Asia Now Draws New Galleries to Paris
With Paris+ par Art Basel sweeping up blue chip galleries, smaller galleries seized the chance to show at Asia Now during Paris Art Week.
Asia Now, Paris. Courtesy Asia Now.
Praise for last year's Paris Art Week and Paris+ par Art Basel drew many first time exhibitors to Asia Now, with one gallerist remarking that the number of museum and gallery exhibitions across Paris turned the whole metropolis into a fair.
Many of the galleries spoken to by Ocula Magazine were hoping to access international collectors in town for Paris+. Altogether, 66 galleries presented over 200 artists at Monnaie de Paris from 20 to 22 October.
Attendees picked their way around workers as the doors were drilled into place at Thursday's press preview of Asia Now, which couldn't match the polish of Paris+.
Over The Influence, which started in Hong Kong but now has spaces in four cities including Paris, likewise sold all their works by Japanese artist LY—whose works feature a black cartoonish figure reminiscent of the endermen in Minecraft—for €10,000–20,000 (U.S. $10,500–21,000) each.
Dubai gallery The Third Line participated in Asia Now for the first time this year, and had made sales by the end of day one. Notable sales included a sculpture by this year's curators, Slavs and Tatars, and a major work by Laleh Khorramian—both for over €20,000 (U.S. $21,000).
Among the fair's special projects, Chen Zhen's Perseverance of Regeneration (1999), presented by Galleria Continua, stood out.
The crashed car infested with beetle-like black toy cars recalled anxieties over bed bugs on Parisienne public transport that ultimately proved overblown. —[O]
