For the first time, Art Paris Art Fair honors a country: Russia makes its grand entrance at the Grand Palais.
Under the leadership of Guillaume Piens for the second year in a row, Art Paris Art Fair continues to refine its strategy. Facing the rise of FIAC, the former director of Paris Photo has decisively altered his approach, opting for complementarity over competition. By revamping the lineup and focusing on the local art scenes of an expanded Europe—in other words, reaching further east. “Today, only 35% of the exhibitors cater to Art Paris’ traditional clientele,” Piens explains. With 140 galleries from 21 countries, the fair welcomes new participants from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Russia—represented by eleven professionals. A first!
“For this new edition, I wanted to reveal a scene still relatively unknown in Paris while steering away from certain clichés. Today, the situation in Moscow is complex, but we’re seeing the emergence of a new generation of sharp and highly creative professionals. Many key figures from the 1990s, who closely followed the post-Soviet years, have gradually closed their doors or relocated abroad, often due to the tightening of the regime. Some didn’t hesitate to distance themselves from central authority,” explains Piens, who extended his exploration deeper into the East.
In Vladivostok—a city closer to Seoul or Tokyo than Moscow—the fair director encountered Arka, the sole gallery from the Siberian region, presenting a one-woman show featuring Olga Kisseleva, a trailblazing artist discovered during the inaugural exhibition of the Louvre-Lens. Similarly, the 16th Line Art Gallery has made its mark in Rostov-on-Don, in the heart of Cossack territory, with a community-focused concept and a roster of already iconic artists such as Belka & Strelka Fluxus Art. True heirs of the Fluxus group, they are showcased simultaneously.
Red Moscow, 2011, by Katerina Belkina, photograph by Galerie Lilja Zakirova, Heusden.
