All exhibitors who participated in the most recent edition of Art Basel Paris, which closed two days early because of planned protests, will get a 20 percent reduction on their final invoices.
“We will exceptionally be extending a 20 percent reduction on booth fees to all galleries that participated in the Paris fair, in recognition of the closure,” on October 24–25, Art Basel chief executive Noah Horowitz told ARTnews in an interview.
Additionally, tickets purchased for that weekend have already been refunded. Galleries typically pay up front for most of their participation, but the final invoices come within 30 days of a fair’s closure, and they will reflect the new discount. The reduction will not apply to so-called “special orders” (lights, booth customisation, etc.), as the latter represent a third-party expense that Art Basel does not control. For example, if a gallery’s booth fee were $10,000, and the additional special order service fees accrued during the fair’s installation, such as lighting costs and any customization to the booth, were $10,000, for a total of $20,000, the exhibitor would receive a discount of $2,000.
Since Art Basel Paris announced it would shut early for security reasons ahead of a new wave of protests, participating exhibitors, particularly smaller and emerging galleries, have been eagerly awaiting to hear whether they will be compensated for the lost time.
The fair opened to its “Avant Première” preview to VVIP guests on Tuesday, October 20, with its Wednesday and Thursday openings also being exclusive to invited guests. The fair was only open to the public for one day, Friday, instead of extending to Saturday and Sunday as originally planned.
“[I’m] conscious that it’s taken about two and a half weeks to get here, but we wanted to bring this all together comprehensively and ensure that we engaged our gallery community properly before implementing and rolling all this out,” said Horowotiz.
Art Basel, which is in the midst of preparing its Miami Beach edition (running December 2–6), also sent a letter about the discount to all participating galleries Wednesday, signed by Art Basel Paris director Karim Crippa. “While we appreciate that the closure impacted galleries in different ways, we believe this approach offers a fair and considered way forward, reflecting our appreciation of the partnership we share and our commitment to strengthening it further,” it states.
The Letter
The news comes following a strongly worded letter from the French galleries association Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art (CPGA) addressed to Crippa, dated October 28, demanding “fair compensation” for the shortened event, as first reported by Monopol.
In its letter, the CPGA, which counts over 340 members and represents 57 of the 211 galleries who exhibited at Art Basel Paris, complained that the fair had shown “contempt” or “disregard” (the original French term used was “mépris”) for not consulting exhibitors before announcing the early closure.
There was “a lot of anger and incomprehension” about the extent of communication between the fair and its exhibitors on the discussion of when to close, according to one leading CPGA member speaking to ARTnews anonymously to protect their relationships. They added: “We understand it was a difficult decision to make, but we don’t understand why no one was consulted, not even for a few minutes!”
In an October 29 email update from the CPGA to its members, the group stated further: “Such a decision called for opening a dialogue with the exhibitors’ representatives; it was the subject of no prior discussion.”
The fair’s Saturday closure has been widely accepted as necessary because of protests scheduled that day, including one that called for people to gather outside the Grand Palais, the venue for Art Basel Paris. Many exhibitors, however, were surprised that the fair would not reopen on Sunday. Protests were not planned for that day, and a major Cezanne exhibition located in another part of the Grand Palais reopened Sunday.
“We fully support the Saturday closure. As a measure of precaution, it seemed to us absolutely essential after the security failure of the previous weekend and the extremely serious unrest that followed. But we would have liked to argue for reopening on Sunday,” CPGA president Philippe Charpentier told the Art Newspaper, France last month.
In response to the CPGA’s remonstrance, Horowitz told ARTnews: “This is a highly dynamic situation we were responding to. We had many conversations with many galleries during the fair and certainly in the weeks following, and I think we learned a lot of lessons coming through this. And as all businesses do, we’ll continue to improve our processes and make adjustments for the future.”
About staying closed through Sunday, he added that, “Given the uncertainty surrounding the potential impact and duration of the planned demonstrations, as well as access to the Grand Palais, we couldn’t be confident at the time that conditions would allow for a safe reopening on Sunday. Several exhibitors also expressed serious concerns about leaving the artworks in the Grand Palais unattended on the Saturday. In recognition of all of that, we concluded that closing early and beginning the dismantling on Friday evening was the most responsible course of action, and ultimately in the best interest of safeguarding the artworks themselves, but also the gallerists, teams, all the workers, and, of course, the visitors as well.”
Horowitz also confirmed a December 14 meeting is planned between Art Basel Paris and CPGA, to talk more broadly about the “overarching situation [and] the broader relationship” between various parties. Though Horowitz said such meetings regularly take place, the forthcoming one follows the CPGA’s specific request to convene with Art Basel leadership about redress for the shortened fair.
