Tag: Art Basel Paris

An Exhibition in Paris Reconsiders Minimalism for a Hyper-Mediated Age

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“Minimal” is on view at La Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection through January 19, 2025. Courtesy Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection

Minimalism emerged as both an act of resistance and a direct response to the exuberance of mass media and mass production—forces celebrated as progress that fundamentally reshaped how we relate to objects and to material reality itself. Seen from today’s vantage point, works made during the height of the movement in the 1960s and ’70s reveal a radical and strikingly timely philosophical and political interrogation of our modern sense of reality that feels particularly urgent in an era defined by the mediatization and spectacularization of the digital sphere.

Against the promise of endless availability and the relentless cycles of production, circulation and consumption—including the infinite reproducibility of the digital image—Minimalism’s artists embraced an ascetic discipline of reduction, stripping the artwork to its essential terms and events while intensifying its effects. In doing so, they underscored how an object, through restraint, can shape perception and reconfigure the very space and architecture that contain it.

“Minimal,” a major exhibition that opened at La Bourse de Commerce in October, brings together over 100 works, including a core group drawn from François Pinault’s collection, alongside international loans from the Dia Foundation in New York and other institutions. Curated by Dia director Jessica Morgan, it traces, likely for the first time, both the diversity and the global reach of the movement launched by a generation of artists who initiated a radical approach to art that later took on different forms around the world.

The exhibition unfolds as a journey that allows for multiple discoveries and rediscoveries, showcasing how artists from diverse cultural backgrounds across Asia, Europe, and North and South America similarly challenged traditional methods of art production and display. At its core is a fundamental reconsideration of the artwork’s placement in relation to the viewer and within the cyclical flow of energy and matter that underpins the cosmos itself.

Lygia Pape’s Weaving Space. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection | Courtesy Projeto Lygia Pape

The works in the show were born out of a shared attempt to stage raw encounters with matter and to engage the most primordial and authentic structures of human experience. Conceived with both conceptual and spiritual rigor, they privilege presence and perception over form, becoming experiential sites of “lived perception”—embodying an entire mode of thinking in an art object that places the physical self at the center of understanding the world.

Philosophically, Minimalist artworks foreground a mature awareness of reality as inherently interrelational, something that arises only in the encounter between object, viewer and environment. A radical manifestation of this interdependence appears in the central installations by American artist Meg Webster, which dominate the Bourse’s scenic, frescoed rotunda. Conceived and realized in collaboration with natural processes, their final form stages a tense resistance to entropy, which inevitably alters their shape and appearance over time beyond any claim to human formal control or perfection. Natural processes are embedded within these seemingly simple structures, which ultimately draw an entire ecosystem into Tadao Ando’s spare architecture. Here, the total choreography matters as much as its individual components, as Webster constructs an interior landscape at the building’s core.

Merging nature and culture, matter and energy, Webster’s process-based sculpture is infused with a prescient ecological consciousness. Poised between the elemental and the formal, between human-shaped material and natural transformation, her work prompts reflection on sustainability and our relationship to the earth—particularly resonant today as she receives long-overdue international attention through this presentation, which runs in conjunction with her year-long exhibition at Dia Beacon.

Meg Webster works at Bourse de Commerce. Photo : Florent Michel / 11h45 / Pinault Collection

If Minimalism has long been interpreted as an aesthetic reaction to the subjective overflow of Abstract Expressionism and the figuration of Pop Art, the global perspective and breadth of this exhibition make clear that the approach often extended far beyond a purely aesthetic exercise. In doing so, it prepared the conceptual ground for a substantial share of contemporary sculpture and Conceptual Art, pushing the logic of economy of means to the point of privileging the idea over its realization. This shift opened up possibilities for many contemporary artistic practices that operate beyond, or are no longer confined to, fixed traditional media.

The exhibition is organized into seven thematic sections: Light, Mono-ha, Balance, Surface, Grid, Monochrome and Materialism. The titles signal the core elements these artists investigated in their inquiry into the most radical ways of translating reality through art reduced to its most essential components. Unadorned by any pretense of figuration or narrative and detached from the biographical identity of its maker, each work functions simultaneously as proposition and question.

