On October 20, the second edition of Art Basel Paris will open to the public with artworks exhibited by 154 galleries from 33 countries and territories in the Grand Palais Éphémère and the Champ de Mars extension. This year’s fair integrates an expanded citywide program with several public installations—including an open-air group show at the Jardin des Tuileries featuring pieces by more than twenty contemporary sculptors.
“La Cinquième Saison” (“The Fifth Season”) was jointly organized by Art Basel Paris and the Louvre and curated by Annabelle Ténèze, director of the Louvre-Lens Museum. Participating artists include Zanele Muholi, Claudia Wieser, Meriem Bennani, Jacqueline de Jong, Vojtech Kovarik and Joël Andrianomearisoa.
The sculptures chosen for the open-air exhibit—several of which have never before been exhibited or were created specifically for Art Basel Paris—speak to themes like heritage, cohabitation, our relationship with the natural world and the ways we perceive interstitial spaces. “Working with the landscape itself, these artists highlight our interdependency—the strengths and weaknesses of our coexistence,” Ténèze said in a curator’s statement. “For them, the issue of habitat and the necessity of cohabitation in our earthly community is ever-present, and this mysterious ‘fifth season’ should be designed and lived together.”
The Art of Tuileries Garden
In addition to the works on view as part of “The Fifth Season” for Art Basel Paris, Tuileries Garden (which is managed by the Louvre) is home to a small museum’s worth of sculpture dating from the 17th Century through to the modern day.
There are works by Henri Laurens, Étienne Martin, David Smith, Henry Moore and Germaine Richier, as well as sculptures by Roy Lichtenstein, François Morellet, Giuseppe Penone, Jean Dubuffet, Anne Rochette and Lawrence Weiner. One of the most famous statues in the Jardin des Tuileries is undeniably a bronze of Auguste Rodin’s Le Baiser (The Kiss).
From October 18 through the end of the art fair, students from the École du Louvre will be in the park every day from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to answer visitor questions about the works on view in “La Cinquième Saison”.
Other free Art Basel Paris highlights include Urs Fischer’s 7.6-meter-tall Wave (2018) at Place Vendôme, Sheila Hicks’ 6-meter-tall The Questioning Column (2023, part of the Column series) at Place de l’Institut in front of the Pont des Arts and Jessica Warboys’ multimedia THIS TAIL GROWS AMONG RUINS in the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins at Beaux-Arts de Paris. The public is also invited to the Art Basel Conversations program, hosted by and presented in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou. This year’s talks have been curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou and will include discussions on topics including art and fashion, purveyors of contemporary myth and avant-garde pioneers Chantal Akerman and Antonin Artaud.
“With Art Basel Paris’ 2023 public program, Parisians and visitors from out of town will be able to explore thought-provoking art and engaging discourse in the context of historical, if not legendary, locations,” Clément Delépine, the fair’s director, said in a statement.
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