Paris + by Art Basel: back to the future

About the works for sale on the stands of art galleries at the Paris + international contemporary art fair held from 20 to 23 October.

Strange as it may seem, Beaux Arts magazine published its dossier on Paris + by Art Basel in its November issue, announcing that Art Basel is now taking over the Grand Palais Ephémère to make Paris the world capital of contemporary art, in place of the now-defunct Fiac... from 20 to 23 October. It is even making its front page, even though the event has passed. Of course, we know that the production time of a magazine is long and requires anticipating current events when writing the articles. But in this case, the choice was obviously made to abandon anticipation in favour of an artistic shift.

Those who went to visit the first Parisian contemporary art fair this year, revised in the Swiss style, will surely have the pleasure of finding beautiful memories in their magazine, while the others will be delighted to discover a fine selection of works of art for sale, albeit after those of other art magazines. Nevertheless, it remains true that reading today in an article "What to expect from this Palace revolution? A Fiac +++ or an Art Basel on the cheap?", or "How will all this be organised, in the constrained space of the Grand Palais bis?" or "For lack of space, the distribution of stands will be more homogeneous, ranging from 25 to 65m2. This will make it more difficult to showcase and display works," which is a little disturbing when you consider that the event ended with apparent unanimity.

While Beaux Arts Magazine is playing the time machine this month, we will not elaborate here on information already reviewed in October, such as the fact that the Art Basel label has convinced a number of prestigious art dealers who shunned Fiac to return to Paris, nor that Clément Delépine has been chosen by his mentor Marc Spiegler to "succeed" Jennifer Flay, who was running Fiac, nor that only 156 art galleries were selected out of the 729 who applied... Instead, we will present you with the favourites of the magazine's journalists regarding the works of art for sale that were exhibited in the various galleries of the international contemporary art fair. The prices ranged from €390 to over €1,000,000.

Ryan Gander's Poum-poum, tic-tac, plouf watch is the perfect first-price artwork for sale in this back-to-the-future atmosphere. "Who still wears a watch today?" asks Emmanuelle Lequeux. "The very conceptual Ryan Gander becomes a master of time and invents the watch without hands! And the journalist chooses, in a category above one million, Georges Mathieu's oil on canvas on a red background, Jacques de Mailly au siège d'Ascalon, which is reaching new heights on the art market because "along with Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu is one of the post-war abstract painters who are making a resounding comeback on the scene.

Obviously the choice of artworks is infinite between these two. From the cheapest to the most expensive, let's mention Benoît Piéron's Psychopompe VIII Plush, a patchwork of reformed hospital sheets worth €1,500. "A vampire comforter or a stuffed spectre?", wonders the journalist. In any case, the young graduate of the Beaux-arts de Paris is represented by the Parisian art gallery Sultana. At €2,400 plus VAT, the opportunity to buy a precious silver gelatine print by the photographer Jochen Lempert, who is passionate about history and was recently celebrated at the Centre Pompidou, is advertised as unmissable. And it is a painted glass sculpture, Brochette 3, made in the Meisenthal crystal works for Frédérique Loutz, which resonates with the artist's expressionist drawings, which can be "offered" for €8,500 at the Papillon art gallery. While an acrylic painting on a bed sheet by Jessy Razafimandimby, Du thé au bout des lèvres, is advertised "between €3,500 and €10,000". "A child of Munch? Malagasy and Swiss, this 27 year old visual artist unfolds his baroque universe, inspired as much by interior decoration as by music and cinema of the 1960s", the journalist explains.

We'll already be going for €10,000 with the work of art for sale by Josèfa Ntjam, Dream's Whisperer, chosen by the London art gallery NiCOLETTi. A "ceramic and potion" sculpture by the artist, who was noticed last year at the Palais de Tokyo in the "Anticorps" exhibition, and who benefited from a solo show in Paris + to create a buzz. The set of works exhibited was inspired in particular by the myth imagined by the American techno group Drexciya in the 1990s, based on the existence of a black Atlantis resulting from crimes committed during the slave trade. Pregnant slave women, thrown into the ocean by traders during their crossing, would have given birth to more or less divine hybrid beings, like the two totem-like sculptures presented on the English gallery's stand, mixing African masks, tentacles and wild beasts' legs.

At €20,000, the Beaux Arts Magazine journalist chose a painting by Lucie Picandet: Agartha. She believes that this artist is a must-see, as she displays a wild imagination "between twenty thousand places under the sea and a psychedelic trip". But she also selected Dorothy Iannone's collage, Ambiguity, from the Flower Arrangement series, at the same price. Because the art gallery "Air de Paris never ceases to bring out the wonders of this long-neglected American feminist artist, now 89 years old".

Endre Tot's extraordinary photo ZerO Demo (Viersen), showing a demonstration "for nothing" as an act of resistance, with banners held up displaying sequences of zeros, is not worth nothing, as it fetches €25,000 on the art market. Marcel Duchamp's silk-screened Rotoreliefs are still turning heads thanks to the 1900-2000 art gallery, which is offering them for €30,000 to €40,000. While Simon Fujiwara's Matisse-inspired collage of coloured papers, Who's Identity Dive? is estimated at €35,000 to €50,000 by Dvir Gallery.

A strange, ideal yet battered figure, sculpted by Bojan Sarcevic and combining marble, limestone, birch wood, mannequin, silk blouse and jute rope, has already fetched €48,000 at the Frank Elbaz Art Gallery. Then there is the work of art by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, State of Being (Suitcase, Letters), which is for sale at between €80,000 and €100,000, followed by a painting from the latest series by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, Untitled, priced between €300,000 and €400,000, to arrive at the embroidered poems of the Italian maestro Alighiero Boetti, such as the acrylic on wood-mounted book and embroidery on fabric Senza titolo (Tra l'incudine e il coltello), offered at €800,000.

There is also a painting by Jean Hélion at the art gallery Le Minotaure, Composition constructiviste, sold for between €800,000 and €1,000,000, and a transfer on ceramic by Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (Japanese Recreational Claywork), at Thaddaeus Ropac, reminding us that the master of pop art had invented this technique in the 1980s with Japanese ceramists. All the better to reinvent his famous Combine Paintings.