Art Paris 2020

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Art Paris, the major contemporary art fair, said to take place in Paris from April 2 to 5, 2020 has been postponed first to May 28 to 31, 2020 but it will ultimately take place from September 10 to 13, 2020. This unmissable event of contemporary art in Paris is the promise of beautiful discoveries including, this year, an exploration of Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid and Porto.

Photo: Art Paris Archive

Postponed, cancelled, online… Art Paris 2020 has faced many twists and turns. But art fans are ultimately invited to discover the edition  of the fair at the Grand Palais September 11-13, 2020. In the Promesses 14 promising and young art galleries are put in the spotlight by the fair, each displaying one to three emerging artists. Keep your eyes open and remember their names, you may hear about them very soon. As it happens every year since 2015, Art Paris encourages exhibiting galleries to display monographic exhibitions. And for the edition 2020, we discover about 40 of them, a record for the event. More than 80 French and international galleries have already confirmed that they will be taking part in September. One of the advantages of Art Paris is that, in addition to its international scope, it is also a local and regional fair. It is a reassuring fact that 80% of visitors either come from the Paris region (Île de France) or other areas of France. Each year, in 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, guest curator 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. Following its extensive survey of the Latin American scene in 2019, Art Paris turns to the Iberian Peninsula, bringing light to Spanish and Portuguese art from the 1950s to the present day. 25 galleries will be presenting works by a selection of 77 artists. 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. “Southern Stars: an exploration of the Iberian Peninsula” will be curated by Barcelona-based independent exhibition curator Carolina Grau. To make sure the fair takes place smoothly, a 3000-visitor at the same limit has been set. The number of exhibitors have been lowered, and opening hours will bee changed, to limit the number of visitors for opening, as well as opening hours for professionals and collectors every day from 10 a.m. to noon.

Info: Artistic Director: Guillaume Piens, Art Paris Art Fair 2020, Grand Palais, 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, Paris, Duration: 10-13/9/2020, Days & Hours: Tue (10/9) & Sat-Sun (12-13/9) 12:00-20:00, Fri (11/9) 12:00-21:00, Admission 28€ / 14 € (students and groups), www.artparis.com