Clément Delépine

Clément Delépine :

“My friends launched small arts magazines and I wrote my first articles for them. I was enjoying this new journalistic role, which earned me a visa to the United States to pursue my language studies. Once in New York, I met the woman who was to become my wife. Our plan was to stay and live there. I managed to secure an internship at the Swiss Institute. Then I worked my way up the ladder: I became Gallery Manager, then curator and, finally, artistic director. It was during this period that I began working with artists. Later on, we felt like a change of scenery. Our choice was Paris. By chance, a friend of mine who had just founded Paris Internationale, an itinerant fair for young galleries promoting emerging art, offered me a position as Director. Then, in 2022, Art Basel won the bid from the Réunion de Musées Nationaux for a 7-year period, and I joined Marc Spiegler’s management team”.

Clément Delépine :

“As you know, Art Basel has existed for over 50 years in Basel, as well as in Miami for 20 years, and in Hong Kong for 10 years. While these three locations are very dynamic, Paris+ by Art Basel enjoys an unrivalled cultural environment. The French capital is home to legendary museums and artists, a dense gallery network, prestigious foundations and, since the 80s, a supportive government policy for the arts. What makes Paris+ by Art Basel so unique is Paris. It’s a global city, where luxury, gastronomy, fashion and top industries all intersect. This soft power is set to further enhance the cultural network that has been on the rise for the past 20 years. Our aim is to build a bridge where all these players converge”.

Clément Delépine :

To begin with, I’d like to stress one initiative: our desire to make art accessible for those who can’t afford to attend the actual fair. One of our priorities for this public programme was to bring art to the very heart of the city, free of charge, and for everyone to enjoy. You can see for yourself: 25 works on display in the Jardin des Tuileries, Urs Fischer in the Place Vendôme, Jessica Warboys in the Chapelle des Petits Augustins at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto in the Palais d’Iéna, and Sheila Hicks in the forecourt of the Institut de France: art will be everywhere.

As for the Grand Palais Éphémère, besides the astounding amount of exhibitors, I’d like to highlight two unprecedented projects, which took several years to organise. Firstly, the Parisian gallery Applicat-Prazan will be presenting seven paintings by Jean Hélion, deemed to be some of the most representative pieces of his work, which have never been exhibited before as they were owned by private collectors. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these works. Secondly, New York gallery P.P.O.W. will present a dialogue between Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz. This conversation between the two artists, who were muse to each other and died of AIDS in the 80s, also reveals a great deal about the persecution that the homosexual community suffered at the time. It is both a photographic work and a testimony, which I found utterly moving. Lastly, I noticed that the video game world was significantly present among many of the exhibiting galleries. Technology has always been part of the creative process for artists – Warhol had already worked with IBM on the very first diskettes at the time – but the technological innovations introduced by video games seem to have opened up a new and vast field of artistic creation.