When Art Basel Paris opened last year inside the newly restored Grand Palais, the enthusiasm was palpable. The ground floor quickly filled with high-level collectors and professionals from around the globe, fueling brisk sales, buoyant energy and nonstop negotiations from the moment the doors opened. Yet staging the fair in the iconic venue in the heart of the French capital did not come without challenges. Some dealers lamented that its labyrinthine architecture overshadowed younger exhibitors, burying them in upstairs sections and dead-end clusters in an architectural spectacle riddled with navigational headaches and interruptions. The layout has been described as “cinematic but incoherent” and lacking the intuitive flow needed to guide visitors through the fair’s full offering. Certain booths felt swallowed by scale or stranded in under-trafficked corners, depending on how well (or poorly) the building’s rhythms aligned with the fair’s internal logic.
As the French fair prepares to return this October with 203 exhibitors from 40 countries and territories, including 25 newcomers, Observer spoke with director Clément Delépine about how the fair intends to respond to and harness the grandeur of its venue while continuing to grow in quality, curatorial focus and dialogue with Paris’s vibrant art scene.
Delépine ambitiously describes the Paris edition as a laboratory for new ideas. “I would like to think of it as a lab of sorts. We’re testing new ideas here. For the first two years, it’s been rather experimental,” he said. “We have the opportunity to test new formats and collaborations between industries.”
Our conversation with Delépine took place a month ago, before last week’s announcement of his departure to helm one of the city’s most experimental art venues, Lafayette Anticipations, starting on November 17, immediately after the conclusion of this edition of Art Basel. “Leading Art Basel Paris has been a privilege, and I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Noah Horowitz, Vincenzo de Bellis and the Art Basel teams for their trust and support,” Delépine told Observer, describing his move to Lafayette Anticipations and succession of Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel as “an extraordinary opportunity.” “I feel a deep attachment to this institution and am honored by the trust placed in me by Guillaume Houzé. I look forward to further strengthening its unique position on the French and international art scene.”
The decision does not come as a surprise. During our exchange, it was clear that curatorial vision and cultural quality had always been central to Delépine’s leadership, as he saw the fair first as a platform for contemporary creation, before and above any market consideration.
Delépine sees Art Basel Paris as a commercial platform that aspires to present modern and contemporary art of the highest caliber while also generating discourse around both culture and the art market. On a practical level, the fair differs from other events in the brand’s portfolio because it remains fundamentally French: 62 of the 203 exhibitors—nearly a third—are either French or operate spaces in the country. “That’s more than just a gesture; it reflects a real commitment, one that was promised to the city of Paris and the Ministry of Culture. It’s part of the fair’s founding ethos to anchor the event firmly within the Parisian cultural landscape,” Delépine said. “The goal is to create an event that speaks not only to VIPs and art world professionals, but also to Parisians themselves—something they can embrace and make their own.”
The public component has always been central to the Paris edition of Art Basel, which seeks to echo and amplify the city’s unrivaled role as a global nexus of the artistic, intellectual and creative avant-garde. Local galleries and cultural institutions align some of their strongest exhibitions with the fair, creating a robust public program organized in collaboration with leading institutions. Free and open to all, the program unfolds across several of Paris’s storied venues, with fashion house Miu Miu returning as the program’s official partner. In 2025, the public art exhibition in the historic Jardin des Tuileries returns, presented in partnership with the Musée du Louvre and, for the first time, curated by independent curator and scholar Mouna Mekouar.
The partnership with Miu Miu, which also includes a presentation at Palais Iéna, extends the energy of Paris Fashion Week into the lead-up to art week, Delépine explained, exploring what happens when runway scenography transforms into an exhibition format with a performative edge. “It’s about opening a dialogue between fashion and the visual arts—two worlds whose boundaries are now far more porous than they once were. That line of demarcation keeps thinning, and this project leans into that shift,” he said.
“Paris is uniquely equipped to celebrate all forms of creative expression,” Delépine adds. “It has always been a nexus of the avant-garde. Even when it was no longer the undisputed capital of the arts, it remained a refuge for foreign artists seeking shelter and inspiration. That enduring ethos—of Paris as a beacon—is something we continue to honor and celebrate.”
