by Noelle Rathmell-Stiels
It’s still really the only one of its kind in the world!
The eighteenth iteration of the Parcours des Mondes International Art Fair was held from 10 to 15 September in balmy autumn weather in the Saint-Germain-des-Près quartier of Paris. With a new drawcard: archaeology. Amongst sixty-five dealers of calibre this year, eight were offering Egyptian, Greek and Middle-Eastern treasures. Director General Pierre Moos, in charge since his take-over of the Fair from its creator, Rik Gadella, in 2008, argues that a fair named “Parcours des Mondes”, must include all the primary cultures of the world: African, Oceanic, American, Asian and now Archaeology – from some of the cradles of European, and Middle Eastern civilisations.
I couldn’t get around to all the galleries, but a general feeling that Parcours business has been brisk this year was prevalent – thanks inter alia to the auctioning of several high-end collections (Franklin, Marceau Rivière…) – and with a marked shift of interest towards the arts of the Pacific. Today, Oceanic material represents 15% of the auction market, up from half that a few years ago. This global trend is likely to continue – in France, for example, President Emmanuel Macron’s promise of restitution of his country’s African cultural collections has created a stress reaction amongst curators, collectors and dealers.
As Pierre Moos observed in an interview in the art auction weekly “La Gazette Drouot”, today the whole world visits the fair, not only Europeans and Americans, but also Russians and more and more Asians including Chinese. The subscribers to his unsurpassed “Tribal Art Magazine” – now in its 25th year – come from forty countries. However, the ‘big’ collectors of tribal art remain the French, Belgians, Germans and Americans. Meanwhile, our very own Chris Boylan was established in rue Visconti for the thirteenth year and he is still the only Australia-based dealer at the Parcours.
This year the real stunner for me was a New Ireland-themed exhibition at the Galerie Flak in rue des Beaux-Arts. The title of the exhibition “Poesie Feroce” – Fierce Poetry – is inspired by a wording in André Breton’s 1948 poem “Xenophiles”, which celebrated the ferocious and ambiguous beauty of an Uli figure. “Tu fais peur, tu emerveilles” – You frighten, you fill with wonder. One spectacular piece was a canoe prow with pigments and shells, collected in 1884 by Captain Frederick John Mann in the Bismarck Archipelago. But all sixteen pieces, with provenances from German museum collections (Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart) and prestigious private collections (Otto Finsch, Arthur Speyer, Pierre & Claude Verite, Jacques Kerchache, Loed Van Bussel, Mathias Komor, etc.) and collected over ten years made one wish one had very deep pockets. Prices were up to €100,000. A superb catalogue (in English and French) published by Edith and Julien Flak with a text by Dr Jean-Philippe Beaulieu invites you to discover Tatanua and Kipong masks, striking Malagan effigies and friezes, delicate mouth ornaments, over-modelled skulls and Kulap stone figures.
Continuing the New-Ireland theme, Dr Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, whose day-job is CNRS Director of Astrophysics, gave fascinating lectures, in English and in French, about his future publication “Uli, Powerful Ancestor from the Pacific”. This extremely well-researched book will be published by Primedia (the Tribal Art Magazine publishers) in December 2019. With 300 pages, and 160 Ulis illustrated, and with dozens of unpublished archival photos and documents, this will be a “must-have” for all New-Ireland art aficionados. The sponsors of the publication are Pierre Moos, Adam Lindeman, Ana & Antonio Casanovas, Bernard de Grunne and Yves-Bernard Debie.
Another well-attended event at the Alcazar restaurant (Parcours HQ this year) was the signing and improvised introduction in franglais of the lavish art book, “Sepik Ramu Art” by its two of its three authors: Kevin Conru and Crispin Howarth, and photographer, Hugues Dubois. This mighty and beautiful work was well reviewed by Emilie Jolly of Lempertz Auctions in the OAS Journal, Winter Issue 2019.
I have visited the Parcours most years since its inception in 2002; the distinctive ambiance of an open-air museum with tremendous networking opportunities is, for me, what makes it unique. For those who cannot attend this high-octane yearly event, the best way to be in the know is to visit the website link www.parcours-des-mondes.com . Or another option is to leaf through the splendidly illustrated catalogue available for €20.