Traveling Collector: The Insider’s Paris
November 2007
Well before Manet hung "Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe" in the Salon des Refusés in 1863 and launched the scandal that is modern art, Paris was at the center of everything modern. It’s been an ongoing revolution: The City of Light has been attracting ideas and talent and influencing global culture ever since the island in the cradle of the Seine was conquered by the Romans.
Our working knowledge of Paris tends to date from Napoleon onwards, particularly from the mid-19th century, when the culture of modernism took root and gave flower to nearly every intellectual from polymath Henri Poincaré (who turned the Eiffel Tower into a radio beam to synchronize clocks throughout the city and the world) to van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and the Lost Generation of the 1920s, André Breton’s Surrealists and Yves Klein and the Nouveaux Realistes. Over the last three centuries, Paris has become nothing less than the world’s most glittering cultural jewel, with more than 70 museums, from the largest, the Louvre, to the most bizarre, Deyrolle, a 170-year-old taxidermy shop masquerading as a museum on the rue du Bac.
Paris, however, is not mired in past glories and aging beauty. Contemporary art has emerged along three main axes: the rue de Seine on the left bank, rue Louise Weiss next to the ultra-modern Bibliothèque François Mitterrand and the most well-trodden, the area in and around the rue Vieille du Temple. It is here, in the heart of the Marais with its narrow, winding cobblestone streets, that more than 50 commercial galleries and art spaces have taken root along an artery dotted with boutiques, restaurants, hip bars and chic hotels.
One of the most visible galleries just off this ribbon of art and commerce is Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, a sleek space at 7 rue Debelleyme that shows a range of international Pop and conceptual art. This summer, the gallerist exhibited contemporary Chinese artist Wang Guangyi’s massive, iconic paintings. Ropac discovered Wang, known for his Maoist soldiers marching along to corporate global brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Chanel, while in Beijing and requested more than a dozen works for the show; nearly everything sold at prices from $300,000 to $1 million. An Austrian by birth who speaks impeccable English, Ropac recently opened a 2,150-square-foot space above his ground-floor gallery. The "drawing room," dedicated to works on paper, was inaugurated with a roomful of Alex Katz’s graphite-on-paper "Cartoons," offered at prices from $30,000 to $50,000. This November British artist Richard Deacon’s bold, abstract steel and gangly bent wood sculptures will be on view in the main gallery, with drawings by Georg Baselitz upstairs.
"Paris has always been an important city for artists, and to exhibit art here is to be situated in the glow of the greatest museums in the world and, therefore, close to the heart of the world’s most passionate collectors," says Ropac, who puts his visiting artists up nearby in the four-star Hôtel du Petit Moulin, a 17th-century national landmark and former bakery with its interior recast as a mix-and-match dollhouse by noted fashion designer Christian Lacroix. Wallpaper that is covered with blown-up Lacroix sketches and furniture ranging from baroque to pop plastic make this a one-of-a-kind couture gem.
Next door at Karsten Greve’s sumptuous space, Pop sculptor John Chamberlain is celebrating more than 30 years at the gallery, which also has a location in Cologne. In a recent exhibition, Chamberlain’s latest work (sculpture that was created with colorful shards of automobile debris) sold briskly for $200,000 to $350,000. "John loves Paris, and these recent works coincided with the ‘Correspondance’ exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay," says Greve. Through the end of this month, a show of Sally Mann’s photographs runs roughly in parallel with the expansive FIAC art fair at the Grand Palais and the Cour Carrée du Louvre.
Nearby at 15 rue Debelleyme, American dealer Jeff Gleich’s g-module gallery began in 2001 with New York artists in the French capital, with works like Peggy Preheim’s meticulous drawings in miniature of children, flags and couples on old franc notes, which astonished Parisians with their tiny detail and by reworking the beloved bills into nostalgic works of art. Contemporary American artist Vargas-Suarez Universal will show a single large painting, integrated into the space during the November-December period.
