Art fair time again, October 2023: 3 - Asia Now at La Monnaie de Paris

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If it felt a bit surreal, with the world outside à feu et à sang, to be visiting Paris Internationale and Paris+, of course that weird feeling was even stronger (as one of the gallery people I met, from Dubai, openly admitted) at Asia Now.

Still... When, in February 2023, I went to ARCO in Madrid, I commented how interesting it was to see so many galleries not only from Spain and Portugal, but also from Latin America, and get a feel for what's going on across the Atlantic and the Equator. The same kind of phenomenon was in operation at Asia Now, only this time with galleries from the Middle East and beyond and from countries as seldom represented as the 'Stans' (Slavs and Tatars had been invited to create a parcours of textile works from Central Asia) and Myanmar. With such varied and distant provenance, I honestly found some of the works a lot more more alive and interesting than any I saw at the two mainstream fairs, with artists working in unusual techniques and materials, and dealing with different issues and cultural references. Tempting, but I'm feeling broke after the holidays.

As far as I could see, there was only one gallery acctually from Tehran, though others, Persian-managed but based in other countries, were showing some good Iranian artists, such as Arash Hanei. I was very pleased (and surprised) to find, at The Third Line, a carpet by Mounir Farmanfarian (and scored swank-points by mentioning I'd visited her museum in Tehran). 

But as well as the refreshingly different works on display, there were plenty of galleries showing bland, derivative pieces reminiscent of the 70s and 80s. And I must say I wondered just how long young Japanese artists will go on with doing nothing more than reproducing Manga-style cartoon characters, with big, sparkling eyes, on canvas in pastel-coloured paint.



























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