PARIS — “Too big to fail” is a term mostly used in finance, but the phrase came to mind more than once as I navigated the massive fourth edition of Art Basel Paris, featuring presentations from over 200 galleries through this Sunday, October 26. At a time when the art world is going through a “the market is dead, long live the market!” moment, the fair suggests strong demand for art at different entry points.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that the anxiety isn’t real. The frequently cited 2024 Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting reported sales slipping at the higher end of the market, raising worries about a vacuum not being filled by younger buyers. But there’s also been positive news as new collectors seem to be entering the market, though at lower and mid-ranges. The just released 2025 Art Basel and UBS Survey noted the market’s relative resilience after last year’s correction.
Somewhat omnisciently, Alex Da Corte installed a giant, partly deflated balloon-statue, “Kermit the Frog, Even” (2018/2025), outside the Place Vendôme during Paris Art Week. The work “reveals our collective anxieties,” according to a label. Located in a posh address near the Grand Palais, surrounded by high-end shops and hotels from Chanel to the Ritz, this cheeky green muppet is losing air from within amid all the affably aged glitz.
Alex Da Corte’s massive inflatable Kermit the Frog sculpture outside the Place Vendôme
But at the Grand Palais itself, there were fewer signs that the art world can take itself a little less seriously. The fair layout is unsurprisingly hierarchical, with blue-chip and established galleries occupying the ground floor, the Premise program featuring special projects in the back, and the Emergence section, introducing new artists and younger galleries, spread across second-floor.
As usual, the bigger galleries reported some staggering sales. Hauser & Wirth said it sold Gerhard Richter’s “Abstract Painting” (1987) for $23 million. White Cube gallery claimed it placed Julie Mehretu’s “Charioteer” (2007) for $11.5 million, while Pace said someone bought Amedeo Modigliani’s “Young Woman with Hair in Side Burns” (1918) for nearly $10 million. Other established galleries also reported strong sales: Lisson said it sold a Leiko Ikemura bronze for $800,000 and placed two of her paintings, and PPOW said the gallery sold out Kyle Dunn’s paintings, with overall sales totaling $700,000.
A view of Art Basel Paris inside the Grand Palais on October 23, 2025
The fair’s outgoing director Clément Delépine, who will be succeeded by Karim Crippa, the current head of communications and senior art editor at Art Basel globally, after 17 years at the helm, opted for more exclusivity for the VIP Avant Première opening on November 20. Each exhibitor was allowed just six invitations. The strategy paid off for the biggest dealers, but some galleries told me that it made for a slow opening day, with sales picking up only on day two.
Given that most young buyers enter the market at around $5,000, according to the latest Art Basel/UBS survey, it’s worth asking where one might find this work at the Grand Palais — and what the fair is like for the artists whose work is priced at this level. Not surprisingly, they were concentrated in the Emergence section. Hong Kong-based Bank Gallery showed yellow-themed fabric furniture and biology- wall designs and drawings by artist and designer Duyi Han (the drawings, ranging from $2,700 to $17,000, all sold, the gallery said). Exo Exo in Paris, which transitioned from an artist-run project space into a commercial one four years ago, showed balloons and small paintings by Ash Love, with images lifted from small digital screens (still unsold when we spoke). Also in this section, Cibrian, a gallery from San Sebastián, Spain, showed the only large-scale video art I saw at the fair, by Siyi Liu (also unsold).
Ash Love with works at the booth of Exo Exo at Art Basel Paris
The predominance of painting, with a scattering of photography and sculpture, went unchecked throughout. Josèfa Ntjam, showing with London-based gallery Nicoletti Contemporary, often refers back to her Cameroonian ancestry, combining ancestral imagery and Afrofuturism. This is her second time at the fair, after taking part in Emergence last year; she is also in the São Paulo Biennial. “I work mostly in video and installation and have a really mixed-media practice. I feel my career really grew in London. In terms of institutional practices, there’s more responsiveness in the art scene in the UK than in France,” Ntjam said.
The gallery shared a booth with London-based Seventeen in a continuing trend of exhibitors economizing on fair fees while challenging themselves to offer cohesive presentations. Nicoletti said it sold one of the three sound sculptures by Abbas Zahedi, “Serpent Hole on Serpentine Wall” (2025), featuring a metal snake head that can be activated to emit sound and a base that’s a piece of cut-out wall from Serpentine Gallery, among the few pieces I saw that played with the idea of disrupting or hacking (into) the art world.
A Gentil Carioca’s booth at Art Basel Paris
I found some of the most compelling booths in the Premise section, where carefully curated proposals provided a refreshing sense of visual cohesion next to the fair’s overstimulating medley. There were strong presentations by women artists across the fair — notably at A Gentil Carioca and Fortes D’Aiola Gabriel, both from Brazil, with works from established artists such as Leda Catunda, whose acrylic on velvet piece, “Gotas Coloridas” (1998), sold for $175,000, and newcomers like Camiz Agrade, whose acrylic painting, “Sollilquy” (2025), sold for $28,000.
Tina Kim Gallery’s booth with works by Lee Shinja
Tina Kim Gallery presented geometric textile works by Lee Shinja, a 95-year-old Korean artist who has a major retrospective at the Berkley Art Museum. Galerie Eric Mouchet, with spaces in Paris and Brussels, showed stunning Constructivist works by Ella Bergman-Michel, one of which, the gallery said, was acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Meanwhile, Düsseldorf-based Kadel Willborn presented minimalist photographs by Bauhaus artist Lucia Moholy, poignantly paired with a quietly poetic piece by Liz Deschenes made in response to Moholy’s work.
Not all dealers can claim the successes reaped at the fair by the biggest galleries, and for new artists, visibility may not be matched by sales. As usual, blue-chip sales reports paint only a small part of the picture, but Art Basel Paris may have shown its ability to introduce under-discovered artists to new buyers.
