PARIS.- The latest edition of SLICK – the fair for contemporary art discoveries – welcomes you from October 21 to 24, 2010, on the esplanade between Paris’ Museum of Modern Art and the Palais de Tokyo – a space that has never before been used in this capacity.

For this fifth edition, 43 French and International galleries will present the emerging art scene. 40% of these are international, representing 14 countries. And 21% are part of a new sector of the fair, Slick-Orient.

Since its inception in 2006 and as complementary to the FIAC, SLICK has become known as a space for discovering the emerging scene. A real springboard, the fair provides a spot for young galleries on the international scene. Several of the galleries formerly presented at SLICK are now exhibiting at the FIAC, such as: Schirman and de Beaucé gallery, Bertrand Grimont gallery, Sémiose gallery, Lucile Corty gallery, ACDC gallery. The SLICK gallery selection changes each year by at least 50%, so that new galleries are always being presented.

For the past two years, established and well-recognized galleries have also chosen SLICK to present their emerging artists, including for this year the Belgian gallery Annie Gentils and the French gallery Catherine Issert. The latter will propose a confrontation between Jean Michel Alberola and three young artists.

To celebrate its five years on the scene, the fair is making a move. After two years at the CentQuatre space, SLICK will be setting up shop between two major French contemporary art institutions: the Palais de Tokyo and Paris’ Museum of Modern Art, just a few minutes away from the Grand Palais where the FIAC is taking place.

The highlight of this 5th edition, SLICK Orient brings together – and for the first time in the West, for many of them – nine galleries from very different horizons that will reveal the emerging and cutting-edge artistic scenes of India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Iran, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. The nine galleries presented in this sector are: Capital Culture (London, UK), Drawing Room Gallery (Lahore – Pakistan), Nikki Diana Marquardt gallery in collaboration with Etemad gallery (Teheran – Iran), Paris-Beijing gallery, The Running Horse (Beirut – Lebanon), Seven Art Limited (New Delhi, India), The Drawing Room (Makati City – Philippines), Twelve Gates Gallery (Philadelphia – USA). Finally, the Catherine Issert gallery also proposed to focus on the Orient with an exhibition by Karim Ghelloussi and Aïcha Hamu.

And more specifically…
• Londonian Capital Culture presents an important installation of African portraits by John Kenny.
• Nikki Diana Marquardt gallery and Etemad gallery
• The Drawing Room Gallery of Lahore (Pakistan) presents most notably the work of Mudassar Manzoor.
• The Running Horse (Lebanon) is one of the only contemporary art galleries in Beirut to work with the emerging art scene.
• Seven Art Limited of New Delhi (India) represents contemporary artists that are seldom presented by international museums and absent from India’s museums.
• The Drawing Room of the Philippines exhibits the country’s best, including artists who have already been presented at the Art Basel fairs, including Lirio Salvador, and Alfredo and Isabel Aquillizan.
• Twelve Gates Gallery of Philadelphia is organizing a group show of international
artists inspired by Indian and Pakistani culture.

Solo Show
• Galerie Samantha Sellem (Paris - FR) with Pascal Pillard Fonds Canson pour l’art et le papier with Fabien Mérelle, lauréat du prix Canson 2010.
• Galerie Twenty One, (Paris - FR) with Etudes Menichetti
• L.A. galerie (Paris – FR) with Jean Denant
• Ilan Engel Gallery (Paris – FR) with Stephan Crasneanscki
• Gist Gallery (Amsterdam – Pays-Bas) with Seet van Hout
• Virgile de Voldere (New York – USA) with Duncan Wylie
• Bodson-Emelinckx Gallery (Brussels - Belgique) with EVOL
• Galerie Béatrice Soulié with Petra Werlé

The Special Projects
The Parisian gallery Nikki Diana Marquard and the Teheran-based gallery Etemad (Iran) will work together to present, at the same booth, afghani artists such as Zolaykha Sherzad, the afghani designer presented at the Venice biennial in the United Arab Emirates’ 2009 pavilion.

Two other Parisian galleries, JTM Gallery and Ouizeman Gallery, will also share a booth for a group show of their artists. The same goes for the Parisian galleries Artaban and Zeitgeist that propose a selection of activist-artists, whose creations are based on the issues facing our contemporary society. The Claire Gastaud gallery will be presenting most notably the graphic design duo, Antoine+Manuel.

Two other Parisian galleries will also propose a duo show: L’Aléatoire gallery with two Bulgarian artists; and Véronique Smagghe, known as a specialist in new realism, with Eric Michel and Laurence Nicola. Finally, Heartgalerie (Paris, FR) will welcome several dozen artists that will be presenting their portfolios.

Street Art
This artistic tendency that crept up into the gallery scene a few years ago has always had its place at SLICK. This year, four more galleries will present major contemporary artists working in this area: the Parisians Nukod, Studio 55, Estace gallery and Wilde Gallery of Berlin.

Medium-specific galleries
The Paris-Beijing gallery represents photography in both Paris and Beijing; Capital Culture will present an installation of African portraits. The Parisian gallery, Jeanroch Dard, has also always specialized in contemporary drawings.