Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.
After a weekend of civil unrest, Paris shifts into an altogether different kind of intensity – one that invites us to collectively imagine a shared present and future on this planet. ART BASEL PARIS opens to the public at the Grand Palais on Friday, with new director Karim Crippa at the helm and the fair firmly established as the centrepiece of the city’s art calendar. Around it, an extraordinary constellation of exhibitions, satellite fairs, installations, talks, parties and other happenings unfolds – a vast artistic symphony playing out across the city this week.
Beyond the Grand Palais, the fair’s Public Program turns streets and squares into an open-air exhibition. Look out for three monumental sculptures by Tracey Emin facing the Eiffel Tower from the Trocadéro. Simone Fattal, meanwhile, presents a more intimate work on Avenue Winston Churchill, offering a glimpse of her practice beyond her major exhibition currently on view at the Musée d’Art Moderne. At the Palais d’Iéna, programme partner Miu Miu returns with Geste de Consolation, a new project by filmmaker Alice Diop that extends her cinematic practice into exhibition space. (Free entry, Wed–Sun.)
SATELLITE FAIRS: A constellation of parallel fairs fans out across the city. Reference Festival makes its Paris debut with four days of fashion, art and music, from FKA twigs and Eartheater to Richie Hawtin, Gabriel Moses and Blackhaine. Events unfold across several venues, including Dover Street Market and Silencio, with FVTVR on the Seine at the heart of the late-night action. Paris Internationale, one of the city’s key independent art fairs, moves to a new home on the Canal Saint Martin, alongside fresh initiatives including Second Nature, bringing together seven emerging Korean galleries, and a space for recent graduates of the École des Arts Décoratifs. Offscreen returns for its fifth edition at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, exploring experimental approaches to still and moving images through installations and image-based practices.
Design Miami Paris returns to the Hôtel de Maisons in the 7th for its 4th edition, bringing collectible design and contemporary creativity into an elegant private mansion. Also in the 7th, Ceramic Art Fair + Glass champions ceramics and glass as art forms in their own right at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine. Further afield, Asia Now brings contemporary art from across Asia to the Monnaie de Paris, while AKAA – Also Known as Africa returns to the Carreau du Temple to showcase contemporary art connected to Africa and its diasporas. And opening Thursday, Offprint takes over Césure with indie publishers and artists presenting their book projects, alongside talks and signings.
Food is becoming another way to experience art week – a meeting point for gastronomy, architecture, design and the pleasure of being together. We Are Ona hosts Dalad’s, a collaboration between artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and chef Dalad Kambhu exploring contemporary Thai hospitality through a pop-up running all week, serving four-course lunches (€130 per person) and eight-course dinners (€230). Meanwhile, Banc Public teams up with Paris Internationale for its first hospitality pop-up, taking over the fourth floor of the fair from tomorrow until Sat. Guest chef Numa Müller serves a three-course lunch menu (65€) and à la carte dinners, with the option to drop in for a drink.
Alongside the fairs, Paris’s museums and galleries turn up the volume. Some highlights, in no particular order: Jenny Holzer J’ai Vu at the Musée d’Orsay until Thu, alongside the Mary Cassatt show; Kurt Schwitters at the Musée Picasso; Cézanne et nous revisits the painter’s work and legacy at the Grand Palais; and Remember Me at the Bourse de Commerce, where the Pinault Collection marks the bicentenary of photography with a major group exhibition, including an installation by Barbara Kruger.
Other must-sees include Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s much-anticipated take-over at the Fondation Cartier and Kerry James Marshall’s The Histories at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The Fondation Louis Vuitton presents Gustave Fayet: Collector – Designer exploring the French collector’s relationship with Modern art. Lafayette Anticipations continues its forward-looking programme with exhibitions by Yu Nishimura, Hélène Fauquet and Mungo Thomson. While photography lovers have plenty to explore. From from Penn & Fashion at the MEP to Parallax, the most comprehensive exhibition of Stan Douglas’s work in France in more than 30 years at the Jeu de Paume.
Commercial galleries have major shows of their own. Browse the Une Semaine en Galerie program, with 163 participating galleries going all out across Paris and beyond. Some highlights, Hauser & Wirth celebrates Alexander Calder, while Gagosian presents Lee Krasner: Works from the 1960s (chiming with Krasner & Pollock currently showing at New York’s Met Museum). Mennour inaugurates its new space at 26 ave Matignon with the group show L’insaisissable nature du réel. And for those willing to venture beyond central Paris, Gagosian Le Bourget offers a rare chance to see all nine works in Dan Flavin’s European Couples series (1966–71) installed together – for only the third time ever, and the first time in France.
See you there!
Kate
Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !
On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!
On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).
👉🏽 After years exploring the Puces de Saint-Ouen and researching for my book ‘The Paris Flea Market’, I now share that insider knowledge through bespoke buying and research tours – for collectors, decorators, architects, or anyone who wants to explore the markets with a deeper eye. Hit me up!