Flash News: FIAC is back – Staying with Paris – the FIAC fringe – Paul-Durand Ruel: an art dealer in Paris

Every fortnight, Artprice provides a short round up of art market news: FIAC is back – Staying with Paris – the FIAC fringe – Paul-Durand Ruel: an art dealer in Paris

FIAC is back

FIAC, France’s leading Contemporary Art Fair, will once again be opening its doors at the Grand Palais from 23 to 26 October 2014. 191 galleries from 26 countries will come together for this 41st event in the series. FIAC 2013 featured 129 exhibitors from 25 countries (including 55 from France) and welcomed 73,000 visitors over the 5 days of the fair. And to round off these dizzying statistics, the works of 1,451 artists will be on show, including prestigious names such as Andy WARHOL, Francis BACON and Gerhard RICHTER, along with pieces valued in the millions of euros. The world’s top five contemporary artists – Jean-Michel BASQUIAT, Jeff KOONS, Christopher WOOL, Peter DOIG and Chinese artist ZENG Fanzhi – will of course be represented (see the Top 500 ranking in Artprice’s Annual Report on the Contemporary Art Market at Artprice.com: http://imgpublic.artprice.com/pdf/artprice-contemporary-2013-2014-en.pdf).

Certain galleries will be showcasing the same top names, and indeed Pablo PICASSO will be represented on nine different stands… perhaps a little unfortunate for a fair with the words ‘Contemporary Art’ in its title? But Picasso will not be the sole representative of Modern Art at the show. Wassily KANDINSKY (1866-1944), Gustav KLIMT (1862-1918) and Edvard MUNCH (1863-1944) will also be joining the party.
A full 20% of the artists being shown are no longer with us and, at 51, the average age of the living artists exceeds the half-century. The doyenne of the show is Cuban artist Carmen HERRERA (born 1915), who is being exhibited by London’s Lisson Gallery. The two babies of the event are just 25 years old: Lucien SMITH (Skarstedt Gallery) and Philipp TIMISCHL (Neue Atle Brucke). Only 54 of the artists announced are under 30, but they include some serious performers in the salerooms, such as Oscar MURILLO, Jacob KASSAY, Ryan SULLIVAN and Hugh SCOTT-DOUGLAS.

Staying with Paris – the FIAC fringe

Despite the tendency of FIAC itself to select its artists with a view to pleasing aficionados in search of Contemporary Art, the event it now finds itself accompanied by a growing number of hugely diverse satellite art fairs. So FIAC has decided to get involved by launching its own ‘Off’ shows. (Off)icielle will be held at the Docks (Cité de la Mode et du Design) and features 60 galleries with a stronger focus on emerging talent than is normally seen in the Nef of the Grand Palais.

This year there will be seven fringe fairs, despite the cancellation of Cutlog because of the director’s belief that the Paris market is saturated. And he’s not wrong… unless you have super powers, one short week is not enough to see everything: Art Elysées (Champs Elysées from 23 to 27 October); Design Elysées (near the Grand Palais, from 23 to 27 October); the Outsider art fair (Hotel le A in the 8th arrondissement of Paris); the Slick art fair, whose 9th edition is still located beneath the Pont Alexandre III but which has changed its name to Slick ‘Attitude’; the fringe show which in future will be known as Variation (9th edition, at Blancs Manteaux, 21 to 26 October) and YIA – the Young International Artists Art Fair – at Le Carreau du Temple in the heart of the Grand Marais district (from 23 to 26 October). The key is to select the galleries and exhibitions that you really want to see…

Paul-Durand Ruel: an art dealer in Paris

The Gamble of the Impressionists is the title of the largest exhibition ever devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), the greatest art dealer of the 19th century. It runs from 9 October to 8 February 2015 at the Musée du Luxembourg. This exhibition brings together 80 Impressionist masterpieces and retraces the moment when the avant-garde of the 19th century began to garner international recognition. It was Paul Durand-Ruel who discovered the Impressionists. He befriended Manet, Renoir and Monet and bought and sold their works. An artistic visionary, he also brought the profession of ‘art dealer’ into the modern age. He made regular trips abroad, establishing networks of galleries and spreading Impressionism across Europe and the United States. Today, global demand has turned these great painters into some of the most popular and valuable artists in the world.
Manet’s record was set in London (Portrait de Manet par lui-même, en buste, sold for the equivalent of $29.6 million on 22 June 2010 at Sotheby’s London), as was that of Monet (Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, sold for the equivalent of $71.8 million at Christie’s on 24 June 2008). Renoir’s peak was reached in New York (Au Moulin de la Galette, sold for $71 million on 17 May 1990 at Sotheby’s New York). The fact that so many modern French artists are in such demand around the world is due in no small part to Paul Durand-Ruel and the way he pushed back the boundaries.