Lifestyle · 3 min read
Art Basel Paris, a Week Between the Nave and the Galleries
Every autumn the fair takes over the Grand Palais and the whole city follows: openings, satellite fairs, late dinners. How to live that week on foot, from an apartment in the heart of Paris.
There is one week in Paris when contemporary art spills out of its walls. Art Basel Paris settles beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, and around the fair the whole city tunes in: galleries stay open late, institutions open their most anticipated exhibitions, collectors cross Paris several times a day. For anyone who loves art, it is the best week of the year. For anyone looking for a place to stay, it is also the most contested.
The fair returns every year in October, beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais; the dates of each edition are published on the Art Basel website.
The nave, then everything else
The Grand Palais is the heart of the week. The fair brings together galleries from around the world, arranged in several sectors: established names in the great nave, younger galleries and freer proposals in the spaces nearby. Those are often calmer to visit, and that is where the discoveries happen.
But the week does not stop at the doors of the Grand Palais. Satellite fairs run at the same time in other neighbourhoods. At the Carreau du Temple, in the Upper Marais, AKAA shows contemporary art and design connected to the African continent and its diasporas. In the evenings, the galleries of the Marais and Saint-Germain hold opening after opening, and they, more than the fair, often leave the sharpest memories.
The Marais, among the galleries
The 3rd arrondissement holds a large share of the city's galleries. In the Upper Marais, you walk out to the openings on rue de Turenne or rue Charlot, stop by the Carreau du Temple, dine in the neighbourhood. The Grand Palais takes a metro ride; in exchange, the evenings are lived without a taxi.
This is the choice for those who come first for the galleries and the life of the quarter, and who like to walk home after a last drink.
The 2nd and Saint-Germain, two other rhythms
The 2nd sits at the centre of the map: the Tuileries and the Concorde to the west, the Marais to the east, the Palais-Royal in between. It is a convenient position for alternating the fair, the museums and the galleries without ever crossing the whole city.
In the 6th, the week is lived on the Left Bank: the galleries of rue de Seine and rue des Beaux-Arts, the art bookshops, the cafés where the day is replayed. The Grand Palais is reached along the quays.
Why an apartment that week
During a fair week, you do not come home only to sleep. You come back between appointments, set down catalogues, receive for a drink before heading out again, need a table to work for an hour. An apartment offers what a room cannot: space, quiet, a living room.
A few pieces of advice, simply:
- · Book early, and wide. Collectors and gallery teams arrive before the public opening and leave after it; the nights of that week go quickly.
- · Keep one evening free. The fourth opening of the day is rarely worth a dinner without a plan.
- · Leave the car. The streets around the Grand Palais are saturated during the fair; the metro and walking are more reliable.
Our concierge can book your tables and arrange your transfers throughout the week. Our apartments are presented in the collection, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and the Upper Marais guide will tell you the rest.
The ACT 3 Team