Puces Portrait: François-Xavier Courrèges
FX Courrèges curates his Paul-Bert stand like a miniature gallery, orchestrating dialogues between postmodern Italian design, sculptural forms and contemporary art.
A design dealer with an artist’s eye, François-Xavier Courrèges approaches his stand at the Marché Paul-Bert as both curator and scenographer, composing a series of evolving “mini exhibitions” in which objects are brought into deliberate dialogue. Since opening in 2022, he has developed a distinctive language shaped by an early passion for design and a background in contemporary art. His selection, spanning the 1980s to the 2000s, moves fluidly between eras and disciplines: the expressive forms of Gaetano Pesce set against the rigour of Maarten Van Severen, alongside lighting by Gino Sarfatti or André Cazenave and occasional artist ephemera. He presents only a handful of pieces at a time — rare, sometimes unusual, often sculptural works — seeking to establish correspondences between them and to create coherent, immersive worlds.
This interview is excerpted from The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), a book that draws back the curtain on this rare place through encounters with a handful of the dealers at its heart.
