13 Jan 2016

ART PARIS ART FAIR 2016
31st March – 3rd April 2016, Grand Palais

A springtime art fair focused on discovery and the Land of the Morning Calm

Held at the Grand Palais from 31st March to 3rd April 2016, Art Paris Art Fair is the Springtime Paris event for modern and contemporary art that brings together 143 galleries from 20 countries which includes for the first time Azerbaijan, Colombia and Iran.
A generalist fair open to all forms of artistic expression, Art Paris Art Fair presents an overview of art from the post-war period to the present day. The thematic sections focus on discovery in particular with this year's Korea guest of honour project, personal exhibitions in the Solo Show section, emerging talents with the Promises section for young galleries and digital art with monumental projections on the façade of Grand Palais.


Exploring the regions of Europe
Art Paris Art Fair continues to attract leading international galleries such as Daniel Templon (Paris), Sundaram Tagore (New York, Hong Kong, Singapore) and Flowers (London, New York). The 2016 selection is particularly focused on exploring the different regions of Europe and its cities, each with their own individual identities such as Zurich, Munich and Milan whose galleries and artistic reflect passion and commitment, like an antidote to the prevailing uniformization seen in so many art fairs.
With 58 newcomers, the 2016 edition maintains the 50-50 balance between French and foreign galleries. First-time participants include Art Bartschi & Cie (Geneva), La Balsa Arte (Bogota), Silk Road (Tehran) with a comeback from Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Art (Neuchatel). In terms of French participants, newcomers from Paris include RX, Eric Dupont and Pascal Lansberg while Sèvres - Cité de la Céramique returns this year.


Focus on the East: Korea guest of honour
Under the leadership of guest curator Sang-A CHUN, the invitation of South Korea as guest of honour highlights the vast wealth of the art scene from the 'Land of Morning Calm'. With close to 80 artists represented by galleries both from Korea (Seoul, Daegu and Paju-Si) and some 20 Western galleries, this project spans the emergence of very specific forms of contemporary art in the 1960s to the present day boom in creativity.
The first generation of modernists is represented with artists such as Ungno LEE, a historic figure who produced an innovative body of work at the crossroads between Eastern and Western traditions, shown by Galerie Thessa Herold in a personal exhibition. Others include masters of Dansaekhwa, the mysterious Korean art of monochrome painting, such as Lee Ufan and Myeong-Ro Youn represented by Gana Art gallery. Also on show are some of the leading figures of the contemporary scene such as Moon-Pil Shim (Galerie Lahumière and Shilla Gallery), Lee Bae (Galerie RX), Kwang Young Chun (Sundaram Tagore Gallery and Omer Tiroche Contemporary Art) and BOOMOON (Flowers Gallery).
The young generation of emerging talents is well represented with for example installations by Kiwon Park (313 Art Project) and Yun Soo Kim (Soso Gallery), the dreamlike sculptural creations of Myeongbeom KIM (Galerie Paris-Beijing) or the delicate graphic work of Min Jung Yeon (Galerie Maria Lund).
As part of the celebrations of France-Korea year, exhibitions and installations of Korean art will be visible throughout the capital during Art Paris Art Fair. The Cernuschi Museum is organising an exhibition of contemporary Korean art from the 1980s onwards along with a number of new rising talents. The Korean cultural centre is hosting a talk entitled 'Contemporary Korean art: exploring the past of shed light on the present', moderated by Art Paris Art Fair Korea Guest of Honour curator Sang A Chun.
(Korean Cultural Centre, 2 avenue d'Iéna, 75116 Paris – Friday 1st April, 6pm).

South Korea Guest of Honour at Art Paris Art Fair 2016 is part of the official programme of France-Korea Year 2015-2016 (www.anneefrancecoree.com).


Solo show
Introduced in 2015, the 'Solo Show' section includes some 20 personal exhibitions scattered throughout the fair. This is an opportunity to discover or re-discover the work of modern or contemporary artists such as Syria's Fadi Yazigi at Tanit Gallery, France's Damien Cabane at Galerie Eric Dupont, Ronald Ventura from the Philippines at Galerie Primae Noctis, or Belgium's Antoine Roegiers at Art Bärtschi & Cie whose work is inspired by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel.
Female artists are given pride of place with personal exhibitions of work by Claudine Drai (Galerie 111), Jan Haworth (Galerie du Centre), Katinka Limpe (Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire), Ruby Rumie (Galeria NH) and Song Hyun Sook (Galerie Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Art).
Solo Shows on Bus Expo
From 30th March to 20th April the Air France airport busses will feature temporary exhibitions as part of the 'Bus Expo' project. The aim is to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience. Bus Expo and Art Paris Art Fair have joined forces to display the work of five artists selected from among the solo shows at the fair.
The Solo Show section is supported by the french magazine IDEAT.


