Paris+ par Art Basel announces expanded, citywide public program for its 2023 edition

Paris+ par Art Basel announced today first details of its upcoming citywide public program, which will run concurrently to the fair's second edition. Freely accessible to the public, the program comprises three exhibitions, two monumental outdoor installations, and a series of talks and debates, presented in six iconic locations across the city. They include the Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine national du Louvre, the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Place Vendôme – all of which already hosted projects in 2022 – as well as three new venues: the parvis de l'Institut de France, the Palais d'Iéna, and the Centre Pompidou, which will welcome the show's Conversations program. Paris+ par Art Basel will therefore further expand its offering and footprint in the French capital, as well as its collaborations with local cultural institutions and the City of Paris. 

Clément Delépine, Director of Paris+ par Art Basel, says: ‘I am delighted that with three new venues, we were able to significantly bolster the public program of Paris+ par Art Basel's upcoming edition. The fruitful institutional partnerships we put in place and the ambitious proposal resulting from them are defining features of our show in the French capital. With Paris+ par Art Basel's 2023 public program, Parisians and visitors from out of town will be able to experience thought-provoking art and engaging discourse in the context of historical, if not legendary, locations.’ 

Exhibition at Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine national du Louvre

Organized in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and curated for the second year by Annabelle Ténèze, presently Director of Les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse and incoming Director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, an exhibition of public artworks will unfold across the Tuileries Garden, in the center of Paris. Titled ‘La cinquième saison (The fifth season)’, it draws from Ténèze's 2022 Tuileries show ‘La Suite de l'Histoire’ ('The Aftermath of History') and explores the garden as a place where water, plant, mineral, and animal life coexist. The works on view underline our interdependence with the living world and question the ways we interact with nature; they question how together with its inhabitants, we can shape the 'aftermath of history'. Participating artists include Joël Andrianomearisoa, Meriem Bennani, Jacqueline de Jong, Vojtech Kovarik, Zanele Muholi, Jean Prouvé & Pierre Jeanneret, and Claudia Wieser. Several artists chose to produce new work especially for the occasion.  

Annabelle Ténèze says: ‘I am happy to propose an exhibition that brings together artists who consider their works “living objects”, objects that are touched by life. They address not only the marks we leave on nature, but also those nature leaves on us. The environment and how we cohabit with the protagonists of our “terrestrial community” are fundamental to these artists' practices; they hence invite us to look and listen to the movements of the garden and its inhabitants in subtle yet innovative ways.’  

The full list of participating artists will be revealed in September. 

Paris+ par Art Basel on the parvis de l'Institut de France

A monumental sculpture by American artist Sheila Hicks will be presented on the parvis de l'Institut de France, located in front of the Pont des Arts and the Institut de France, a 17th-century building hosting five French academies, including the Académie Française. Hicks' work ‘The Questioning Column’ (2023) is a six-meters-high column covered in multicolored strands of sustainable, waterproof textile; the sculpture's bright chromatic palette will be in dialog with the muted tones of the surrounding buildings. The artist, who has been living and working in Paris since 1964, is known for her vibrant and often sprawling installations predominantly made of fabric, a material she celebrates as an endless source of possibilities and an antidote to rigid artistic classification.  

The project is presented by galerie frank elbaz (Paris), in collaboration with Meyer Riegger (Berlin, Karlsruhe) and Francesca Minini (Brescia). 

Paris+ par Art Basel at Palais d'Iéna

The exhibition in the museum spaces of the Palais d'Iéna brings together two artists with exceptional careers, Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, Italy, 1933) and Daniel Buren (Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 1938), who have exhibited in major cultural institutions and galleries across the world. The project, led by art historian Matthieu Poirier and supported by Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Pékin, Boissyle-Châtel, Dubai, La Havane, Paris, Rome, São Paulo), will be fully revealed in October. The exhibition will bring together elements conceived and realized in response to the specificities of the Palais d'Iéna, built by Auguste Perret in 1937: its monumental spaces, the subtle polychromy of its raw concrete, its singular luminosity, its urban surroundings, its perspectives and various levels, and its complex symmetry.  

