Avant premieres at Art Basel in Paris with grand opening, sales reach eight figures

The mood was decidedly upbeat at the debut of Avant Première at Art Basel in Paris, a new ultra-exclusive preview that opened to select customers on Tuesday afternoon. Many dealers and collectors were concerned about how the event, which was held the day before the official VIP preview, would go. Everyone agreed that the opening ceremony, which lasted from 3 pm to 7 pm, was the de facto VIP preview day of the exhibition, compressed into just four hours.

“Everyone is here, so this is not avant-garde. This is a premiere,” Thaddaeus Ropac told ARTnews. “As expected, everything went well because we knew everyone was going to come. The atmosphere in Paris was getting more and more exciting, with all the big American collectors here. It was a really strong start,” Ropack said. He added that the gallery was more surprised by the strong performance at Frieze London than by the good sales in the City of Lights.

Ropac said it sold a 1953 Alberto Burri and two works by George Baselitz for €4.2 million ($4.87 million).cowboy (2024) EUR 3.5 million (USD 4.06 million) Geist Winken (1995) sold for €1.2 million ($1.39 million), while the 2023 Antony Gormley sold for £600,000 ($804,000).

For Ropac, the atmosphere in Paris was decidedly faster-paced and more urgent than at Art Basel’s flagship show in June. “Here, people feel they want something and they make a decision,” he said.

Of course, no everyone Attended. After all, that’s the point. Each gallery received only six invitations, each receiving a plus-one. Marc Payot, president of Hauser & Wirth, said the reduced attendance was “definitely much better than last year.” “Last year, we were breathless,” he said.

The new format appears to have paid off for the large gallery. By the end of the opening, the gallery had secured a deal for the show’s crown jewel: Gerhard Richter’s “1987” abstract image (abstract painting), with a turnover of US$23 million, the highest reported turnover at the show to date. The gallery sold 12 works at the Avant Première sale, including works by Lucio Fontana Space concept, Attese (1964-65) sold for $3.5 million, along with a new painting by George Condo, Monaco ladiespriced at $1.8 million.

As of press time, the fair had not confirmed specific numbers, but several collectors and dealers estimated that 3,000 people were invited to the Grand Palais on Tuesday, and 6,000 were invited to the now-regular First Choice VIP preview on Wednesday. If everyone else is included, that means Tuesday’s attendance could reach 6,000 and Wednesday’s attendance could be more than 12,000.

Cutting the number of invitees in half has some obvious benefits, not least keeping aisles clear and ensuring that normally crowded booths like those at Gagosian (where a group of visitors were gawking at a Rubens) and Hauser aren’t too crowded.

In the first half hour of the preview, however, you might be fooled: the line of VIPs waiting to get in stretches from the entrance to the Grand Palais to the Boulevard Winston Churchill and almost all the way to the Champs Elysées. When they entered, the stalls were flooded. Eventually, things thinned out.

The collectors did show up. Art Basel Paris has become the company’s most international show, while Miami, Basel and Hong Kong have become more regionally focused. This was evident at the show. Of course, there are top European names among them, including Bernard Arnault’s daughter Delphine, Dakis Jonou, Maya Hofmann and Toni Salamé. Americans also came out, including Beth Rudin DeWoody, Craig Robbins, Tom Hill, Bill Bell, Max Dorsig, Josh Abraham, the Mugrabi family and countless others. (Comedian Jerry Seinfeld also appeared in White Cube). There are also many Asian collectors, including Purat Osathanugrah, the son of the famous Thai collector Page. Earlier on Tuesday, Osatanugla held a press conference for his upcoming Dib Museum in Bangkok. (Notably, disgraced financier and Jeffrey Epstein associate Leon Black was also in attendance.) asked one European trader art news If he’s allowed to sell to a collector, it’s only half-joking. )

Still, several galleries told ARTnews that many of their clients are still flying to Paris, where they plan to attend Wednesday’s VIP preview.

Xavier Hufkens of the Belgian gallery of the same name told ARTnews that Tuesday’s event was a “brilliant start” and a “promising sign for the future.” Still, he said that while Avant Première’s hope was to facilitate more conversations at a less frenetic pace, that hasn’t quite panned out.

“It’s actually still pretty busy and we talk over and over again,” Hefkens said. “I still thought there were a lot of people, but we’re happy. It’s exciting because you never know.”

Hefkens said he sold a Tracey Emin painting for 1.2 million pounds ($1.61 million), a 1946 Alice Neel painting for $1 million and a Thomas Houseago sculpture for $575,000.

