Art Paris 2017 — L’Afrique à l’honneur — Grand Palais – La nef — Fair — Slash Paris

Past: March 30 → April 2, 2017

Trente-cinq L’Afrique ne cesse, depuis le milieu du XXème siècle, de fasciner le monde de l’art et d’entretenir avec le public une relation ambiguë, où les promesses sans cesse renouvelées d’une visibilité accrue se sont multipliées à l’aune des déceptions et difficultés rencontrées...

From 30th March to 2nd April 2017, the 19th edition of the Art Paris Art Fair will play host to 139 modern and contemporary art galleries at the Grand Palais. Open to all forms of artistic expression including design, Art Paris Art Fair provides an overview of art from the post-war years to the current day with a theme-based approach that emphasises discovery. This edition puts African art under the spotlight and features monographic exhibitions in the Solo Show section and up-and-coming artists in Promesses (Promises).

The 2017 selection bears witness to the fair’s increased international standing with 29 countries represented (compared to 22 in 2016) and 52% non-domestic exhibitors. Exploring the regions of Europe constitutes one of the fair’s main areas of work, with this year the participation of galleries from Barcelona (ADN Galería), Madrid (Galeria Alvaro Alcazar), Rome (Montoro 12), Knokke-Heist (Guy Pieters Gallery) and Amsterdam (Flatland Gallery), not forgetting 13 galleries from different parts of France such as Cédric Bacqueville from Lille, D.X Galerie from Bordeaux and J.P. Ritsch-Fisch from Strasbourg. Newcomers from Paris include Philippe Gravier (with Sou Fujimoto’s spectacular solo show), Sobering, Perpitch & Bringand and In camera, which join the contemporary galleries that are regulars at the fair such as Galerie Lahumière, Nathalie Obadia, Daniel Templon, Paris-Beijing and Rabouan Moussion. There is also a stronger contingent of modern art galleries with, for the first time, the participation of Frans Jacob (Amsterdam), Michel Descours (Lyon), Martin du Louvre (Paris), Galerie Bert (Paris), as well as the return of Die Galerie (Frankfurt).

Guest of honour: Africa — an exceptional in-depth focus:

Since 2012, Art Paris Art Fair has forged its reputation by exploring foreign art scenes that have never, or are only rarely presented in France. In 2017, after Russia, China, South-East Asia and South Korea, Art Paris Art Fair puts the spotlight on Africa. Under the leadership of cultural consultant and independent exhibition curator, Marie-Ann Yemsi, the invitation of Africa as guest of honour highlights a previously-unseen perspective of contemporary African artistic horizons, as well as other visions of purely African or wider-ranging influences. Spread across the different sections of the fair, around twenty galleries from South Africa, Angola, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, Senegal, Tunisia and Europe showcase the talented emerging generation of artists from both the African continent itself and its diaspora.