Underlying the pieces on view is a shared desire to situate the audience within the same perceptual field, calling for a bodily correspondence between artwork and viewer through scale and proximity. In many parts of the world, this reconceptualization of three-dimensional form and perception led to a dialogue with performance, whether through process-based making, choreographic collaboration or direct physical interaction with the work.

The exhibition naturally includes the early generation of American artists most closely associated with the movement, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Dan Flavin, though they do not occupy center stage, reflecting an effort to decentralize and broaden the narrative. As at Dia, the show presents artists from the 1960s who pursued a similarly radical engagement with the canvas, exploring austerity and mathematical rigor through monochrome and grid-based structures. Figures such as Robert Ryman and Agnes Martin are represented by some of the most significant works drawn from Pinault’s collection.

Particularly compelling is the dialogue established with parallel aesthetics emerging from markedly different cultural, philosophical and spiritual contexts outside the United States. Among these, the Japanese Mono-ha group offers one of the exhibition’s most resonant contributions. Pinault’s holdings include one of the most substantial collections of Mono-ha works outside Japan. Artists such as Lee Ufan, Kishio Suga, Koji Enokura, Susumu Koshimizu, Nobuo Sekine and Jiro Takamatsu foreground the interrelation of object, space and viewer, staging “things” together in their natural or industrially fabricated states. By embracing the delicate balance and tension produced by their transitory condition, these artists investigated a form of material intelligence, examining how matter retains identity even as form shifts, prioritizing material presence over sculptural expression and over any symbolic or linguistic framing.

In Japan, the Mono-ha movement focused on bringing objects together in their natural, unaltered states and the interdependence of object, space and viewer. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection

Another compelling perspective included in the exhibition is the organic and participatory reinterpretation of geometric abstraction developed in Brazil through the Neo-Concrete movement, exemplified by Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. A capsule exhibition dedicated to Pape, “Weaving Space,” which opened a month earlier and runs concurrently, served as a prelude to “Minimal.” It traces key moments in her oeuvre, from Max Bill-inspired geometries to an increasingly organic and participatory use of abstraction, presenting works that range from her first abstract engravings to her monumental Livro Noite e Dia III (Book of Night and Day III) from 1963-76, alongside experimental films that emerged in response to Brazil’s sociopolitical context at the time. At the heart of the presentation is her poetic, full-room installation Ttéia 1, C (2003-2017), in which she literally weaves space into a new architectural structure using delicate gold threads, transforming the environment into a luminous and diaphanous site of exchange between physical presence and imagination, light and darkness.

One of her most radical works, Divisor (1968), was restaged during the show’s opening weeks. As in its original enactment in Rio de Janeiro, a hundred participants moved as one beneath an immense perforated white sheet, forming a living metaphor for a shared social fabric. In this gentle merging of forms, hierarchy is suspended, and the work invites a collective, participatory meditation on equality, employing abstraction as a universal language that transcends individuality and binds participants within a shared structure.

Kawara’s austere date paintings reflect Minimalism’s drive toward precision and restraint, inviting viewers to confront the passage of time. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection

Occupying the entirety of the rotunda is On Kawara’s Minimal Chronology of Dated Paintings, forming a minimalist diary and record of personal and collective time. By painting the numbers that denote each passing day, Kawara creates a fragment of space and materiality in which the durational act of painting absorbs the multiplicity of events and meanings implied within a single date, set against the relentless flow of time. By confronting the idea that linear time itself is a conventional and ultimately arbitrary human construction, Kawara’s date paintings distill life to its most essential marker—time alone—aligning with Minimalism’s drive toward radical reduction through their emphasis on the viewer’s direct encounter with the present. Meanwhile, in Europe, movements such as Zero in Germany and Arte Povera in Italy pushed the boundaries of sculpture through minimalist vocabularies and a direct engagement with space as a hybrid, active presence.

The additional perspectives and less expected figures presented in the Light section offer a fresh reading of how Minimalism enabled artists to investigate one of the most phenomenologically charged elements through which we access physical reality. In the 1960s and ’70s, light became a primary material. Artists including Dan Flavin, Nancy Holt, François Morellet, Robert Irwin, Mary Corse, Keith Sonnier and Chryssa worked with fluorescent tubes, neon, black light, projected light and natural illumination, driven by a broader inquiry into perception and immateriality as artificial and industrial lighting came to dominate the urban environment. Flavin’s fluorescent structures redefined spatial boundaries and architectural features, while Holt and Irwin explored the relational, phenomenological nature of light, focusing on how it organizes perception and bodily movement. Corse, meanwhile, experimented with Tesla coils and argon gas, producing works that appear to capture and hold light itself.

