In the same way that fashion month became shorthand for September's runway shows, October now hosts Frieze London and the newly renamed Art Basel: Paris in quick succession.
WE HAVE A FAIR MONTH ON OUR HANDS.
As with its more established sibling—the slew of exhibitions and parties is becoming as much a fixture of the social and travel calendar as an industry showcase.
For context, I now have a large number of friends both in the art and fashion industries —and outside of them—who travel to London and Paris for some combination of these events. The purchase and rebranding of the Paris fair by the Art Basel network has only accelerated the trend.
Like the last three years, I found myself traveling via Eurostar between London and Paris and bumping into some combination of the three. Though if you want to know the real reason I go to London and Paris in October, it’s because I’m an Upstate boy and Los Angeles doesn’t have autumn.
I never plan very well, I never think to ask for a Press Pass in advance. Someone inevitably provides one, which I usually decline to use. (For context, I’ve gone every other year to Art Basel: Miami Beach for the last decade and only entered the convention center once—because I was moderating a panel inside.)
You ask people: how was the fair? And they never say it was good. (Okay this year someone told me Art Basel: Paris was great and honestly, I was shocked.) They say, “Oh, it was awful! I stayed on the terrace and drank white wine and said hi to people.” Unless you are a collector, the VIP Previews are for socializing and—if you’re lucky—free champagne.
This year I did go to Art Basel: Paris—luckily, the day before the Grand Palais flooded. It was too hot, too humid. The next day the heat broke and a torrential thunderstorm leaked through the palais’s recently renovated roof—much to the chagrin of the French government, who recently spent half a billion euros renovating the venue.
Usually there is some good art beyond the fair. At Art Basel (as in Basel, Switzerland), this was the exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler just beyond the city. In London, it was the Lauren Halsey show at The Serpentine—though after I told a friend I liked it, he retorted it was Museum of Ice Cream-style art, which ruined it for me.
Mostly, fairs are about running into old friends and going to parties with open bars. In London, it’s members clubs like Twenty Two or Kensington Roof Gardens—or the Andre Balasz’ London hotel, Chiltern Firehouse. In Paris, there are house parties in the city and warehouse raves outside La Périphérique.
When I travel, I set meetings with old clients to check in over coffee or a cocktail. They inevitably think these trips are research. I’m not so sure they are.
A few years ago, I was approached by the NPR program Planet Money to do an episode about “trend-spotting.” I regretted to inform them this wasn’t really a thing I did—at least not actively—but offered to bring the journalist to the preview of Felix at the Roosevelt Hotel. As someone ambiguously bisexual once said to me: “Let’s give it a try.”
We walked around and I narrated my thoughts while moving which honestly made me feel insane. We took plenty of “off the record” breaks.
To finish up, we went to the parking lot so I could smoke and the journalist could ask me some final questions. “Do you come to art fairs to find new trends?” I laughed and said, “No, art fairs are where trends go to die. Everyone here is a fashion victim.” She pointed to maybe the fourth twink in a mohair sweater, “We’ve seen a lot of that. Is this a trend?” Unfortunately, no. Mohair was not a trend. I haven’t seen many mohair sweaters since February 2023.
SOMETIMES A PRODUCT IS JUST A PRODUCT.
I’ve been mulling over the idea of a “harbinger consumer” recently. It’s an idea that there are certain people whose tastes predict market failure. For more mass products like CPG, there are firms that know the ZIP codes in which success consistently predicts failure. They will test new products there and if they perform well kill the national rollout.
Arguing with some art world friends over the summer about whether Brat or Pop2 was better, I reminded them that their tastes aren’t mass. They would be offended if someone did call their tastes mass. But a self-selected avant-garde sometimes forgets that being experimental and ahead does not assure success. In fact, most experimental and avant-garde culture has never found widespread success. That’s why museums exist.
As I pointed out in my last chart about Scene Cool and Internet Cool—coolness and popularity actually aren’t the same thing.
That doesn’t mean there is never overlap. Just that it’s a needle in the hay. After the NPR reporter turned off her mic, we went to the pool for a drink and ran into my friend Ryan Trecartin. I told him what we were up to and he promptly told her, “I invented TikTok.” This clearly isn’t literally true. But if you know Ryan’s work it is certainly spiritually true.
The episode never aired. We never did find any trends, so maybe that’s not surprising. But I was reminded of it this fair month, as my clients asked what my “research” accomplished.
Ideas come from walking around and talking to people. Flaneurie and socializing. When you go out looking for new culture, you rarely find it.