From the July/August 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here . Parcours des Mondes offers – literally – ‘Journeys through Worlds’.
This annual global art festival also brings the world to Paris. The arrival of these international collectors, curators and enthusiasts will be especially welcome in the galleries of Saint-Germain-des-Prés this year. For these are challenging times – and not only for obvious geopolitical reasons.
As dealer and auction-house expert Charles-Wesley Hourdé explained, ‘We have a generational problem. Old collections are being sold but there are not enough collectors in France to support the market.’ As ever, there is demand for important pieces, but he sees a windening chasm in price between the best and the rest.
A visible response is the enlarged presence of modern and contemporary art at the event this year, and exhibitions that cross categories in a bid to grow the audience. In the most imaginative and ambitious of these gallery shows, Hourdé responds to the centenary of the birth of Surrealism, the subject of a major show at the Centre Pompidou in September. Working in partnership with the Pompidou, the Association André Breton, the Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art and Yaëlle Biro, formerly curator of African arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the gallery presents ‘Zones de Contact’ (3–21 September).
The exhibition explores the conceptual links between the Surrealist movement and the art of Af.