As it returned to the Grand Palais, Art Basel Paris was off to a grand start despite a surge of protests across the city. With multiple concurrent art and design fairs and related events, spirits were high and sales reportedly followed suit, until a new round of protests announced for the upcoming weekend brought the celebratory vibe to an end. With a schedule shortened, the fair made the case to visit its magnificent glass-and-steel venue before it was too late. Bringing together 211 leading international galleries, including 64 with spaces in France, the 2026 edition showcased the depth of Paris’ gallery ecosystem.
Joe Coleman at Andrew Edlin Gallery
Requiring five years of painstaking, improvisational labor, Voyage to Candyland, 2026, is American artist Joe Coleman’s magnum opus. The painting premiered earlier this year in the American Folk Art Museum’s exhibition “Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists,” followed by Andrew Edlin Gallery’s Paris booth. The 36-by-48-inch, highly detailed work chronicles the events that led Coleman and his wife, Whitney Ward, to move from Brooklyn to upstate New York during Covid and documents their evolving lives since then. True to Coleman's iconic approach, the complex acrylic-on-panel work follows horror vacui (Latin for “the fear of empty space”) packing every square millimeter with imagery and compelling viewers to use a magnifying glass to take in its microscopic intricacies.
- Paul Laster