Paris, in the most colloquial terms, has really been that girl lately, having spent the past year in the international spotlight. In addition to hosting the Summer Olympics, the city reprised its starring role in one of the most popular Netflix series of all time, all while Paris’s post-Brexit ascent as a major European commercial hub has injected a renewed energy into the city’s creative classes. Across the worlds of fashion, gastronomy, commerce, and not least of all, contemporary art, according to Art Basel’s Clément Delépine, “There is a sense that creativity and engagement with culture are thriving like never before.”
This week, Delépine takes his own place in the international spotlight as the director of the inaugural Art Basel Paris, the highly anticipated French edition of the venerated art fair. From October 18 through 20, the fair’s debut presents 195 exhibitors under the iconic Grand Palais’s newly renovated glass dome. There is genuine cause for excitement: “The energy in Paris is quite invigorating,” Delépine adds, describing what some have called the city’s contemporary renaissance. With all eyes in the art world on the French capital, below is a (too-brief) list of what W is looking forward to this week as we head to Art Basel Paris.
Art Basel Paris Public Programming
Extending beyond the Grand Palais’s walls, Art Basel Paris engages the city’s urban fabric, activating some of most frequented sites—the Petit Palais and Place Vendôme among them—alongside a few deep cuts and less-touristed gems. At the Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, for example, the artist Ali Cherri presents Triumph of the Limp (2022), a show of sculptures that examines the colonial subtext of European museums. Other highlights include a project by Jean-Charles de Quillacq at the 17th-century Beaux-Arts de Paris-Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, and at Place Vendôme, a new monumental Carsten Höller sculpture intriguingly titled Giant Triple Mushroom (2024).