The imprint of Paris—its enduring creative spirit along with the artistic and philosophical currents it has birthed over the past 150 years, from Impressionism to French post-colonial theory—will resonate inside the Grand Palais across all three sectors of the fair: Galeries, showcasing the full scope of each exhibitor’s program; Emergence, spotlighting rising galleries and new voices; and Premise, the 2024 addition reserved for curatorial statements so distinct they may even include works created before 1900.
When asked how the fair plans to improve navigation and the overall visitor experience in its second edition at the Grand Palais—especially after learning from last year’s shortcomings—Delépine underscores the importance of responding to the space: what it demands, what it reveals and how it informs the exhibition as a whole. “The Grand Palais isn’t just the nave,” he notes. “It’s the entire second floor—the Salon d’Honneur, the various passages, galleries and staircases.” Nearly half the fair unfolds upstairs, he explained, where many of the more emerging and discovery-driven presentations are located, alongside curated sections. “It’s about matching the right typology of gallery with the right typology of space. It has to be precise. It has to be coherent.”
While the Grand Palais remains a magnificent, monumental venue—“sublime, even,” as Delépine puts it—he acknowledges its historical quirks: dead angles, winding staircases and circulation patterns that directly shape how visitors move through the fair. “You have to think seriously about visitor flow, how people move, how they engage with the space, how to create destinations within it, both upstairs and down. Ultimately, it’s all about context. Everything hinges on where and how galleries are positioned.”
This year’s selection, he added, feels more refined and the booth placements more deliberate. “The committee really understood that this show can be just as impactful for galleries exhibiting upstairs as for those downstairs. They approached their choices with real rigor to ensure the strongest galleries of their generation were represented upstairs, and they facilitated the transition of several younger galleries from sections like Emergence into the main sector.”
This edition also saw the committee embrace joint applications, when two galleries collaborate to present a unified curatorial vision. “I’m genuinely proud of this year’s exhibitor list,” Delépine added. “It’s coherent, it makes sense and it signals a clear vision: that we consider young and emerging players in the field just as important as the established powerhouses showing downstairs. Whether it’s the primary market and contemporary sector or the modern and secondary market, the standard is the same.”
To foster a more dynamic dialogue between the fair’s presentation and its monumental setting, Art Basel Paris will once again stage “Oh La La!,” its experimental initiative that invites exhibitors to rehang thought-provoking works over the weekend. This year, the presentations will respond to a new thematic prompt, encouraging playful disruption and curatorial boldness within the architectural frame.
One of Delépine’s priorities is to work with the specific architecture of the Grand Palais and use its potential to enhance the fair’s experience for both visitors and exhibitors. “There’s still work to be done in terms of mapping the space more precisely—understanding how it functions and how to ensure we don’t lose visitor flow between the nave and the upper level,” he said.
Asked about the possibility that collectors might now prefer Paris over the historic edition in Basel—with the risk of overshadowing or even undermining it—Delépine was quick to point out that the two cities and fairs offer very different experiences. When one visits Art Basel in Basel, the city itself revolves around the fair, with all institutions hosting the very best. In Paris, institutions have begun syncing their strongest programming with Art Basel Paris, but the dynamic is different. “Paris, inevitably, is more of a distraction,” Delépine admitted. “You meet new people—but you also risk losing them just as quickly to a shopping spree on Avenue Montaigne or dinner at Voltaire. It’s more of a lifestyle destination, with its own advantages, no doubt. Still, the Basel show remains the most focused and concentrated of all the editions.”
Another of his priorities is ensuring people genuinely enjoy their time at the Grand Palais—eating well, finding clean restrooms, feeling comfortable. “We also want to be more generous and inviting with the food and beverage offerings,” he said. “The concept is simple: keep them inside, engaged and focused, rather than drifting outside,” he reflects. “That’s my priority—because the potential is there, but you need to design it so that people stay until they drop.”
Anchoring the fair within Paris and the broader French cultural ecosystem was also key to quelling early criticism—particularly from nationalist-minded Parisians—over Art Basel’s takeover of the slot (and later, the venue) once held by FIAC, which soon led to its demise. That resistance faded quickly once Art Basel Paris demonstrated its ability to collaborate meaningfully with the city’s institutions and offer a far more international platform, connecting the French art system to the world rather than isolating it. “What might initially seem like a constraint can actually be a creative advantage,” Delépine noted. “What could be perceived as an obstacle is, for us, an opportunity to be more precise and intentional in how we present this show.” FIAC was, interestingly, more international than Art Basel Paris is today. “It was the foire internationale d’art contemporain, yet it was often criticized for not supporting the French scene enough. We actually have more French exhibitors than FIAC ever did.”
