Paris is known for its rich history, exquisite food, and, of course, breathtaking architecture. From the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre, the city's buildings have long had cultural significance, especially after Emperor Napoleon III commissioned the French administrator Georges-Eugène Haussmann in the 1850s to renovate and modernise the city in a manner now called the Haussmann style, which has given the French capital the distinctive homogeneity it is recognised for.
But the reasons behind the beauty of Paris cannot be confined to one specific time period —it is instead a melting pot of different histories. “Paris' urban landscape is highly recognisable, due in great part to the substantial revamp of the city between 1853 and 1870,” says Clément Delépine, director of Paris+ par Art Basel, the French edition of the world's leading art fair Art Basel.“You can find Brutalist gems, contemporary experiments, and remnants from medieval Paris in the city's very centre,” he adds. Since its birth in 2022, Paris+ par Art Basel has used Parisian architecture as part of its public program, and consequently, the chosen venues “are an excellent example of this diversity,” Delépine says. The 2023 edition, which takes place in the third week of October, will use variedt locations ranging from the 17th-century Chapelle des Petits Augustins at the Beaux-Arts de Paris to the Centre Pompidou, which Delépine calls “one of the world's most striking museum buildings.”
Each building also carries with it its own cultural importance. “The chapel of the Beaux-Arts school is the last remnant of a convent founded by Marguerite de Navarre, one of France's most legendary queens and keen supporter of the arts,” Delépine explains. Works centred around themes of manmade culture and nature by the Welsh multidisciplinary artist Jessica Warboys, represented by the Parisian gallery Gaudel de Stampa, will be on view in this space for Paris+ par Art Basel. It will include THIS TAIL GROWS AMONG RUINS (2023), a multi-channel video and sound installation and SEA RIVER O (2023), a collage of large-scale paintings on an unstretched canvas.
Additionally, the Palais d'Iéna, built in 1939 by the French architect Auguste Perret, is “where France's Economic, Social, and Environmental Council meets to discuss societal issues,” Delépine adds. An exhibition curated by art historian Matthieu Poirier as part of the Paris+ par Art Basel public program will showcase the work of two renowned artists, the French Daniel Buren and Italian Michelangelo Pistoletto.
That said, Paris also has influential outside spaces. The 2023 edition will again include an exhibition at The Jardin des Tuileries (or Tuileries Garden), which has been curated by Annabelle Ténèze, director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, an offshoot of the Mona Lisa's home in northern France. The garden gets its name from the tile-making factories that previously stood where another former Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, built the Palais des Tuileries in the mid-16th century. The 2023 show titled “La Cinquième Saison” (or The Fifth Season) brings together pieces by 26 contemporary artists from across the world dealing with the landscape genre and showing works that “dialogue with a space that has been a place of history and art history (with secular sculptures, as well as 20th-century sculptures by Jean Dubuffet, Germaine Richier and Giuseppe Pennone already present in the garden),” says Ténèze.
The Parvis de l’Institut de France, a square in front of the Institut de France (which hosts five French academies and is home to the oldest public library in France) will also show the work of the world-renowned artist Sheila Hicks. “A colourful column by Hicks on the Parvis de L'Institut de France creates a striking contrast with the muted tones of the 17th-century buildings surrounding the work,” says Delépine.
It goes without saying that the beauty and varied history of Paris is undeniable, and using art to complement this takes it one step further.“This sort of density and richness is unique to Paris,” says Delépine.
