View of the Eiffel Tower from the Grand Palais Ephémère. The temporary hall that will replace the Grand Palais during its renovation will host Art Basel for the first time in Paris in October.
(Photo: Francois Mori/AP)
palace revolution. Hardly any other word could describe the process better. In terms of symbolic power, the expulsion of the Paris art fair Fiac, founded in 1974, from its historic site of the Grand Palais on the Champs-Élysées can hardly be overestimated.
In a sensational decision on Wednesday, the Parisian Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN), which operates the Grand Palais and whose director has been curator Chris Dercon since 2018, decided to reschedule the traditional trade fair date in October with the prestigious location to the Swiss Exhibition company MCH, which operates Art Basel and intends to hold a fourth art fair in Paris in addition to its art fairs in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. What motives could be behind the castling?
In addition to Fiac, Art Basel also dealt a blow to London’s Frieze
By winning the trade fair battle, MCH has killed two birds with one stone. For one, it dealt a severe blow to competitor and fiac operator Reed Exhibitions (RX), a global exhibition company based in London.
At the same time, MCH also showed it to the Frieze trade fair in London, which also takes place in October, but has slipped into a tailspin due to Brexit. Frieze wanted to compete with Art Basel and its Hong Kong offshoot with a new fair in the art market hotspot Seoul on the first weekend in September. Art Basel’s armed march to Paris was the overdue response, so to speak.
Of course, the process is not explained by the usual market cabals alone. It’s too basic for that. Because the nefarious act embodies par excellence the moment that the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter once described as “creative destruction”.
The changes on the European art market show that this reorganization of production factors is, so to speak, systemically necessary. “Brexit has changed the game,” said New York gallery owner David Zwirner last summer. At least since he opened his own branch in Paris in 2019, there have been signs of a resurgence in the art metropolis that has long fallen behind.
The size of the French art market is still rather small. In the latest “Art Market Report” by Art Basel and the UBS Bank, economist Clare McAndrew estimated it at $3.1 billion (UK $9.9 billion), just six percent of the global volume. But the signals for the increasing importance of Paris are increasing: A report by the online newspaper Artnet according to the auction industry on the Seine, for example, grew by 49 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year.
“In recent years, a new dynamic has emerged that is restoring Paris to its former glory on the art market,” observed Cecile Verdier, President of Christie’s Paris. That’s why it recently extensively renovated its branch on Avenue Matignon.
Galleries, private museums and the Olympic Games: “Paris is experiencing a renaissance”
A number of new galleries have also opened, from the Italian gallery Continua to Massimo De Carlo and Mariane Ibrahim. The spectacular private art museums of the billionaires Pinault, Arnault, Ricard or the Fondation Louis Vuitton also contribute to the momentum that the French capital is currently experiencing, as does the upcoming Summer Olympics in 2024. “It may all still be a bit artificial. But it is a fact now: Paris is experiencing a renaissance,” said the Salzburg retailer Thaddaeus Ropac, who opened his second branch in Paris in 2012.
When Marc Spiegler, the Global Director of Art Basel, and Chris Dercon, head of the Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais (RMN) exhibition complex, speak in almost identical statements that the Paris edition of Art Basel, for which it does not yet have a name, is intended to be a fair “that has its roots in the 21st century, radiates throughout the city and is firmly anchored in Paris and its cultural and creative sectors” and “represents the contemporary artistic creation of the Parisian and French ecosystem – especially the up-and-coming new talents – is aimed precisely at this new hotspot. Paris is gearing up for the mutual catalysis of art and cultural economy.
Dercon and the board of directors of the exhibition complex clearly believe that the fair for contemporary art, which has been hit by economic failures but is still the most experienced, is more capable of tapping this potential than the Ancien Régime of Fiac.
The Paris act is about symbolically demonstrating the claim to dominance in the rapidly changing European market with its new powerhouse in Paris. Should this succeed with a convincing trade fair, it would also be the first, globally visible proof that James Murdoch, the billionaire son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has been the majority shareholder of the MCH trade fair company since 2020, is not just using a lot of money to save a faltering empire from bankruptcy , but can also put the traditional tanker from Basel on a substantially new course.
It was only in 2018 that Art Basel’s attempt to expand its presence with regional fairs in Düsseldorf, New Delhi and Singapore failed miserably. Just days before the Paris announcement, MCH had already announced that it would again take a 15 percent stake in the trade fair company Art Events Singapore, which intends to organize the new Art SG art fair there in January 2023. This is by no means an expression of a headless Basel zigzag strategy. The monetary poles of power are rearranging themselves around the world. The art market punishes those who come too late.