In a major ruckus in the art fair world, MCH Group, the owner of the Art Basel fairs, is to take over Fiac’s slot at the Grand Palais in Paris to host a new contemporary art fair in October.
This is big news—the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (Fiac), founded in 1974, is a Parisian institution and France’s pre-eminent art fair.
At the end of last year, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais (RMN-GP), the French cultural body which manages the Grand Palais and its temporary replacement the Grand Palais Éphémère, unexpectedly put Fiac and Paris Photo’s longstanding October and November slots up for tender.
Today, following a meeting of RMN’s board of directors, it has been announced that the Swiss company MCH has been chosen to organise an international contemporary art fair in October while RX France (part of the Anglo-Dutch group RELX, which owns Fiac and Paris Photo) will continue to organise Paris Photo in November. It is not yet clear whether MCH’s event will be a fourth Art Basel fair, or come under a different banner.
The events will take place at the Grand Palais Éphémère on the Champ-de-Mars this year and next, then at the Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysées from 2024.
The seven-year contract is reportedly worth at least €20m.
According to a statement, in late November 2021, RMN received, “a spontaneous show of interest for the organisation of a contemporary art and photographic art fair on the dates usually held by the Fiac and Paris Photo. With no agreement currently signed with RX, the organiser of both of these events, the Rmn-Grand Palais, in accordance with the law, put out a call for proposals”.
But RX France was not happy about that. On 4 January, its chief executive Michel Filzi wrote in a letter to Fiac and Paris Photo exhibitors that the situation had “very worrying consequences” for the fairs. RMN had made the announcement without consulting RX, Filzi said, adding that “summary [legal] proceedings have been initiated”.
The RMN statement says: “RX France and MCH have committed to promote a strong presence of French galleries at their respective fairs, and to maintain a controlled pricing policy. The Rmn-Grand Palais and the ministry of culture will closely supervise the respect of these engagements.”
RMN refers to MCH as “a world leader in the field” capable of producing a fair suitable for “an increasingly competitive market,” which will be organised “by a team based in France.”
As for Paris Photo, founded in 1997, RMN says RX aims to: “revive a month of Parisian photography, expanded to new media, that is ambitious and galvanising for the capital”.
RX France and MCH had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
