Air de Paris’ Art Basel Withdrawal

Letter from the Editor

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Dear _____,

Conglomerates, art as a figurehead for an industry selling luxury entertainment, celebration of wealth: the art business seems to increasingly follow recent societal developments, and it is therefore not surprising to witness a strengthening of oligarchies.

In fashion, the binary is seductive: LVMH versus Kering. Arnault versus Pinault. Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Aesthetic supremacy is no longer just symbolic — it’s owned. No need for Versace’s calls to mythology when you already have those battles of colossuses with their diversified portfolios.

It looks like the art fairs are drowning in the same hubris: they look more and more like showrooms, where influence outweighs experimentation. Art Basel, maybe the only one perceived as truly institutional, is also losing its grip, a steady dilution in the politics of branding.

This month, Air de Paris, a gallery with thirty-five years of critical presence and historical commitment and over twenty-five years at Art Basel, has announced its withdrawal from the fair. Not because of sales. Not because of fatigue. But because of booth placements. The optics of hierarchy. A refusal to be positioned at the margins — figuratively and literally.

If we are bound to speak the language of luxury branding, then we should really ask these questions: what kind of industry do we want to be in? What kind of audience do we want to attract? What kind of stage do we want to stand on?

Thank you to Florence and Edouard for sharing their withdrawal with us.

Ne travaillez jamais,
PROVENCE

Contribution

Air de Paris

Air de Paris’ Art Basel Withdrawal

Dear ____,

I hope you enjoy Hong Kong!

To answer you about the many moves that you’ve operated on Basel's floorplan, I haven’t noticed anything because I haven’t received a floorpan this year, as you must know…

I’d like to stress that the conditions under which our stand was allocated this year were brutal and unfair. I was given what I thought to be a choice between two stand, and made a decision based on the conditions that you had set and committed to respecting them; only to have the stand that I hadn’t chosen, in the second row, imposed to us.

This appears to be a fool’s game to which I do not wish to participate, or a power game which I do not want to fight.

While I understand that you need to review the booth allocations from time to time, I believe that this should be done while maintaining a sense of respect and honesty toward your long-time customers and collaborators.

Under these conditions, I confirm that we refuse the stand your have offered us in the second row. We’ll let you allocate the stand that we’ve occupied for years to the gallery you now consider more deserving than we are, even though, or may be because, we have been participating in Art Basel for 25 years. I confirm that Air de Paris is withdrawing from Art Basel in Basel in 2025.

Sincerely,
Florence and Edouard

Dear colleagues and friends, Edouard Merino and I would like to thank you for choosing Air de Paris for Art Basel again this year.

It is with sadness and frustration that we are writing to inform you of our letter of withdrawal to the Art Basel management.

We were offered a choice between our usual stand and a new one, only to have the one we refused imposed on us.

We deeply regret this decision.

While it's understandable that the recent trend towards a more corporatist model has given priority to managerial efficiency, leading to new structures and new behaviours, we don't see why Air de Paris has been moved from its initial leading position to a secondary one, which discredits us.

Since 1999, the trip to Basel has been a defining moment in our careers as gallerists, as well as in the lives of the artists we have presented or brought to Basel. I have also served as an expert on the ABB selection committee and am now a member of the ABP committee. We have always respected the deadlines that were agreed for the payments.

We cannot accept this treatment and feel obliged to withdraw.

At the same time, we are proud to show that it is possible to say “No”.

We shall miss you.

Yours sincerely,
Florence and Edouard

Credits: More, exhibition view, Air de Paris, Paris, 2019. With detail of Liam Gillick, Just More! More Just!, 2013, framed digital print, © Photo Marc Domage. Courtesy Air de Paris, Romainville / Grand Paris

PROVENCE