And in line with this illustrious history, on Tuesday Vanity Fair and Art Basel Paris partnered to take over the entirety of Laurent’s stately anterooms, ballroom, and courtyard in celebration of the official opening party for the fair’s first edition at the Grand Palais. Look, obviously we’re a bit biased here, but I can objectively say that, having been to dozens (maybe hundreds) of art fairs over the years—they don’t usually have opening-night cocktail parties like this. There was Champagne, like endless trays of Champagne, and foie gras so good one curses that this stuff is banned in certain coastal states. There was a lot of caviar, courtesy Volzhenka. I’m not too good with the metric system, but after some googling, all those tins amounted to several pounds of caviar, which I think is the correct amount. People were smoking real cigarettes, early and often.
A bit of context: It’s technically the first year of Art Basel Paris. In the previous two years it had been known as Paris+ par Art Basel, and operated in a temporary space near the Eiffel Tower. But now that it’s moved into the newly renovated Grand Palais, with its roughly $500 million facelift, it joins the ranks of the great places to buy contemporary art on planet earth.
Asher Norberg and Antwaun SargentPhotograph by Sam Wong.
On the eve of the fair, many of the dealers with million-dollar paintings to sell the next day swung by Laurent for some bubbly before, after, or—in the case of several plans-scrambling guests—in lieu of their scheduled dinners. On the early side Regen Projects founder Shaun Caley Regen swung through with power agent Beth Swofford, one of foremost of the movie business collectors in Los Angeles. Anton Kern squeezed through the entrance, flute in hand, and Karma founder Brendan Dugan came by en route to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris gala. Victoria Siddall, the newly named director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, arrived with Guggenheim curator Katherine Brinson. Artist Carsten Höller has been hosting a Paris pop up version of his Stockholm tasting menu restaurant, Brutalisten, (he also has a sculpture on view at the Place Vendome, near the Ritz Paris) but managed to stop by on the early side, as did artist Claudia Comte.