Organized into seven thematic sections—Light, Mono-ha, Balance, Surface, Grid, Monochrome and Materialism—the exhibition foregrounds these distinct yet interconnected artistic developments. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection

It is in these perspectives that we gain further evidence of how, through a minimalist language, these artists were already posing urgent questions that remain, or have become even more timely today. Ultimately, Minimal art, in its various declinations, was already probing the dynamics and structures that shape our relationship to reality and our physical position within a world of things transformed into products and meaning through human-made symbols and systems that often attempt to contain or neutralize, through illusion, the entropic nature of reality beyond human cognitive and sensory grasp.

The emphasis in these works rests on the moment of encounter itself: the phenomenology of seeing before and beyond any process of signification. Form becomes secondary to process, presence and the inherent agency of materials. Through deconstruction and reduction, these works introduce profound existential doubts rather than offering closed propositions, redirecting attention to a pre-linguistic register of experience—the first contact with reality, which already carries its own phenomenological truth. What they propose is an epistemology grounded in dynamic, open-ended relationships with matter. In doing so, the works cultivate a heightened awareness of the sensory core of our experience of the world, our only access within the limits of embodied perception.

In a culture saturated with mediated images and, increasingly, with algorithmic simulations and machine-generated forms, Minimalism restores the body as the primary filter and medium through which the world is apprehended—an insistence on embodied perception that feels newly urgent in a desensitized and increasingly alienated society, where digital mediation and elaboration govern, or can potentially substitute for, much of our experience of reality.

The show’s intergenerational and cross-cultural perspectives challenge the American-dominated narrative of Minimalism. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection

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Elisa Carollo

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January 2, 2026
Meet the Collector: Raphaël Isvy Wants to Rewrite the Rules of Buying and Selling Art

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Items from Isvy’s collection in his apartment in Paris’s 16th Arrondissement. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

A new generation of collectors is determined to take control and rewrite the rules of an art system they don’t identify with, finding its hierarchies outdated and its codes sluggish compared to the speed at which they now share information, discover artists and shape their own passions. During a frenetic Paris Art Week, Parisian collector Raphaël Isvy opened his collection to Observer, reflecting candidly on what no longer works in the traditional art world and how things could evolve—much as other markets already have.

Isvy picks us up from the opening of Paris Internationale on his motorcycle—the only sensible way to cut through the week’s gridlocked traffic—and takes us to his apartment in the elegant 16th arrondissement, directly across the river from the Tour d’Eiffel, where his two young daughters greet us at the door. Between the roar of the ride and the quiet of home, he begins not with art but with life: how becoming a father reshaped everything—his outlook, his sense of time and his focus on what truly holds value behind the mirror.

Born in 1989 and raised in Paris, Raphaël Isvy studied mathematics and statistics, worked in finance and asset management and later consulted for major tech firms. He followed the path laid out by family and convention before discovering art—a revelation that slowly but completely redirected his life toward his passion. He began collecting around 2016 and didn’t know much about art, beyond living in a city surrounded by it. “I didn’t grow up in an art-oriented family—everyone around me was a doctor, either a dentist or an eye doctor—I was the only one who ended up working in finance. I’d studied mathematics and statistics, but I had always been very curious by nature,” Isvy tells me. Curiosity is often enough to start someone down the collecting path, but he was also becoming bored with straight finance. “I loved the idea of owning something that others had tried—and failed—to get. I was drawn to the fact that art could be bought online, and I was good at that. I was fast, quicker than most people.”

That’s how Isvy ended up buying an Invader print. “When it arrived and I saw it at home, I completely changed my mind about selling it, even though I was getting crazy offers,” he says. It was an early Invader, but there was already a strong market for his work—though at vastly different price levels than today, when unique mosaics (his large “alias” works, one-offs or very limited editions) sell for hundreds of thousands of euros (one piece recently sold for about €480,000) and at auction for as much as US$1.2 million, while prints now trade in the thousands rather than the hundreds Isvy paid at the time.

