It was billed as the first “International Asian art fair”, and at its conception it seemed to hold a number of trump cards. One was certainly the location, in the gilded splendour of the hôtel Dassault, bang on the rond-point des Champs-Elysées. The exhibitor list was impressive, boasting some real heavyweights, including Gisèle Croës, Berwalt, Richard Marchant and Speelman, and they and the other dealers brought good pieces, the foreign dealers in particular seeing it as the opportunity to show the French the quality of their wares.
The timing of the fair should have been favorable as well, in early October just as the art market gets geared up for the autumn season; of course, it turned out to be a disaster, with the World Trade Center bombing just three weeks old. The result was that virtually no Americans attended the event.
But most serious was the virtual boycott of the fair by the newly-formed Association des Specialistes d’Art Asiatique (ASAA), a French dealer grouping which is planning its own fair, a Biennale des Arts Asiatique to be held in a tent in the Tuileries gardens, at the same time as the Biennale des Antiquaires next year. “We spoke to the organiser of the Salon, Nicolas Orlowski, and tried to combine the two events next year, but he wanted to go ahead with this year’s,” said Antoine Lebel of the ASAA.
The result was that the event was largely dominated by the British, who took 11 of the 22 stands; only three were French, and there were no Americans.
Commercially, it was not a success despite very high attendance (over 10,000 in four days). Jacqueline Simcox, Richard Marchant and Gregg Baker were philosophical, saying it was an opportunity to beef up their image in the French market. Richard Marchant noted a “lack of exposure to good Oriental pieces in France”, and his words were echoed by Jacqueline Simcox. “The French were great collectors of Oriental art in the 50s and 60s but then there was a shift to other areas. With the re-opening of the Musée Guimet, there will be a revival of interest in Asian art”. Others were determined to come again next year despite the poor sales: “The event had everything going for it except the timing,” said Jules Speelman.
This month sees the opening of ASAA’s event, L’Automne asiatique à Paris, featuring 14 dealer shows by well-known specialists: Christian Deydier, Jacques Barrère, CT Loo and Lebel among others. (for details, see page 74).
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Good location, terrible timing'