Other galleries have sold for more than a million dollars. Pace sells 1918 Modigliani, Agnes Martin for less than $10 million children playing (1999) sold for $4.5 million. Zwirner sold eight works for more than $1 million, including a sculpture by Ruth Asawa ($7.5 million), a painting by Martin Kippenberger ($5 million), a painting by Gerhard Richter ($3.5 million), and a painting by Joan Mitchell ($3 million). and a painting on paper by Bridget Riley ($2.2 million).

Perrotin, located directly opposite Hauser, also had a great night. The gallery said it sold eight works by Maurizio Cattelan, including a small animatronic sculpture of a drummer boy who sat on one wall of the booth and occasionally played a drum, for between 150,000 and 180,000 euros ($174,000 to $209,000). It also sold a work by Takashi Murakami for $550,000.

Nahmad Contemporary created drama around their booth the old-fashioned way: they didn’t send any preview PDFs to collectors. So the shrine they built to Pablo Picasso—which displays nine paintings from Picasso’s entire career in one museum-like space—comes as a surprise (though not a full shrine to those aware of the Nahmad family’s long history with the artist’s work). And, in an unusual move at an art fair, no paintings were placed outside the booths, only the names of the artists. You have to go in and taste them.

Two works stand out: a portrait of Françoise Gilot, woman in unsafe situation (1947), last sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1997 for $1.9 million, had apparently been owned by the Nahmad family for decades, and Blue Corsage Lady (Dora Maar)1941. The latter last changed hands at Sotheby’s New York in 1989 for $1.8 million, while a portrait of Dora Maar from the same period sold for $45 million at Christie’s New York in 2017.

The quality of some of the artworks on display is high enough to reignite concerns that Art Basel is cannibalizing itself as it hosts the Paris fair: Will galleries stop conserving the best materials for Switzerland? Hauser’s Payot doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

“That’s not to say it doesn’t happen in Paris, but collectors come to Basel with the clear intention of buying,” he said, adding that Basel’s larger booths allow galleries to show their complete projects. “Paris is extraordinary,” he added, noting that the city’s many attractions, from top restaurants to world-class museums, can be distracting. “People come to Paris for Paris.”

Shorter opening hours on Tuesday also meant some visitors were unable to make their way upstairs to the Emerging and Premise areas. But even so, several dealers present also said art news They sold the work, or they kept the work.

Alex Vardaxoglou of London’s eponymous Vardaxoglou gallery, which he opened in his living room five years ago, said he was excited about the first day of the fair. He claims to be showing the largest work of art at Art Basel: a giant five-meter-tall freestanding sculpture by British artist Tanoa Sasraku called ” mascot (2025), priced at £185,000 ($248,000). Sasraku is also featured in a new solo show at London’s ICA, and Vardaxoglou says he is very close to exhibiting her monumental work about her late father. He also sold most of the artist’s smaller works at previews.

“This is my first time attending Art Basel and I feel like this is the best place to start,” he said.

Alain Servais, a Belgian art collector, went straight to the gallery upstairs and discovered that many dealers had already made large pre-sales. “One thing dealers tell me that they won’t tell you is that their pre-sales were better than expected. They were surprised.”

Avant Première also extended the Paris fair by half a day, which may mean some added costs for galleries, but most said they appreciated the extra time. The early opening also brings the show date closer to Frieze for foreign visitors, especially Americans, who want to acclimate to both cities.

“I think everyone is happy,” Servais said.

Upstairs, the good news continued from London galleries Nicoletti and Seventeen, who had split the cost of their combined standout stand. Oswaldo Nicoletti, founder of his eponymous gallery, echoed the sentiments of others, saying visitors to the Paris art fair were more cosmopolitan than those at last week’s Frieze art fair.

“Both galleries have achieved good sales and have very good collections,” Nicoletti said. The overall pace of Tuesday’s premiere remains “lighthearted,” but “very productive and high quality. I think it’s going to be even busier tomorrow,” he observed.

Both galleries showcase must-see installations, sculptures, sound and paintings. Nicoletti sold a work by Abbas Zahedi for £15,000 ($20,000), while Josèfa Ntjam’s painted wood “altarpiece” was put on hold. At the age of seventeen, David Hoyland says he sold two Justin Fitzpatricks “immediately” for €16,000 ($18,600).

Overall, the current art market tends to be slow, Hoyland said. “Deals are still there. It’s just taking longer. It feels like everyone realizes they don’t have to panic, they can think about what they want and have conversations and actually see the work and still get it,” he continued. “So ‘market cooling’ just means people can think more about things.”

Tanja Weingartner, a New York-based art consultant, said this new, more measured pace is a good thing.

“For art advisors, a crisis like this is also an opportunity. Now is the time to buy. Now is the time to really dive into the deep end,” Weingartner said. art news. “When the market is frothy, you don’t want to mess around. So now that all the punters and partygoers are gone, you can actually focus on the artists’ perspectives and concerns and have that conversation again.”