François Pinault, the French billionaire collector and owner of Christie’s auction house, was an early visitor to the 41st edition of Fiac (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) and its new satellite event, (Off)icielle, in Paris (23-26 October), where he bought 37 works by artists including several pieces by Roni Horn (Hauser & Wirth) and Robert Gober (Matthew Marks), according to the Quotidien de l’Art daily newsletter.
A 24-carat gold ATM by Stefan Nikolaev, Cry Me a River, 2009, was also a hit, with two editions of the piece selling for €15,000 each at the VIP preview (Michael Rein gallery). Nikolaev describes his work as “a comment on our relationship with money”. The quality of the increasingly international fair continues to impress, although the Paris-based art adviser Laurence Dreyfus says that “there are not many spectacular works at Fiac this year”. Her exception: the striking works by Olafur Eliasson on the stand of Neugerriemschneider gallery.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as ‘Pinault shops at Fiac'