Held under the soaring glass roof of the Grand Palais, seasoned collectors and first time visitors come from all over the world to look at and invest in the work of important modern and contemporary artists. Top international galleries from all over the world present work by up-and-coming artists at FIAC. Everyone who’s anyone in the art world will be present, as this is a true tastemaker’s event, a place to spot the next greatest talent and perhaps invest in some artwork.
191 galleries—including Beijing’s Vitamin Creative Space; Paris’s Galerie Perrotin, Galerie Le Minotaure, and Yvon Lambert; and New York’s Gagosian Gallery, Luhring Augustine, and David Zwirner—will exhibit work by art world power players. And outdoor installations are scattered around the Jardin des Tuileries (also host to a temporary shipping-container cinema), in the Jardin des Plantes, on the banks of the Seine, and in Place Vendôme (though Paul McCarthy’s controversial and recently vandalized Tree sculpture will not remain inflated there).
While FIAC ranks among the oldest and most prestigious art fairs in the world, new sister fair (OFF)icielle (October 22–26) is more inclusive of emerging, lesser-known galleries. Appropriately, it will be housed in a decidedly younger landmark, Cité de la Mode et du Design, on the eastern end of the Seine, characterized by the transparent lime-green corridor snaking along the exterior.
“I wanted to broaden our exhibition scope,” says FIAC director Jennifer Flay, who assembled (OFF)icielle’s selection committee. “These are younger artists, or not-so-young artists that have been overlooked.” (OFF)icielle’s 68 participating galleries span 14 countries and represent artists who have never previously shown in a major cultural institution. Two booths particularly worth visiting: Strasbourg’s J-P Ritsch-Fisch and Paris’s Galerie Christian Berst, both specialists in artists of no formal artistic training, often labeled makers of “outsider art.”
Complementing the fair, displays, stalls and exhibitions around the city as well as a series of events are held in parallel with the FIAC. These allow the public to take a closer look at the latest offerings from the world of modern and contemporary art.
