Art Basel Cuts Paris Fees in a Wider Arts News Briefing

By Marcus Bennett

Art Basel Paris will reduce final exhibitor invoices by 20 percent after closing its last fair two days early, ARTnews reported. The fair shut on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, following protests planned for Saturday but not Sunday.

Noah Horowitz, Art Basel chief executive, told ARTnews in an exclusive interview: “We will exceptionally be extending a 20 percent reduction on booth fees to all galleries.” Tickets purchased for that weekend have already been refunded.

What does the 20 percent reduction change for exhibitors?

The rebate lowers the final cost for every exhibitor. It does not replace the sales lost during the final weekend. ARTnews identified that lost business as the sharpest pressure on smaller and emerging dealers.

ARTnews reported that smaller and emerging dealers had prepared and invested for months before losing crucial business. Galleries had waited for compensation, and some had put pressure on the fair.

In an October 28 letter, the French galleries association Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art sent a strongly worded demand for financial redress to Art Basel Paris director Karim Crippa. According to ARTnews, the association said galleries had been treated with “contempt,” or “disregard,” because they were not consulted before the closure decision. The original French term was “mépris.”

Horowitz told ARTnews: “This is a highly dynamic situation we were responding to.” He acknowledged that the fair had room to improve.

“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,” Horowitz told ARTnews.

Tracey Emin’s Margate project

Kent Online reported that Tracey Emin has received approval to turn a dilapidated seafront building into an arts and community space. The building is thought to have once been an Edwardian bathing house. Plans include a sauna, shower facilities and a restaurant.

A local planning officer wrote in the approval: “The proposal will ensure a vacant building of some historic merit is brought back into use, and the proposed external changes are considered to result in the creation of a high-quality building that is an asset to the surrounding area.”

Emin was born in Croydon and grew up in Margate, a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in southeast England. She left London about a decade ago to settle there. In 2023, she founded and opened TKE Studios, which offers affordable studios, exhibition spaces and a residency program.

The wider arts agenda

• The Kennedy family has joined a legal suit seeking to stop President Trump’s triumphal arch, The New York Times reported. The family argues it would cast a shadow on relatives’ graves and obstruct the sightline from President John F. Kennedy’s gravesite.

• The Art Newspaper reported that UAE collector Elie Khouri is building a newly renovated and redesigned home for his eponymous art foundation in Dubai’s coastal Jumeirah 1 district. Public exhibitions and educational programs are due to open in 2028.

• A senator in Peru has requested the removal of giant erotic sculptures, known as huacos eróticos, from a public park near Trujillo, The Art Newspaper reported. The sculptures replicate pre-Incan Moche ceramics and were first installed to promote tourism.

• More than 66,000 people have bought tickets for “RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me” since its opening last month, ARTnews reported. RM co-curated the exhibition with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Its advance sales run six times higher than for any previous museum exhibition.

The Liverpool Biennial announced the theme The Age of Magical Thinking and its participating artists for the 2027 edition, ArtReview reported. Aimee Harrison and Lucía Sanromán will curate the event. It is scheduled for 5 June to 19 September.

Thomas Ruff and the limits of authorship

Thomas Ruff told the Financial Times: “I think photography will never die. It’s like painting.” He spoke ahead of a solo exhibition at Paris Photo, the international fair opening to the public on November 12-15 at the Grand Palais.

The fair’s 200th-anniversary edition considers how photography has evolved over the centuries. Ruff’s major presentation on a large wall at the entrance is a highlight. Five galleries produced it: David Zwirner, Konrad Fischer, Mai 36, Lia Rumma and Sprüth Magers.

Ruff tied a key turn in his practice to the late 1980s. “I said to myself, ‘If I insist on authorship [of the photograph], I cannot make this work. And if I give it up, I can.’ And so I decided in this case I have to give up authorship to create the work,” he told the Financial Times.

That decision led to his Sterne (Stars) series, made from 1989 to 1992. Ruff enlarged negatives depicting outer space, photographed by the European Southern Observatory.

When Paris Photo opens on November 12, Ruff’s five-gallery entrance presentation will make that proposition public: relinquishing authorship can expand, rather than erase, an artist’s control.