Since the 1960s, Daniel Buren has been exploring the relationship between motif and support, as well as form and context. This led him to choose fixed vertical stripes 8.7 cm wide, alternating white with another color, as his exclusive motif, based on an industrial fabric pattern. Starting from this neutral visual register, Buren further impoverished it by systematically repeating it to achieve a 'zero degree' of painting. From 1967 onwards, he worked in situ, i.e., making this 'visual tool' of stripes interact with the context in which it is displayed, whether natural or man-made (street, gallery, museum, landscape and architecture).    

In the mid-1950s, Michelangelo Pistoletto began a pictorial exploration of the self-portrait, followed by the monochrome, using metallic paints. Around 1961-62, this exploration was synthesized, resulting in mirrored paintings, created by collaging a one-size-fits-all image on a polished metal plate. These works offer the viewer both a (fixed) image and a (fleeting) reflection of themselves and the surrounding space. The artist hence inverts the Renaissance perspective and conjures an idea of art in vivo, as a unique, lived experience of real space and time. These ideas are developed in various ways in his equally seminal, 1965-66 work 'Ogetti in meno' ('Objects in less') and constitute a key moment in Arte Povera.  

Matthieu Poirier says: 'I like the idea that the solemnity of architecture can be shaken up by the combined interventions of Pistoletto and Buren, that the works invite visitors to experiment together, to see each other and even to engage in dialogue.'  

The project is realized in collaboration with the Palais d’Iéna, seat of the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council (ESEC). 

Paris+ par Art Basel at Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris

The 17th-century chapel of the Beaux-Arts de Paris will host an exhibition by British artist Jessica Warboys, exploring the overlap between man-made culture and nature. Titled ‘THIS TAIL GROWS AMONG RUINS’, it will combine a multichannel video and sound installation with a large collage of unstretched paintings. Warboys makes these by following a unique process: She brushes the canvas with beeswax, immerses it in wild bodies of water, and then sprinkles it with mineral pigments on the shores. In her eponymous video work, the artist stages the journey of a candle through various sites where nature and culture intersect, from the Biblioteca Joanina in Coimbra, Portugal – home to a colony of bats that protect its precious manuscripts from insects – to the pine forest surrounding the Arvo Pärt Center in Laulasmaa, Estonia. The video is accompanied by a soundtrack using the amplified sounds of bats, composed by Morten Norbye Halvorsen. The project is presented by Gaudel de Stampa (Paris). 

Paris+ par Art Basel at the Place Vendôme

A work by Swiss artist Urs Fischer will be exhibited on the Place Vendôme. Titled Wave (2018), it is a five-meter-high aluminum sculpture, based on a mound of clay that was pressed, kneaded, and squeezed by the artist. The piece of clay, bearing the marks of Fischer's hands, was then enlarged, magnifying the tactile details left on the material.  

The work, which resembles a sweltering, glistening wave, reflects the artist's interest in materiality, scale, and contextual ambiguity. The straightforward process behind the original model of ‘Wave’ is intentionally at odds with its monumental scale, shininess, and placement on a square known for its majestic feel. The project is presented by Gagosian (New York, Basel, London, Los Angeles, Geneva, Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, Basel, Gstaad, Athens).  

The applications to present artworks as part of the public program were open to all galleries, irrespective of their participation in Paris+ par Art Basel.  

From October 19 to 22, students from the École du Louvre will be present at all locations featuring artworks to provide visitors with information. 

Paris+ par Art Basel Conversations in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou

This year's Conversations program will be realized in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and take place in its Renzo Piano- and Richard Rogers-designed building, located in the heart of the Marais. Curated for the second year by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, Conversations will comprise nine talks investigating contemporary cultural discourse. The program will celebrate avantgarde figures such as Chantal Akerman and Antonin Artaud; explore the intersection between art collecting and fashion; shed light on purveyors of contemporary myths, from the Walt Disney Studios to drag culture; explore the connections between Paris, the Maghreb, and the Caribbean; and feature known formats from Art Basel's Conversations programs, such as the Premiere Artist Talk and The Artist and The Collector.    

Running October 19 to21, Conversations is free to the public. The program will be held in English and French with simultaneous translation. Further details will be announced in September. 

Source: Paris+ par Art Basel