When 38-year-old gallerist Robbie Fitzpatrick and his then-business partner Alex Freedman were looking to expand their Los Angeles-based space, they knew their next one needed to be in Europe. After launching Freedman Fitzpatrick in 2013, the pair found they were primarily showcasing the work of artists from European countries and were regularly travelling to the continent for art fairs, biennials and institutional shows as a result. In 2018, they settled in Paris.
“It was a sort of intuitive feeling that something was cooking within the French art scene,” says Fitzpatrick, who now runs an iteration of Freedman Fitzpatrick called Fitzpatrick Gallery, which he established on his own in 2020. “Our hunch was correct,” he says.
In 2022, the world's leading art fair, Art Basel, launched a new annual show in the city, titled Paris+ par Art Basel. Taking place throughout the third week of October, it attracted a wave of excitement from the global art scene . The 2023 edition will include a free public program, taking place in six iconic venues around the city including three exhibitions in the Tuileries, the Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Palais d'Iéna and two major public sculptures at Place Vendôme and Place de l'Institut. In the last year a number of new museums and galleries have been opening up all around the city, including an upcoming Hauser & Wirth space in a 19th-century neo-classical building set to open just off the River Seine this October.
But, Fitzpatrick is only one of many art enthusiasts who have settled in the city from elsewhere to take advantage of the thriving art scene. Although it has long been a prized art destination for culture tourists — millions of people visit Paris each year just to see the Mona Lisa, for example — those working in the art world have realised that the city has more to offer on both a long-term and short-term basis.
Art collector and critic William Zhao has lived between Paris and Hong Kong for over twenty years, having a home in both cities. “I grew up in China, but I moved to Paris to study,” Zhao says, noting that he received both his undergraduate degree and MBA in Paris and worked locally for just under a decade before he began living between his home city and the capital. “Paris is one of the most exciting cities in the world for art,” Zhao says. He also notes that he has seen an influx of visitors over the past year due to Paris+ par Art Basel and an increase in the quality of exhibitions around the time the fair is on. “Last year, during Art Basel, museums were showing exhibitions you would never usually expect to see at the same time in one city,” he says. “They were gorgeous exhibitions of a very high standard.” Similarly, this autumn's exhibition calendar is brimming with beguiling offerings, from Mark Rhotko at the Fondation Vuitton to Issy Wood at Lafayette Anticipations.
The 89-year-old American artist Sheila Hicks agrees with Zhao that Paris+ par Art Basel has brought extra excitement to the city, having moved to Paris from Mexico in 1964. An almost twenty-foot brightly coloured sculpture titled VERS DES HORIZONS NOUVEAUX (2023) by Hicks is set to be on show in front of the Institut de France, a non-profit organisation bringing together five of France's academies of arts and sciences, as part of the fair. “I look forward to walking down the block in my neighbourhood to the Seine and discovering my tall sculpture,” Hicks says. She also mentions that her initial impression of Paris was wrong. “I thought it was a good hiding place,” she says. “Inevitably, common enthusiasms connect one to communities. Museums and culture centres are strong in France, enriching daily life.”
Even for less established artists, Paris has become a go-to location. When Fitzpatrick lived in Berlin a decade and a half ago, he noticed many young French artists regularly relocated to the German capital. “They had graduated from French art schools but had decided not to remain in France, moving to Berlin or London or New York, but that has changed,” he says. “Many recent graduates have decided that Paris is actually a hospitable place to be a young artist, and that has expanded beyond just French artists. International artists have found that Paris can be a nurturing place.”
