Parcours des Mondes, the commercial tribal art event that takes place among the galleries of Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, has expanded this year by launching a parallel initiative called the Salon International des Arts Asiatiques (International Asian Art Fair).
The 14th edition of the event (until 13 September) includes 84 galleries, 50 of which specialise in tribal or non-Western art. Part of the fresh crop this year are 20 dealers selling Chinese, Japanese, Indian and southeast Asian art, most of it pre-20th-century, creating a rival event to Asian Art Week in New York and London. Pop-up shows organised by international dealers, 12 of whom come from the US, run alongside special displays mounted by galleries based in the sixth arrondissement.
Brussels-based Jacques How Choong gallery, which specialises in early Buddhist art, is among the participating Asian art dealers. “Our aim has been to focus on the local collector base here,” says a spokeswoman. “We will definitely do this again; it’s an investment as we have met new clientele. We have not seen many Asian collectors as they are generally attending the auctions in New York.”
Another overseas gallery, Art Passages of San Francisco, is selling a range of Asian art from Mughal architectural elements to Indian miniature paintings of 17th and 18th century. The gallery director, Shawn Ghassemi, says that he has seen "tons of good traffic” but another overseas dealer, who preferred to remain anonymous, says that he is unsure if the gallery costs will be covered.
The Asian art dealer, Rebecca Sack of the local dealership Galerie Jacques Barrère, says that being part of the Parcours has paid off: the gallery has already sold three pieces (by 10 September) including a grey sandstone Vishnu figure from Cambodia, dating from the 11th century, priced at €100,000.
“We see more people this week, than during the entire year,” said Julien Flak, the associate director of Galerie Flak which specialises in ancient tribal art from Africa, Oceania and North America. “Six or seven representatives of the Musée du Quai Branly [the Paris-based ethnographic museum] have come by, along with curators from US institutions such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,” Flak said, adding that sales made so far ranged in price from €1,000 to more than €50,000.
He stressed that buyers range from people entering the ethnographic art field to established collectors. “The tribal art market is strong in France because there is so much crossover buying,” said the London-based dealer Jonathan Hope who had sold a wooden 19th-century adat house post from East Sumba in Indonesia, priced at €12,000.