Art Basel Paris, taking place from October 24 to 26 (with VIP preview days on October 22 and 23), is back with a robust public program featuring free exhibitions, installations, and talks across nine venues. However, one notable omission this year is the Tuileries Gardens—a surprising change for regular attendees. Director Clément Delépine, who announced his departure from Art Basel in September to join Lafayette Anticipations, explained that the logistical framework couldn’t accommodate the scale of the envisioned projects, and that it was therefore better to wait.
As was the case last year, Miu Miu—sponsor of this section—is once again occupying the ground floor of the Palais d’Iéna with a project titled “30 Blizzards.” The fashion house’s renewed support embodies the cross-disciplinary spirit signaled by the “+” in “Paris+ by Art Basel,” the fair’s original Paris edition name, a vision further reinforced this year by French fashion documentarian and filmmaker Loïc Prigent’s curation of the Oh La La sector and fashion editor Edward Enninful’s participation in the Conversations program.
In front of the Institut de France stands a totem-looking stone and concrete sculpture by Ugo Rondinone, which blends into the urban landscape. The Musée Eugène Delacroix is filled with works by Nate Lowman, who has drawn inspiration from the Romantic painter, while Harry Nuriev has taken over the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins.
At the Hotel de la Marine, there stands a poetic textile installation by Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa, and the Cité de l’Architecture is presenting an exhibition of 40 large-format abstract paintings by Fabienne Verdier. Both are new venues for the Paris fair’s public programming.
Between October 21 and 26, students from the renowned École du Louvre will be stationed at these venues from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to provide information about the works on display. But if you prefer to explore the city on your own or visit in the mornings, below is a look at the program’s seven sites.
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Harry Nuriev at Chapelle des Petits-Augustins
Image Credit: Courtesy Art Basel
Rows of supermarket boxes line the floor of the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, each filled with an eclectic mix of objects—forgotten toys, worn-out books, clothing—ready to be taken by the public. These items are all part of Objets Trouvés (Found Objects), a collaborative installation by Paris-based Harry Nuriev that transforms the historic chapel into a space of circulation, exchange, and shared authorship.
Upon arrival, visitors contribute an object they no longer need and receive a coupon allowing them to select an item left by someone else. Presented by Galerie Sultana, the installation recalls Arman’s Le Tas des Échanges (The Pile of Exchanges), a 1965 participatory work in which the public was invited to exchange personal items with those from an initial pile created by the artist himself. In Objets Trouvés, every contribution can be considered a certified artwork. Three window displays feature a selection of Nuriev’s own belongings—each available for purchase. You’re not allowed to pick up the lamps, which are fixed in the boxes that hold them, or the artist’s dog, Mishka, who could be seen trotting around during the preview.
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Alex Da Corte at Place Vendôme
Image Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London
At Place Vendôme, the focal point of Art Basel’s Public Program, Sadie Coles HQ is showing Kermit the Frog, Even (2018), an inflatable sculpture by American artist Alex Da Corte featuring the Muppet Show host, who here seems to be doing the downward dog pose. Inspired by the infamous collapse of a Kermit balloon during the 1991 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, the work appears half-deflated yet still buoyant, hovering in a delicate state of suspended vulnerability. Once a symbol of childhood joy, the sagging figure now evokes themes of fragility and resilience.
During the press lunch for Art Basel Paris, Delépine, the fair’s outgoing director, quipped that he hoped the sculpture wouldn’t suffer the same fate as Yayoi Kusama’s Life of the Pumpkin Recites, All About the Biggest Love for the People (2019). That monumental inflatable pumpkin, installed in Place Vendôme during the final edition of FIAC—the predecessor to Art Basel Paris—had to be prematurely dismantled due to high winds and heavy rain, which posed safety risks to both the public and the artwork.
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Joël Andrianomearisoa at Hôtel de la Marine
Image Credit: Courtesy the artist and Almine Rech
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Julius von Bismarck at Petit Palais
Image Credit: Courtesy the artist; Alexander Levy, Berlin; and Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf
German artist Julius von Bismarck, who is represented here by Sies + Höke and the Ranch, has imagined a life-sized taxidermy giraffe standing next to a replica of an equestrian statue of Otto von Bismarck, the Reich’s first chancellor. This installation is called The Elephant in the Room. Both figures are programmed to repeatedly fall and rise in turn.
By pairing an exoticized animal with a political monument von Bismarck evokes the intertwined histories of colonial exploitation and imperial power. Their endless cycle of collapse and recovery becomes a metaphor for the fragility of cultural heritage and the contested narratives they uphold. A series of signature wood-panel works and a video piece extend this reflection on how nature can be conserved and manipulated by humans.
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Vojtěch Kovařík at Avenue Winston Churchill
Image Credit: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Derouillon
Like last year, Avenue Winston Churchill, which connects the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais, has been pedestrianized to host six large-scale sculptures. They include Czech artist Vojtěch Kovařík’s Atlas calming the troubled world (2025), viewable here via Galerie Derouillon, and depicting the Greek titan Atlas, who is shown embracing the globe rather than being crushed by it. Kovařík’s Atlas may be cast in bronze, a material long associated with authority, permanence, and strength, but the artist’s sculpture has a light touch. It urges empathy in the face of a fractured society.
Also conveying a sense of hope and comfort is Dawn by Arlene Shechet, presented by Pace Gallery as part of her “Girl Group” series, initially commissioned by Storm King Art Center in 2024. Composed of multiple aluminum sheets that seem to ripple like fabric in the wind, the sculpture is part of Shechet’s transition into large-scale outdoor work. She subverts the traditional notion of masculinity associated with monumental sculpture through her use of colors such as matte peach and glossy lilac.
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Fabienne Verdier at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
Image Credit: Courtesy of Waddington Custot and Galerie Lelong & Co.
For its debut in Art Basel Paris’s Public Program, the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine is exhibiting large-scale paintings by French artist Fabienne Verdier, who merges Western abstraction with the calligraphic techniques she studied in China in the 1980s. Curator Matthieu Poirier suggested the presentation’s title, “Mute,” which puns an English word for silence and a French verb connoting mutation.
Dominated by navy blue, some of the canvases have titles that evoke the transition from light to darkness, from day to night. Others display motifs suggesting waves, whirlpools, vibrations. Still others have religious resonance. The 2011 painting Le Christ des Douleurs (The Man of Sorrows) hangs beside the central mullion of the northern portal of Amiens Cathedral.
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Helen Marten at Palais d’Iéna
Image Credit: Sarah Belmont/ARTnews
Miu Miu has given British artist Helen Marten carte blanche to stage a performance at this Parisian landmark. Created in collaboration with theater director Fabio Cherstich and composer Beatrice Dillon, the work is titled 30 Blizzards, which refers to the 30 characters and their accompanying performers, who are here interacting with five sculptures and five videos by Marten.
A wall text details the performers’ roles (wind, snow, sun, dog), actions (dynamic power, shame, pride), techniques (hallucination, color enhancement, inspection), attributes (sheets of paper, white pillowcase, Zippo lighter), and costumes (uniforms of naivety, shiny garments, overalls with plaid). Some dance, others sing or chant questions like: “Who are you?” “Why is it wet?” “What’s the smell of sex?” “Do you take showers?” They continually gather and disperse, running around the first floor of the Palais d’Iéna. Don’t worry about getting in their way—they remain on course, regardless of what happens.