Echoing what Art Basel’s director Maike Cruse told Observer in a recent interview, he added that each of the five fairs the brand now runs develops its own regional identity. “They don’t just parachute in—they evolve in response to their context and to local needs. I often think of Bill Gates’ quote, ‘The future of the internet is local.’ I’d say the same applies to art fairs. We aim to stage something global and of the highest caliber, but you can only defend the local scene when you’re able to position it on equal footing with the best of the international circuit.” Ultimately, each of these events depends deeply on local ecosystems.
This year, both historical and pioneering figures of the Parisian scene—like Kamel Mennour and Crèvecœur—join the fair’s main section. Crèvecœur is also one of the founding galleries of Paris Internationale, the city’s more research-driven satellite fair focused on emerging and alternative voices, where Delépine previously served as co-director before taking on his current role at Art Basel. Asked about the growing number of satellite fairs and events that have sprung up alongside Art Basel’s arrival in Paris, Delépine notes how—to speak bluntly—it seems that after the city’s post-pandemic and post-Brexit boom, everyone wants a piece of Paris. Still, he insists it is important to focus on projects led with sincerity, those that genuinely give something back to the community. “It’s about contributing to Paris in the same way Paris gives so much to these events,” he said. “Paris Internationale, for instance, clearly brings something different to the table. Asia Now offers a highly specific and focused lens on a particular geographic scene, and that matters. You also have projects like Offscreen, which center on photography and moving images, and I appreciate that depth.”
As in Miami or Hong Kong, there is a flood of satellite events—but not all are worth the time. “If I had to focus on three, it would probably be those—alongside, of course, the outstanding institutional programming happening across the city and the major galleries presenting their flagship shows during fair week,” Delépine added.
Among the most anticipated exhibitions timed with Art Basel Paris, the Musée d’Orsay will present “Sargent. The Paris Years (1874-1884)” alongside a spotlight on Russian-Italian Impressionist sculptor Paulo Troubetzkoy. The museum will also continue its series of striking juxtapositions between modern and contemporary art, this time pairing Bridget Riley’s hypnotic abstraction with Georges Seurat’s neo-pointillist investigations of optics. At the Musée de l’Orangerie, Michel Paysant reimagines Monet through the lens of art and technology, while a parallel exhibition honors Berthe Weill’s pivotal role as a dealer and champion of the Parisian avant-garde.
The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris will host this year’s Prix Marcel Duchamp finalist exhibition—relocated due to the Centre Pompidou’s renovation, which extends through 2030. In addition, the museum will mount a show by George Condo and a presentation of Otobong Nkanga’s alchemical and spiritual inquiry into land, resources and the relationship between Earth and body.
Meanwhile, the Fondation Louis Vuitton pays tribute to the expansive and epoch-defying œuvre of German painter Gerhard Richter. The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will inaugurate its new space in a historic building on Place du Palais-Royal—redesigned by original architect Jean Nouvel—with a group exhibition titled “Exposition Générale.”
Lafayette Anticipations will host solo presentations by Meriem Bennani and Steffani Jemison, while the Bourse de Commerce–Pinault Collection devotes its fall program to minimalism. “Minimal” (October 8, 2025-January 18, 2026) features more than 100 works from the Pinault Collection, tracing the evolution of reductive abstraction across continents and movements since the 1960s.
The Musée du Luxembourg will celebrate Pierre Soulages with a focused exhibition on his works on paper. At Palais de Tokyo, Naomi Beckwith curates a sweeping “carte blanche” American Season exploring the intellectual dialogues between U.S. artists and French-speaking theorists from Beauvoir and Derrida to Fanon and Césaire. The institution will also present Raphaël Barontini’s vivid, theatrical retelling of African and Caribbean histories in “Somewhere in the Night, the People Dance,” and the exuberant group show “Collective Joy – Learning Flamboyance!”
Paris once again promises to be that unmissable art-and-lifestyle stop—now firmly cemented on the global calendar for collectors and art professionals alike. Fair fatigue may be the art world’s mantra, but Paris endures as the exception that still demands the trip.
Art Basel Paris runs from October 24-26, 2025, with VIP Preview Days on Wednesday, October 22 and Thursday, October 23, as well as the publicly accessible Vernissage on the afternoon of October 23.
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