Major French gallery withdraws from Art Basel: 'brutal and unfair stand conditions'

A major Paris art gallery, Air de Paris, has announced its withdrawal from Art Basel, the world’s largest and most relevant art fair, after a full twenty-five years of continuous presence. The Parisian gallery, which includes in its stable some of the leading contemporary artists on the international scene (Carsten Höller, Liam Gillick, Philippe Parreno, Emma McIntyre, Claire Fontaine), was founded in 1990 in Nice by Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino and is now based in Romainville, a town of 35,000 inhabitants in the hinterland of the French capital (it moved to Prigi in 1997). Since 1999, Air de Paris was among the permanent presences at Art Basel, but its stands have also enlivened other major fairs, such as FIAC in Paris or Artissima in Turin. In addition, since 2022, Florence Bonnefous has served on the selection committee of the Paris edition of Art Basel.

The withdrawal, Bonnefous and Merino explained, is due to the way the fair organizes its booths. It is therefore not a problem of poor sales, or even of fatigue, but simply one of principle: Art Basel, according to the two gallerists, is in fact structured according to a rigidly hierarchical system, and Air de Paris did not agree with the choice that affected its booth this year.

The reasons for the withdrawal were expressed by the two gallerists in an open letter published on the Provence art publisher’s website. “The conditions under which we were given the space this year were brutal and unfair,” Bonnefous and Merino wrote. “We were given what we thought was a choice between two places, and we made a decision based on the conditions they had set, pledging to respect them, and in the end we had the place we had not chosen imposed on us, in the second row. It is a madness we do not wish to participate in, or a power game we do not wish to fight against. Although we understand that from time to time it is necessary to review booth assignments, we believe that this should be done while maintaining a sense of respect and honesty toward long-time customers and employees. Under these conditions, we confirm that we will decline the booth offered to us in the second row. We will let you assign the booth we have occupied for years to the gallery that you now deem more deserving than us, even though, or perhaps because, we have been participating in Art Basel for 25 years.”

Over the years, Air de Paris has always enjoyed a fairly visible position at Art Basel (among the front-row booths on the second floor of Messe Basel, the Basel fair, at an important transition point between the two floors of the exhibition hall), but this year the organization had planned a move to a more defiladed position. For the Parisian gallery, the move was perceived as a demotion, since moving among the booths of an art fair, and noting dimensions and placements, it is possible to get a clear idea of the power relations among galleries. “While it is understandable that the recent trend toward a more corporate model has prioritized managerial efficiency,” the two gallery owners write further, “leading to new structures and new behaviors, we do not understand why Air de Paris has been moved from its initial leadership position to a secondary one, which discredits us.”

The mechanism of floor plans was explained in broad strokes, in comments on the gallery’s Instagram post announcing the withdrawal, by art economist Magnus Resch, who is popular on social: "Nowhere is the hierarchy of the gallery world more visible than on a floor plan. There is usually an epicenter, maybe two, often anchored in Gagosian. The farther you are from that core, the less foot traffic, buzz and sales you can expect. The problem is here: galleries in these ’secondary’ locations pay the same fees as those in the focal points, but they can’t expect the same return. If Art Basel really wants to support galleries, it’s time to drastically rethink the layout and cut fees by at least 60 percent. Level the playing field. The current system is not only obsolete, it is unfair." Will Air de Paris’ rejection have repercussions? We shall see.

Major French gallery withdraws from Art Basel: 'brutal and unfair stand conditions'

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