Satellite exhibition steals the show during Paris Art Week 2025

With Art Basel in full swing at the Grand Palais, Paris Art Week is once again drawing far beyond the confines of its main fair. From the Champs Elysées to the Marais, a series of small fairs are showing off the city’s true creative temperament.

The Paris International Song Festival and the Asia Contemporary Arts Festival, both celebrating their tenth anniversary, brought different visions to the week: one focused on human-scale independence, the other on a diverse, borderless Asia. Newcomers 7 rue Froissart and Upstairs Art Fair brought a sense of community and irreverence to the Parisian art scene, while Detroit Salon, a city-wide contemporary art show that will launch in Detroit in 2028, begins a three-year global roadshow with Paris as its first stop. These satellites push boundaries, boldly stand out and write the next chapter of contemporary art.

If Art Basel is the foundation, then Art Paris is its antithesis. The gallery was founded in 2015 by gallerists Ciaccia Levi, Crèvecœur and Gregor Staiger, who, as director Silvia Ammon explained to us, wanted to “redefine what art fairs can be” art newsthe fair has now become a cornerstone of Paris Art Week. This year’s 11th edition brings together 59 galleries and seven non-profit spaces from 19 countries (nine exhibitors fewer than in 2024) to “ensure each project has breathing room and provide a more fluid and reflective visiting experience,” Amon said. It also marks the fair’s move to Pointe des Champs-Elysées (just a few steps away from where it all began), revealing the nomadic nature of the fair, which changes location almost every year, with a Milan edition planned for 2026.

“Ten years ago, Paris was regaining momentum, but the younger, more experimental galleries lacked visibility,” Amon said. “We wanted to create a show that felt human, independent and artist-centered, rather than one that felt formatted and corporate.”

This spirit still defines the Opéra Internationale de Paris today. The fair was designed by architects Christ & Gantenbein as a “miniature city” whose layout promotes movement and dialogue rather than hierarchy. Its new ♡PI10 program celebrates 10 years of artistic exchange through large-scale interventions and collaborations, while Daily Dérives tours encourage visitors to wander under the guidance of an artist, curator or collector.

Amon sees an opportunity for show exhibitors amid a slowing market. “The most important thing is trust, quality and community,” she said. “We have built a loyal network of galleries, curators and collectors who value our integrity and quality of dialogue. In this sense, Paris International Fair may be better equipped to deal with moments of transformation than larger, more corporate fairs.”

The fair remains refreshingly non-profit, with reasonable participation fees and free admission—not because it’s easy, but because Amon insists that accessibility is “critical to keeping art a space of discovery rather than a space of privilege.”

“Every euro earned is reinvested into the next edition. Our independence allows us to take risks and continue to focus on artists and galleries,” she added.

Across the Seine, at the Paris Numismatic Museum, “Asia Now” returns with the appropriate theme of “Growth.” The mission of Europe’s first fair dedicated entirely to Asian contemporary art is “to show that fairs can be spaces for collective growth, creativity and care; it’s about the dream of living under the same sky,” founding director Alexandra Fain tells us Arts News.

“When Asia Now launched in 2015, the European market was still very fragmented,” Fain said. “Asian contemporary art is often presented in fragments – largely from a Western perspective, with a focus on the ‘China bubble’. There is room for something deeper and more authentic.” Her answer was to create a platform that reflected “the diversity and vitality of Asian art itself.”

Ten years later, Asia Now has tripled in size – from 18 galleries in 2015 to 68 today – spanning a vast cultural geography from Central Asia to the Pacific, including Lahore, Colombo, Riyadh and Tashkent.

“Regions once considered marginal are now shaping global artistic discourse,” Fein said. “Our vision for a diverse Asia confirms that contemporary creation is inherently interconnected – it’s about building emotional communities across geography, history and imagination.”

This year’s edition foregrounds West and South Asia, positioning them as dynamic centers rather than peripheries, and is curated by John Tain, Anissa Touati, Natasha Ginwala and Hajra Haider.

Asia Now feels less like a trade event and more like a festival. New projects include performances by Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi and eco-conscious visions from the Lahore Biennale Foundation by Hamra Abbas, Imran Qureshi, Feroza Hakeem and Fazal Rizvi. Visitors can witness a haunting ritual staged by Pakistani artist and activist Abuzar Madhu, confronting the slow death of Lahore’s polluted River Ravi, and a performance installation by Chinese artist Han Mengyun that evokes the quiet majesty of the moon through a mix of poetry and video, following a residency in AlUla, Saudi Arabia.

