Ahead of planned protests, Art Basel Paris, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and other museums and art events in the French capital are planning to close for part or all of Saturday. In the case of Art Basel, the fair is also shuttering on Sunday, meaning that the event will end midway through its expected run.
The news came during the final weekend of a packed calendar of events around the Paris fair. In an email to exhibitors, Vincenzo de Bellis and Karim Crippa, respectively Art Basel’s chief artistic officer and Paris director, said the fair will close at the end of the day on Friday, at 7 p.m., “in light of potential demonstrations across Paris this weekend, and in the interest of safeguarding our visitors.”
The fair was supposed to stay open to the public through Sunday. Though most of the jet-setting and art-collecting public will have already left town by then, many gallery employees and other art workers had planned to remain in Paris through the weekend.
“We deeply regret that we will not be able to welcome visitors this weekend, and extend our sincere appreciation to our galleries, artists, partners, visitors, and wider community around our fair,” stated a follow-up social media post by the fair.
As previously reported by ARTnews, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, currently the site of a blockbuster exhibition about the collector Gustave Fayet, will also close on Saturday as a precautionary measure.
Gagosian said its Paris galleries will likewise close on Saturday, but declined to comment further.
Several Paris galleries told ARTnews that they will decide whether to close this weekend by the end of the day. Others, like the satellite Post-Fair in the Marais, said it will open early and close early, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, in anticipation of the protests, “largely because we want our exhibitors to feel like they and their work are safe,” said fair founder Chris Sharp.
This developing story will be updated as ARTnews learns of other confirmed closures due to protests.
Until now, Art Basel has provided little confirmation that the fair would be impacted by the protests. But at least one artist showing there said she would remove her work in response to the demonstrations. Alicja Kwade wrote yesterday on Instagram that her monumental stone sculpture, on view outside the Grand Palais as part of the fair’s Public Program for large-scale art, would be removed early. She denounced what she described as the “violence” of the protests, writing, “Protest is good, but why everything has to be smashed and destroyed is beyond… It certainly doesn’t help the cause.”
Meanwhile, the Paris City Hall has called on the public “to exercise the utmost vigilance” on Saturday, given “the risk of further violence by rioters unconnected to the social movement.” In a press release, it recommended bringing inside any garbage cans, bikes, and café tables, starting at noon on Saturday.
Last Saturday, October 17, over 500,000 people protested against rising social and economic inequalities, particularly visible in under-funded public schools across France. But the mostly peaceful protests spiraled into violent unrest and looting that continued to a lesser extent on Sunday. In recent days, the movement has spread to other European capitals as well.
Before Thursday, Art Basel went ahead as planned, albeit with added security and a limited number of visitor cancelations, according to dealers interviewed. However, as Le Monde reported, some feel “bitter” about the glaring differences between the glittering, champagne-filled art world represented by Art Basel and the surrounding social and economic turmoil.
In one expression of that frustration, the Instagram account Documentations Art has called on readers to “take the Grand Palais,” where Art Basel is held, in a form of protest on Saturday against “Art Basel, the fair of plunder,” reports Le Monde. The publication described the post as being “riddled with approximations and falsehoods” about how wealthy individuals are allegedly enriching themselves as they buy art for investment and tax-reduction purposes. Others pointed out that this Saturday, “the rich billionaires and millionaires will all be gone … [and] on the 24th, middle-class visitors will be the ones walking [through the aisles] without buying anything.”