The Art Paris art fair is picking up again this year, after a 2021 edition which recorded a record number of 72,745 visitors. This took place for the first time at the Grand Palais Éphémère on the Champ-de-Mars, and we’ll see the same again for this 2022 edition, which will take place this spring from 7-10 April. There’s no doubt that we'll find success here again: the fair has 130 galleries participating from around twenty different countries.
Art Paris 2022 will welcome 40 new participants, representing a renewal rate of 30% compared to the 2021 edition. Among the regular galleries, the Art Paris fair is delighted to once again welcome names such as Continua and Perrotin. Among the newcomers are Max Hetzler (Berlin, Paris, London), Fernando Pradilla (Madrid) and Rodolphe Janssen (Brussels); and among the French, new galleries include GB Agency, Catherine Issert and Denise René.
Part of the fair will be devoted to modern art, and it will be all the richer with the arrival of guests such as Brame Lorenceau, Galerie des Modernes and Galerie Jacques Bailly. African contemporary art will have its dedicated section with the presence of galleries such as 31 Project, Magnin-A and Carole Kvasnevski on the side of the Parisian brands, and on the other, 1957 Gallery (Ghana), Loft Art Gallery (Morocco) and Véronique Rieffel (Ivory Coast).
The fair, concerned with promoting emerging players in the art world, is presenting young galleries through its ‘Promises’ sector. Half of the participating galleries in this sector have never been invited before, such as Double V Gallery (Marseille, Paris) and Gallery M9 (Seoul). Among the art galleries, we will find Backslash, Félix Frachon, Irène Laub and Oniris.art. It is thanks to all these participants that ‘Promises’ offers a fresh and original look at the contemporary art scene on an international scale.
As always, the fair is organised around a specific subject and this year, Art Paris has chosen to explore the relationship that art has with the living world, nature, fauna and flora, through two complementary themes.
First of all, Histoires naturelles: un regard sur la scène française (the Natural World: a look at the French scene) is organised by independent curator Alfred Pacquement. Around twenty artists, including Etel Adnan, Carole Benzaken and Justin Weiler, are brought together to share, across several generations, the artistic vision of the natural world.
Alice Audouin, also an independent exhibition curator, is also an environmental specialist and founder of the Art of Change 21 association. It is therefore only natural that Alice Audouin presents the second theme, Art et environnement (Art and the Environment). She selected seventeen artists from around the world to talk about current environmental issues, including Tadashi Kawamata, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Sarah Trouche.
This ecological axis is reflected in the very organisation of this 2022 edition: the Karbone Prod agency, as well as the firm Solinnen and the Art of Change 21 association have implemented an eco-design approach based on analyse de cycle de vie (ACV) – a lifecycle analysis – of the fair. This initiative is unprecedented in the world of art fairs: this first step marks a significant change for the future, since this approach could make it possible to develop an eco-design tool for all art fairs.
Within the fair are seventeen monographic exhibitions of the ‘Solo Show’, where, through dedicated retrospectives, visitors will be able to admire the work of modern and contemporary artists, including Marion Boehm (Loft Art Gallery), Carlos León (Fernando Pradilla) and Tyler Thacker (Pact).
An unmissable cultural event that the pandemic will not have overcome, the Art Paris art fair reiterates the importance of the City of Light on the world’s art scene. Paris remains a privileged player in the contemporary artistic world, as evidenced by the various themes and exhibitions of Art Paris 2022 that visitors will have the chance to enjoy in April.
The fair will be held from 7-10 April 2022 at the Grand Palais Éphémère, and all information relating to the event can be found here.