Narrated by Anthony Phuong of A2Z Art Museum art news Given its importance to collectors from Asia, the gallery participates in every edition of Asia Now. Phuong, who exhibited works by artists Lê Thuy, Oanh Phi Phi, Tran Trong Vu and Bùi Công Khánh, called Vietnam’s art market “one of the most promising in Asia and has reached a level of maturity worthy of the attention of Western collectors”, with a new generation of Vietnamese collectors ready to participate in the local and international art market.

Phuong adds, “Asia Now is a fair of trust and courage that selects the best artists from all over Asia, who are still underrepresented in France” but are very active in biennales, triennials, festivals, fairs or institutions in Asia.

Another Asia Now regular, Singapore’s Yeo Workshop presents a poetic assemblage of Anum and Filippo Sciascia, whose paintings and sculptures explore memory, materiality and Asia as a place of belonging.

“Even as the market slows, art, its promotion and the connections it fosters must continue,” said founder Audrey Yeo art news. “Paris has a vibrant feel right now. Asia Now’s robust education programs help put our artists’ stories into context for an audience eager to hear them.”

She pointed to the fair’s advantage in attracting top institutional figures, with attendees including representatives from the Center Pompidou, the Cernuschi Museum, MAC Lyon, the Singapore Art Museum, the Zabrudovich Collection and the Saudi Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as Tate patrons and curators Cosmin Costinas and Catherine David.

On the other side of the city, when NADA abruptly canceled its 2025 Paris Salon in mid-July, Paris dealer Brigitte Mulholland and New York gallerist Sara Maria Salamone decided to act quickly.

“I had to find an alternative exhibition for my artists,” Mulholland told art news. “I thought, there are so many amazing pop-up spaces in Paris that I could easily find one and bring a bunch of galleries together.”

The result is 7 rue Froissart, a free-to-attend, unbranded, unsponsored exhibition in the Marais district, with works ranging in price from €2,000 to €40,000.

“This is about transparency, collaboration and access, not exclusivity or competition,” Salamon said. The event, which features 11 galleries including Mrs., Marinaro, Dimin, Chilli, The Black Chip and Schwarz Contemporary, is a DIY antidote to the corporate fair format.

“Gallery colleagues are colleagues,” Mulholland added. “A lot of traditional art fairs have a responsibility to investors and need to make a profit; galleries are not necessarily the priority anymore.”

Crucially, 7 rue Froissart is run without investors and without the hefty pricing of large trade fairs. “Everyone shares the cost equally,” Mulholland explained. “There’s no business model. I might lose money on this, but it’s important to show the art world alternatives to the traditional model.” For Salamon, it’s important to regain purpose. “The economic slowdown has brought us back to community and sustainability,” she said. “Buying art should be a joy, not a stress.”

The lineup is as vivid as its founding story: Mariana Hahn’s performance, Kahlos Éphémère’s Wet Gala (a drag satire on the Met Gala), and a collective sculpture exhibition in the basement.

“We don’t always need to take the art world so seriously,” Mulholland said. “It’s fun — we should celebrate the craziness of what we do.”

Meanwhile, the Upstairs art fair, founded by Bill Powers and Erin Goldberger of Half Gallery and previously held in Amagansett, is being held in Europe for the first time since its launch in 2017 and is known as a hothouse for emerging talent. The Paris version included the acquisition of three suites at graffiti artist André’s Hôtel Grand Amour.

“There’s something romantic about the Suitcase Show,” Powers told art news Three Gallery Weibo. “The Armory Show started as a boutique fair held in hotels, with a vibrant energy and a rebellious sense of togetherness.” Here, galleries don’t pay booth fees. “Just rent a room and handle the logistics yourself,” Powers said. “I think a lot of art dealers have trouble running art fairs because they need to bring in more expensive works to break even or turn a profit, which limits their entry points or the range of art they can show.”

Set in the hotel’s pink-walled guest room, the display feels confidential and a little naughty, reminding everyone that sometimes the best art hangs above a hotel bed. Sarah Daoui makes her European debut with India Sachi with Bureau.Art – a deeply personal exhibition about childhood, travel and transformation. Dealer Megan Mulrooney and artist Maria Szakats turned another suite into a dialogue of corners, folds and cavities, while the penthouse’s Half Gallery showcases figurative and abstract paintings by Andie Dinkin, Daniel Heidkamp, ​​Angela China and others.

“The pieces are almost integrated into the hotel itself,” says Half Gallery’s Goldberg. “Each room is thoughtfully thought out about what is going to be presented.”

Powers also sees the current market as an advantage for some galleries. “People are anxious about the soft art market,” he said. “But sales under $20,000 are relatively strong.” The upstairs setting attracts a calm, unpretentious crowd: “You might bump into Haley Benton Gates on the patio, or attend a Purple magazine dinner in the lobby,” adds Powers.

In an art world dominated by big fairs and big sales, Paris’ satellite towns thrive on something else: intimacy, inclusivity, experimentation and faith.