In Paris, the art scene is happening; London had better look out

October is the month when London and Paris go head-to-head, vying with each other to attract collectors to their prestigious contemporary art fairs.

In recent years, London has had the edge, at least in terms of hype. The Frieze and Frieze Masters fairs have generated far more noise than Paris’s rival, the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, or FIAC. In addition, the French capital suffered as a visitor destination following the 2015 terror attacks. With a two-week gap between Frieze and FIAC, most art collectors travelling long distances have to choose between one or the other.

But Paris visitor numbers have bounced back. And with Britain’s economy and its art market facing an uncertain future outside the European Union after March, is than an opportunity for FIAC and its week of associated events? “I don’t like the idea of profiting from others’ misfortunes,” said Jennifer Flay, FIAC’s director since 2010, at a preview on Wednesday. “We’ve been trying to redress perceptions of the French art scene for years,” she added. “It’s taken a while to get things to become more competitive and international.”

The 45th edition of FIAC featured 195 galleries from 27 countries. The five-day fair, held in the majestic setting of the Grand Palais, combines contemporary and modern art under one soaring steel-and-glass roof, and attracts about 75,000 visitors, according to the organisers. The Frieze and Frieze Masters fairs, which separate contemporary and modern, each attract 60,000.

Paris is certainly being perceived again as a place to do business by international art dealers. The London and Hong Kong-based gallerist Ben Brown of Ben Brown Fine Arts was one of 18 first-time exhibitors at the fair.

“It feels good here in Paris,” said Brown, who was offering an array of classic blue-chip works from the 1960s by Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein. “We’re in for a rough time in England.”

Sales at FIAC have a reputation for taking longer than at Frieze, but despite the general air of uncertainty, collectors were making decisions at the preview. By lunchtime, Gagosian had sold more than 10 of the spray-painted works on paper that the Berlin-based artist Katharina Grosse had produced for FIAC, marked at €40,000 to €50,000, or $46,000 to $57,000.

Grosse’s centrepiece was the monumental Ingres Wood, a sumptuously pigmented installation of pine trunks on fabric using a recently felled tree planted in Rome by the 19th-century French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It was priced at €550,000.

Notable among FIAC’s confirmed early sales was the $250,000 paid at the booth of the Los Angeles dealer David Kordansky for the 2018 circular cast polyester sculpture Untitled (Parabolic Lens) by Fred Eversley. Eversley is a former NASA-trained engineer who is included in the current Brooklyn Museum edition of the influential exhibition, “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power”. The work is a new version of a sculpture originally conceived in 1969.

When it comes to fair venues, FIAC wins hands down over Frieze. The Grand Palais is one of the world’s most spectacular settings for any cultural event. But this signature building will close for renovation soon after the 2020 edition, and will then be used as a venue for the 2024 Paris Olympics. During the renovation period, FIAC will occupy a temporary structure on the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, according to Flay.

Could that move compromise any shift of gravity toward Paris? Possibly. But “FIAC Week,” like “Frieze Week,” is about a lot more than one art fair. 

Serious-minded satellite events are another important draw for collectors. London has the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair; Paris has the Paris Internationale and Asia Now fairs, both four years old. Paris Internationale is a pop-up event organised by smaller contemporary galleries seeking to keep costs low. This year’s fair was held in a vacant 19th-century residential building overlooking Parc Monceau in northwest Paris. Forty-two dealers and eight nonprofit ventures squeezed into its rambling domestic spaces.

The sense that there’s plenty happening in the Paris art scene was further reinforced on Thursday with almost 130 art and design dealerships exhibiting at FIAC Week’s annual “Gallery Night”. Freedman Fitzpatrick, a Los Angeles gallery that opened near the Hotel de Ville in February, was showing politically charged sculptures by the young New York artist Diamond Stingily.

“We wanted to have a second gallery in Europe, and we do have a lot of clients in this region,” said Robbie Freedman, a co-founder of the dealership, which was also exhibiting in the first-floor younger galleries section of FIAC. “Paris is a global hub.”

© 2018 The New York Times