The only fair to have managed to step into the breach of deconfinement before reconfinement and to fill the cultural desert of last autumn, Art Paris will have won on all fronts. Boosted by the arrival or return of high-profile galleries, such as Almine Rech, Art: Concept, Continua, frank elbaz, Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, MASSIMODECARLO, Lelong & Co, Kamel Mennour, Perrotin, and Thaddaeus Ropac, who join the faithful (Nathalie Obadia, Lahumière, Templon), the fair is the first to deploy its stands (140 galleries of modern and contemporary art) in the spectacular ephemeral Grand Palais, erected by Jean-Michel Wilmotte on the Champ-de-Mars. Both regional and cosmopolitan, mixing prestigious galleries with “author galleries” (Martine Aboucaya, Jean Fournier, Suzanne Tarasieve, Anne-Sarah Bénichou, Vincent Sator) as well as emerging names (Double V Gallery, 31 Project, Pact, Derouillon, Stems and Marguo), this 23rdedition promises some nice surprises.
In addition to these “promises” to be found in the eponymous sector dedicated to young galleries and emerging creation, the exhibition, “Portrait and Figuration. Regard sur la scène française,” mounted at the heart of the exhibition by Hervé Mikaeloff, guest curator, promises to be a formidable dive into painting in the “post- medium era”:“In the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, form, the anatomical support of the figure and the face that tears apart the sensitive are distinguished. Its appearance does not reveal everything, and sometimes it is through the artist’s line that we can distinguish bits of truth […].”
By Stéphanie Dulout
