PARIS.- Held at the Grand Palais from 31st March to 3rd April 2016, Art Paris Art Fair is the springtime Paris event for modern and contemporary art that brings together 143 galleries from 20 countries which includes for the first time Azerbaijan, Colombia and Iran.

A generalist fair open to all forms of artistic expression including design, Art Paris Art Fair presents an overview of art from the post-war period to the present day. The thematic sections focus on discovery in particular with this year’s Korea guest of honour project, personal exhibitions in the Solo Show section, emerging talents with the Promises section for young galleries and digital art with monumental projections on the façade of Grand Palais.

Exploring the regions of Europe
Art Paris Art Fair continues to attract leading international galleries such as Daniel Templon (Paris), Sundaram Tagore (New York, Hong Kong, Singapore) and Flowers (London, New York). The 2016 selection is particularly focused on exploring the different regions of Europe and its cities, each with their own individual identities such as Zurich, Munich and Milan. Their galleries have an artistic vision which reflect passion and commitment, like an antidote to the prevailing uniformization seen in so many art fairs.

With 58 newcomers, the 2016 edition maintains the 50-50 balance between French and foreign galleries. First-time participants include Bob Gysin (Zurich), Art Bartschi & Cie (Geneva), La Balsa Arte (Bogota), Silk Road (Tehran), Studio Visconti (Milan) with a comeback from Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Art (Neuchatel). In terms of French participants, Art Paris Art Fair gives pride of place to regional galleries with three participants from Marseille (Galerie Didier Gouvernnec, Ogor and Béa-Ba & Najuma), two galleries from Bordeaux (DX and Xénon), and one each from Lille (Cédric Bacqueville), Lyon (Françoise Besson), Rennes (Oniris) and Strasburg (Galerie Jean-Pierre Ritsch Fisch). Newcomers from Paris include RX, Eric Dupont and Pascal Lansberg while Sèvres-Cité de la Céramique returns this year.

Focus on the East: Korea guest of honour
Under the leadership of guest curator Sang-A CHUN, the invitation of South Korea as guest of honour highlights the vast wealth of the art scene from the “Land of Morning Calm.” With close to 80 artists represented by galleries both from Korea (Seoul, Daegu and Paju-Si) and some 20 Western galleries, this project spans the emergence of very specific forms of contemporary art from the 1960s to the present day boom in creativity.

The first generation of modernists is represented with artists such as Ungno LEE, a historic figure who produced an innovative body of work at the crossroads between Eastern and Western traditions, shown by Galerie Thessa Herold in a personal exhibition. Others include masters of Dansaekhwa, the mysterious Korean art of monochrome painting, such as Lee Ufan and Myeong-Ro Youn represented by Gana Art gallery. Also on show are some of the leading figures of the contemporary scene such as Moon-Pil Shim (Galerie Lahumière and Shilla Gallery), Lee Bae (Galerie RX), Kwang Young Chun (Sundaram Tagore Gallery and Omer Tiroche Contemporary Art) and BOOMOON (Flowers Gallery).

The young generation of emerging talents is well represented with for example installations by Kiwon Park (313 Art Project) and Yun Soo Kim (Soso Gallery), the dreamlike sculptural creations of Myeongbeom KIM (Galerie Paris-Beijing) or the delicate graphic work of Min Jung Yeon (Galerie Maria Lund).

As part of the celebrations of France-Korea year, exhibitions and installations of Korean art will be visible throughout the capital during Art Paris Art Fair. IBU Gallery, in collaboration with RX and Hakgojae galleries, present “Standing Man” by Chung Hyun, a series of monumental sculptures in the garden of the Palais Royal. The Cernuschi Museum is organising an exhibition of contemporary Korean art from the 1980s onwards along with a number of new rising talents. The Korean cultural centre is hosting a talk entitled “Contemporary Korean art: exploring the past and shed light on the present,” moderated by Art Paris Art Fair Korea Guest of Honour curator Sang A Chun.

Solo show
Introduced in 2015, the “Solo Show” section includes some 20 personal exhibitions scattered throughout the fair. This is an opportunity to discover or re-discover the work of modern or contemporary artists such as Syria’s Fadi Yazigi at Tanit Gallery, France’s Damien Cabane at Galerie Eric Dupont, Ronald Ventura from the Philippines at Galerie Primae Noctis, or Belgium’s Antoine Roegiers at Art Bärtschi & Cie whose work is inspired by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel.

Female artists are given pride of place with personal exhibitions of work by Claudine Drai (Galerie 111), Jan Haworth (Galerie du Centre), Carmen Perrin (Galerie Bob Gysin), Katinka Limpe (Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire), Ruby Rumie (Galeria NH) and Song Hyun Sook (Galerie Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Art).

Solo Shows on Bus Expo
From 30th March to 20th April the Air France airport busses will feature temporary exhibitions as part of the “Bus Expo” project. The aim is to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience. Bus Expo and Art Paris Art Fair have joined forces to display the work of five artists selected from among the solo shows at the fair.

Promises
This sector is dedicated to the promotion of young galleries and emerging talents. It includes 12 galleries that are less than five years old and have never taken part in the fair. The selection for 2016 is he following: 50 Golborne (London) , ART’LOFT Lee-Bauwens Gallery (Brussels), Bildhalle (Zurich), Galerie Béa-Ba (Marseille), Brandt Gallery (Amsterdam), Espace L (Geneva), Galerie Gouvernnec Ogor (Marseille), Galerie Virginie Louvet (Paris), Maëlle Galerie (Paris), Christine Park Gallery (London), under construction (Paris), Yay Gallery (Baku).

Digital art in all its splendour on the façade of the Grand Palais
Art Paris Art Fair is open to all forms of artistic expression including digital art. In partnership with Vidélio + Utram the fair presents a selection of monumental digital mapping projections on the façade of the Grand Palais every night for the duration of the fair.