Go back
THE OFFICIAL DIRECTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Current locale language
Fiac well over?
fiac-bien-finie - ARTACTIF
December 2021 | Reading time: 14 Min | 0 Comment(s)

About the largest contemporary art exhibition in Paris - October 21-24


Chic la Fiac is back! Beaux-arts will be able to tell us about the new paths taken by creation in these still troubled times. Well, not really. Not really. Of course, purists can have the pleasure of discovering the potential future winners of the 21st Marcel Duchamp Prize. That's always chic. But nothing revolutionary under the sun. And of course, you will find it cool that a giant red dragon by Calder is being exhibited outside the walls of the Place Vendôme. Just as we give visibility in the Tuileries to young artists who are more willing to come from elsewhere than here. But all this is like an appendix for Beaux-Arts.

The main thing is finally the show for this magazine which, from its editorial, intends to settle its account with an art that is not content to become a kind of design without purpose. Like: we've been through enough, don't come and mess with us now. This is a fact of crass inculture because the thesis developed by Yves Michaud in his Essay on hyper-aesthetics and atmospheres entitled L'art, c'est bien fini is presented not only as refutable but also as new. Proof that the editorialist has obviously not even read or understood Lipovetsky's theories, of which Michaud is in fact only delivering an avatar.

                                                                                        FIANC 2021 - Paris - Grand palais ephemère

And what about Fiac?

Fiac 2021 is presented by Beaux-Arts in a very "hyper-aesthetic and atmospheric" spirit. We are talking about decoration, stand surfaces, architecture of the outbuildings... Comfort. Services. That's all very well. But is it the main thing? What is the point of comparing this late autumn's Parisian event with its competitors and international counterparts in all these areas? The storytelling of Vip has been turned on its head to look at the poaching of Paris International. Or the abandonment of partnerships with more alternative structures. Who will be there? That's the question. The presence of the giant galleries is almost presented as a heroic gesture. But wouldn't the Fair lose its raison d'être if these pillars for whom it was made didn't come?

And the public?

A notable fact: there is likely to be more visitors because first-time online buyers are "uninhibited" by this first experience. In other words, the customs and codes of the art world obviously pride themselves on being hermetic for neophytes. Buying art at a fair or an exhibition is not for everyone. You have the dignity you can. This one is rather sad. We won't mention that this style of thinking coexists with a strong design presence at the Fiac. Its organisers have certainly not read Yves Michaud.


What emerges from all these preoccupations, these little mercantile hopes, and these visions that are in no way artistic, is a profound feeling of disgust. And why is that? Because, contrary to the most official speeches, the epidemic that has not finished tearing the country apart is here tacitly declared over. Move along, there's art to be seen. And if you are so gullible, you will even think that everything around you is 100% art. How do they even talk about it in the columns of this specialised magazine called Beaux-Arts? It's pitiful. From the outset, we are bathed in the most loutish subjectivity.

We are presented with "strong personalities" for whom we have fallen in love. We are told about the paintings rather than the artistic project. As the works are dispatched in three formulas, we can be introduced to the people who created them at greater length, as if the aim were to become friends. But the problem is not money. It is not naked greed that is most obscene in this case. No. What is intellectually regrettable is that this smugness is not self-sufficient. Self-sustaining. If this world is the real world and it feels so wonderful, what need does it have to use art as an alibi?


Illustration : Fiac 2021

 

Discutons !
No one has yet had the audacity to comment on this article! Will you be the first?
Participate in the discussion
Example: Gallery specializing in Pop Art