"If you’re going to live and work in the art game in any city in the world, Paris is probably the best," says Gleich. "It’s provincial, charming and challenging, in a good way."
Our working knowledge of Paris tends to date from Napoleon onwards, particularly from the mid-19th century, when the culture of modernism took root and gave flower to nearly every intellectual from polymath Henri Poincaré (who turned the Eiffel Tower into a radio beam to synchronize clocks throughout the city and the world) to van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and the Lost Generation of the 1920s, André Breton’s Surrealists and Yves Klein and the Nouveaux Realistes. Over the last three centuries, Paris has become nothing less than the world’s most glittering cultural jewel, with more than 70 museums, from the largest, the Louvre, to the most bizarre, Deyrolle, a 170-year-old taxidermy shop masquerading as a museum on the rue du Bac.
Paris, however, is not mired in past glories and aging beauty. Contemporary art has emerged along three main axes: the rue de Seine on the left bank, rue Louise Weiss next to the ultra-modern Bibliothèque François Mitterrand and the most well-trodden, the area in and around the rue Vieille du Temple. It is here, in the heart of the Marais with its narrow, winding cobblestone streets, that more than 50 commercial galleries and art spaces have taken root along an artery dotted with boutiques, restaurants, hip bars and chic hotels.
One of the most visible galleries just off this ribbon of art and commerce is Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, a sleek space at 7 rue Debelleyme that shows a range of international Pop and conceptual art. This summer, the gallerist exhibited contemporary Chinese artist Wang Guangyi’s massive, iconic paintings. Ropac discovered Wang, known for his Maoist soldiers marching along to corporate global brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Chanel, while in Beijing and requested more than a dozen works for the show; nearly everything sold at prices from $300,000 to $1 million. An Austrian by birth who speaks impeccable English, Ropac recently opened a 2,150-square-foot space above his ground-floor gallery. The "drawing room," dedicated to works on paper, was inaugurated with a roomful of Alex Katz’s graphite-on-paper "Cartoons," offered at prices from $30,000 to $50,000. This November British artist Richard Deacon’s bold, abstract steel and gangly bent wood sculptures will be on view in the main gallery, with drawings by Georg Baselitz upstairs.
"Paris has always been an important city for artists, and to exhibit art here is to be situated in the glow of the greatest museums in the world and, therefore, close to the heart of the world’s most passionate collectors," says Ropac, who puts his visiting artists up nearby in the four-star Hôtel du Petit Moulin, a 17th-century national landmark and former bakery with its interior recast as a mix-and-match dollhouse by noted fashion designer Christian Lacroix. Wallpaper that is covered with blown-up Lacroix sketches and furniture ranging from baroque to pop plastic make this a one-of-a-kind couture gem.
Next door at Karsten Greve’s sumptuous space, Pop sculptor John Chamberlain is celebrating more than 30 years at the gallery, which also has a location in Cologne. In a recent exhibition, Chamberlain’s latest work (sculpture that was created with colorful shards of automobile debris) sold briskly for $200,000 to $350,000. "John loves Paris, and these recent works coincided with the ‘Correspondance’ exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay," says Greve. Through the end of this month, a show of Sally Mann’s photographs runs roughly in parallel with the expansive FIAC art fair at the Grand Palais and the Cour Carrée du Louvre.
Nearby at 15 rue Debelleyme, American dealer Jeff Gleich’s g-module gallery began in 2001 with New York artists in the French capital, with works like Peggy Preheim’s meticulous drawings in miniature of children, flags and couples on old franc notes, which astonished Parisians with their tiny detail and by reworking the beloved bills into nostalgic works of art. Contemporary American artist Vargas-Suarez Universal will show a single large painting, integrated into the space during the November-December period.
"If you’re going to live and work in the art game in any city in the world, Paris is probably the best," says Gleich. "It’s provincial, charming and challenging, in a good way."
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