Promises
This sector is dedicated to the promotion of young galleries and emerging talents. It includes 12 galleries that are less than five years old and have never taken part in the fair. The selection for 2016 is the following: 50 Golborne (London) , ART'LOFT Lee-Bauwens Gallery (Brussels), Bildhalle (Zurich), Galerie Béa-Ba (Marseille), Brandt Gallery (Amsterdam), Espace L (Geneva), Galerie Gouvernnec Ogor (Marseille), Galerie Virginie Louvet (Paris), Maëlle Galerie (Paris), Christine Park Gallery (London), under construction (Paris), Yay Gallery (Baku).


Digital art in all its splendour on the façade of the Grand Palais
Art Paris Art Fair is open to all forms of artistic expression including digital art. In partnership with Vidélio the fair presents a selection of monumental digital mapping projections on the façade of the Grand Palais every night for the duration of the fair.


Daum, official Art Paris Art Fair partner
There has been an on-going, century-long love story between Daum, the legendary crystal and glass manufacturer and the leading artists of the day, giving their work a second lease on life in glass and colour. From the École de Nancy to Art Nouveau and Art Deco, Majorelle, Dali, Georges Braque and Arman, Daum has missed none of the great moments of artistic creation and modern know-how with this everlasting marriage between art and craft.
On the occasion of Art Paris Art Fair, Daum presents a number of artistic pieces from the street art movement and its origins with Cyril Phan, aka Kongo, one of the leading figures of graffiti art. Also on show is famous French street artist Jérôme Mesnager, Romuald Hazoumé who stands out against modern slavery, Gonçalo Mabunda who uses weapons as a creative medium and finally Alain Séchas who is influenced by the world of comics.


The 'Springtime in Paris' VIP programme
Designed for collectors and art professionals, the programme aims to highlight the vibrancy of the Paris art scene and the new face of the French capital in the 21st Century. A number of outstanding exhibitions are on during Art Paris Art Fair week including 'Daido Tokyo, Daido Moriyama' at the Fondation Cartier, 'Pandora's Box, another type of photography' by Jan Dibbets at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 'Corpus, Helena Almeida' at the Jeu de Paume, 'Le Douanier Rousseau, archaic innocence' at the Musée d'Orsay, 'Ceramix, art and ceramics from Rodin to Schütte' at Sèvres – Cité de la Céramique and La Maison Rouge, «Bentu, 12 Chinese artists in the turbulence of transformation» at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Miquel Barceló at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Picasso Museum.


Art Paris Art Fair
31st March – 3rd April 2016, www.artparis.com

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Preview (by invitation only): Wednesday 30th March 2016, 6pm – 10pm
Opening hours:
Thursday 31st March, 11.30am – 8pm
Friday 1st April, 11.30am – 9pm
Saturday 2nd April, 11.30am – 8pm
Sunday 3rd April, 11.30am – 7pm

Office
Art Paris Art Fair - 55 Avenue Kléber - 75116 Paris - France
contact@artparis.com
T. +33 (0)1 56 26 52 13
F. +33 (0)1 47 55 19 31
www.artparis.com

Art Paris Art Fair Managing Team
CEO: Julien & Valentine Lecêtre
Fair Director: Guillaume Piens
Director of Communications and Partnerships: Catherine Vauselle

Press Agency
Heymann, Renoult Associées
Sarah Heymann | Eléonore Grau, artparis.hra@heymann-renoult.com
Italian press: Eleonora Alzetta, e.alzetta@heymann-renoult.com
English and Spanish press: Julie Oviedo, j.oviedo@heymann-renoult.com
German press: Bettina Bauerfeind, b.bauerfeind@heymann-renoult.com
T. +33 (0)1 44 61 76 76 | www.heymann-renoult.com