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FIAC 2009

The most expensive contemporary art fair.
FIAC 2009
The recent art fairs are always talked about quantifying its degree of success, and FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) for this year is one of those art fairs which was also represented in figures from all perspectives.

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The first figure is 450, which is the booth price per square meter at Grand Plais for exhibiting galleries. Among countless numbers of art fairs in the world, FIAC asks galleries to pay more expensive booth fee for the organizer than that of Art Basel, which reigns as the top art fair in terms of all aspect such as its history, quality, sales and evaluation.

The next figure is 28. The 28 Euro is the admission fee for an adult, which allows one to enter both venues of Grand Plais and Cour Carrée du Louvre, an temporally built exhibiting space in the courtyard at Louve. Considering about the admission fee for all exhibition and permanent collections showcased in Louvre is 14 Euros and the fee for Centre Pompidou is 12 Euros, the price 28 Euros could be said as an enormous amount for visitors to enjoy art.

Despite people involved in the art industry and art lovers in Paris also were struck speechless saying "28 Euros!? Cost that much...?!", about 80,000 people visited FIAC for 5 ays in total including the opening reception.
That was greater than the expected 60,000 visitors and resulted 23% increase compare to the last year's. The 40% among them was foreign visitors and that suggests an expectation to the globalization of FIAC and the art industry in Paris where get less influenced by economic depression and art crisis than in New York and London.

There are 2 new projects that played an role to bring an excitement to this year's FIAC in terms of both figure and quality.

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The first one is "Modern Project" held in Grand Plais. In the 300 square meter space, 10 leading modern art galleries including Acquavella, Gagosian, L+M, PaceWildenstein and Beyeler exhibited 3 historically important pieces per gallery. This project could be said as "Mini Museum" built only for the period of FIAC 2009.

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Among exhibited works, a work by Francis Bacon isn't basically intended to sell, but the owner of the piece Acquavella Gallery offered a possibility to negotiate for sale from 20 million dollars. And Fernand Léger's amazing piece "Le Grand Dejeuner" was reserved by a museum somewhere in the world, negotiated in 20-25 million euros.

Visitors who made a long line to enter Grand Plais again stood in line waiting for viewing masterpieces of the modern art by Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Max Beckmann and Alexander Calder.

Through the participation to the event "Modern Project" by the major galleries, FIAC organizer might intended to encourage them to participate in the general booth in the future, but none of those major galleries declare to participate in FIAC next year at this point.

There are of course exhibitions by the general galleries participated to lead FIAC.

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Even though exhibitors lamented that a work by Richard Prince was sold only at 750,000 dollars, which could be the half price if sold a year ago, and even though Luhring Augustine Gallery where held a beautiful solo exhibition of Rachel Whiteread has sold only a piece, the result was each participating gallery was satisfied in the show, which would meant each gallery approached FIAC 2009 with an effort in the quality and price.

While Grand Plais focused on presenting senior gallery booths, Cour Carrée du Louvre showcased more qualified exhibitions by young galleries than last year.

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The striking example was Galerie Alain Gutharc in Paris, which asked Christian Lacroix, known also as a contemporary art collector, to be their curator showcasing quite unique booth with distinctive atmosphere which you never view in the usual art fairs.

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Another highlighting project besides Modern Project that brought a new breathe to FIAC 2009 was that 14 young galleries in Europe realized to participate in FIAC 2009 sponsored by one of the major exclusive department store in France Galeries Lafayette. Granted 4000-6000 euros, each gallery showcased the exhibition and Carol Bove was selected among them. The artist was pledged to buy out the art work and to hold an exhibition at Palais de Tokyo during the same period of FIAC 2010.

Overall FIAC 2009 was achieved as a good art fair with efforts by participants, except for there were less outdoor exhibitions at Jardin desTuileries and there were difficulties for buying and selling art works that value between 100,000 euros and 1 million euros.

FIAC 2009
Date: October 22nd - 25th, 2009
Place: Grand Palais, Cour Carrée du Louvre, Jardin desTuileries
http://www.fiac.com

Text and photos: Kana Sunayama
Translation: Mariko Takei

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