Representatives of France’s Ministry of Culture and the Grand Palais RMN venue are also expected to attend, but both told ARTnews they have not been involved with the question of discounts for the shortened fair. (Horowitz said he could not comment on Art Basel’s contract with the venue, French authorities, or its insurance arrangements.)
“Our role is to ensure a space for constructive dialogue: to understand the impact on the galleries, the organizer and the host venue, and to learn lessons from this situation,” a Culture Ministry spokesperson told ARTnews in a statement.
What the Dealers Say
The CPGA is not the only one that has formally requested compensation. ARTnews reached out to dozens of smaller galleries outside of France to ask how they think the fair handled the closure, whether they agree some reimbursement is in order (they all said yes), and if so, what kind. To the latter question, answers ranged from suggesting the fair prioritize reimbursements for smaller galleries to proposing the fair pay back one third of the booth fair price, since that was the amount of time the fair was cut short. Vouchers toward next year’s application and booth fees were also suggested.
Horowitz said that unlike some sort of credit scheme for future Art Basel fairs, “we thought the most important thing was to directly tie it to and provide immediate relief now for those that showed with us at the fair in October.”
“We felt that a 20 percent reduction was a fair and reasonable place to land,” he added. He also explained the fair has “concerns for the success of all galleries across all sectors of our fairs,” no matter their size or prominence.
Many of the dealers interviewed for this article said they trusted Art Basel had made the best decision, given the information they had at the time, in regard to the closure. They also said they agreed with CPGA’s demands and appreciated its lobbying on behalf of participating galleries. But the dealers often shied away from the harsher language used in the CPGA’s letter, including that exhibitors had been treated with “contempt.”
“We all feel that our interests are well-defended, and personally I feel like the French gallery association, and Philippe Charpentier from Mor Charpentier, [the CPGA’s president], will advocate for all of us, not just the French galleries. They are the best equipped to deal with it,” said Los Angeles– and New York–based dealer François Ghebaly. “Because of that letter [from the CPGA], we felt no need to press forward,” with further claims, he added.
The CPGA has also successfully led lobbying efforts in the past to the French government, notably on issues such as lowering art sales tax to 5.5 percent.
Ghebaly’s prominent mid-sized gallery did well at the fair, largely thanks to advanced planning, rather than relying on chance encounters to make key sales. “It was a pretty extreme and unprecedented situation, and in a way, I think [the fair] did okay,” Ghebaly said. “I’m glad most of the event was able to move forward as planned for the beginning of the week, and then they made a call, which I’m sure was a complicated decision.”
However, he said, “Conversations were a little different with younger dealers who are starting out and are upstairs in the alleys [of the Grand Palais]. They may have a loss of income that is more difficult to absorb.”
Though the fair reported selling 306 artworks for $148 million by Wednesday, much of that business was done by major galleries, who typically complete their sales after the first few days. Smaller and emerging galleries were hit hardest by the shortened schedule, because they rely on those final days to close deals. Visitors also tend to use the rest of the week to see booths along the venue’s periphery and upstairs level, while smaller-budgeted collectors from the region visit more affordable galleries over the weekend, when they’re off work.
Aron Gent, owner of Document, a gallery with spaces in Chicago and Lisbon, told ARTnews he formally requested a partial refund from Art Basel; His booth was located in the fair’s upstairs corridors.
“The closure affected us greatly, being 1/3 shorter, as we sell mostly works under [$]10k that a great deal of weekend attendees can afford,” Gent wrote in an email. “Also, most of the artists in our booth are unknown to a majority of the people who enter our booth, so the main goal is to educate them on their practices and hope for additional exhibition opportunities and the possibilities of future sales.”
He added that, on further reflection, the fair should have announced earlier, on Tuesday, that they would close early, and then extended daily opening hours for the remaining days, “to accommodate as many people as possible.”
Other dealers said they had also been waiting to hear about reimbursement, but felt they lacked the power to do much about it. Ellen de Bruijne, who runs the eponymous gallery in Amsterdam, said that being a small gallery from the Netherlands, she was “not in a position to demand” compensation from Art Basel Paris. An associate at LC Queisser, which has spaces in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Cologne, Germany, said the gallery is “simply waiting for Art Basel to come up with a proposed solution, whether that involves compensation or, for example, a reduction in the application fee. We are not requesting any specific form of compensation, but some form of compensation.”
The associate continued, “Even just considering hotel costs and staff who had already travelled to Paris, galleries have lost money. … We don’t necessarily think anything would have happened, but the public anticipation and concern were already so intense that many people decided not to come to Paris over the weekend. We think it was reasonable to take these precautions.”
Going forward, dealers observed that disturbances to large art-world gatherings on a similar scale may become the new normal. “We are living through a turbulent moment across the world,” said Ghebaly. “There may be more disruptions of these kinds of massive events, and we should get used to it.”
