today’s inspiration_Art Basel Paris_Grand Palais_Paris_France

October 27, 2025November 19, 2025 by jeanettelindaseebacher

“The demand for attending in Paris is exceptionally high” says Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s chief executive. It was the second year that Art Basel’s French show was held in the recently restored venue of the 1900 Paris Exposition, a venue with magnificent Beaux-Arts-period architecture and with Grand Palais’ space limitations. Some of the world’s wealthiest people marched into the Grand Palais on Tuesday for the first V.V.I.P. pre-preview of Art Basel Paris, the world’s most glamorous and exclusive international art market. This new private view, which was held over four hours on Tuesday afternoon before the traditional two-day vernissage was the art world’s first V.V.I.P. pre-preview of a fair and it managed to attract a global clientele.

American collectors were prominent among the V.V.I.P.s, including Pamela Joyner, Jose and Alberto Mugrabi, J. Tomilson Hill and Helen Schwab. The event generated impressive momentum, with total reported sales estimated around USD 90 million.

Across the fair’s 206 participating galleries, blue-chip works achieved significant results, with single transactions reaching up to USD 23 million. Dealers understandably wanted to suggest that the mood in the market was brightening. Nothing appeared to have dulled Paris’s allure in the eyes of the collector elite, an unexpected euphoria has swept through the art world.

The quality of the museum shows in Paris that week — which include the official opening of the vast Fondation Cartier for contemporary art, opposite the Louvre, the Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Foundation Louis Vuitton, encouraging two early big-ticket sales of Richter abstracts ($25.5 million and $23 million on the booths of Lévy Gorvy Dayan and Hauser & Wirth), the odyssey of minimal art at the Bourse de Commerce — clearly had a positive effect on the fair. The energy extended beyond the Grand Palais into the city itself. As part of its ongoing partnership with Art Basel Paris as Public Program Official Partner, Miu Miu presented 30 Blizzards., a major work conceived by artist Helen Marten. And the Matignon Saint-Honoré district served on the occasion of the second edition of MaSH as an open-air stage for the ballet performance “Metamorphosis II”.

Paris’s art environment depends on a number of variables, according to Arte Generali’s report. Its intensity in events and exhibitions, as well as how it manifests itself in broader cultural fields including dance, music, theater, and film. In addition to a serious and futile artistic proposal, it appears to be quite an open minded art place with a healthy balance between private and public institutions, big and small participants, intellectual and lifestyle approaches, market and non-profit drivers.

What a bless, thank you for having us !

30blizzards a project by Helen Marten presenting with Miu Miu

capture @artbaselparis

capture @cardigallery

@takashimurakami in partnership with Louis Vuitton

@kandiswilliams and @heidigallery with You’re under arrest, sugar

@kandiswilliams and @heidigallery

A million rabbit holes by @rikrittiravanija

capture @alisonjacques

@arashnassiri at @ginnyonfrederick

Parlor by @kyledunn at @ppowgallery

@jacopobenassi at @mai36galerie