Raphaël Isvy. From Instagram @raph_is, Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

What first hooked him was the thrill of opening the tube. “Putting on the white gloves, seeing the number, realizing that this specific number was mine and no one else’s and then framing it,” he recounts. “I even went down the rabbit hole of reading forums about how best to frame it flat. That’s when I realized I was in love with the whole process.”

Isvy freely admits he began collecting art with little knowledge of the Old Masters or anything related to deceased artists. “I’m lucky to live in a city where there’s everything, but I really didn’t know much at all,” he says. Instead, he represents the new generation of collectors identified in the latest Art Basel and UBS report—those who educate themselves and gather information primarily online through forums and social media.

“I taught myself—from Instagram, collectors’ accounts, Facebook groups, forums, whatever was available back then,” Isvy explains. “It all started with buying prints and hanging them on my walls, but when people came over and started talking about the pieces—debating them, arguing whether they were too simple, saying things like ‘my kid could do that’—I realized that was exactly what I loved about art: it sparked conversation.”

From there, Isvy began buying more prints and drawings, learning everything he could online and relying on the only tool he truly trusts—his eyes. “At some point I thought, okay, my wallet can do better than this,” he says as we sit in his living room, where the walls showcase the results of his less-than-decade-long collecting journey: above the fireplace hangs a work on paper by George Condo, paired with a sculpture by Sterling Ruby and a painting by Naotaka Hiro. On the floor, smaller works by once-emerging artists now internationally recognized, such as Sara Anstaiss and Brice Guilbert, sit alongside pieces by established figures like Peter Saul. Hanging in the entryway above a Pierre Paulin sofa is a blue neon by Tracey Emin that reads “Trust Yourself”—a phrase that neatly sums up Isvy’s path into art.

Greeting us at the entrance are a Tomoo Gokita painting and a hanging sculpture by Hugh Hayden, while elegantly nestled between books in the dining room’s library are smaller gems by rising painters who have quickly gained attention—from an early Eva Pahde (who just opened her debut solo at Thaddaeus Ropac in London) to Adam Alessi, Robert Zehnder, Elsa Rouy, Jean Nipon and Alex Foxton. Even the rooms of his two daughters hold small contemporary treasures, including a painting by Tomokazu Matsuyama and a drawing by Javier Calleja, while beside the couple’s bed stands an elegant surrealist figure—a woman with an octopus on her back by Emily Mae Smith.

Isvy exemplifies that ways younger collectors today are determined to claim agency and rewrite the rules of an art system they no longer identify with. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

Before turning to art, Isvy had already collected sneakers and Pokémon cards, though never on a large scale. When he began collecting art, he approached it with a similarly modest budget. “I used to find artists selling directly from their studios, offering small drawings for $500 or $600,” he recalls. One of his first paintings was by mike lee, purchased from Arsham/Fieg Gallery (AFG)—a small gallery on the second floor of the Kith store at 337 Lafayette Street in New York. Opened in 2021 as a collaboration between Ronnie Fieg and artist Daniel Arsham, AFG was a natural extension of Fieg’s brand and its crossover between fashion, design and art—a combination that perfectly matched the taste of Isvy’s generation. “When it arrived—with the crate, the white gloves and the realization that it was a one-of-one—it completely shifted my perspective. I thought: Okay, I want to do this forever.”

Collecting in a community and growing with it

From that moment, Isvy began connecting with more people. “I think that’s what really defines me and the way I’ve been collecting. I’m someone who connects,” he says. “I talk to everyone the same way, I react to stories, ask questions and exchange views. Because in the art world, if you’re alone, you’re nothing. Without perspective, without taste, without access—even if you’re a billionaire—you’re still nothing without people.”

Convinced that community was essential to both access and understanding, he created a Facebook group devoted to prints and drawings. It became a space for collectors to share advice on buying, selling, framing and promoting new releases and studio drops. Over time, it evolved into a global network that brought people together both online and offline.

“People began organizing meetups in different cities and I remember traveling to Los Angeles to meet fifty collectors, then to New York to meet a hundred and later to Asia to meet hundreds more,” Isvy recalls. His story underscores a growing need for connection and dialogue among young collectors—a desire for shared discovery that drives collectible cultures popular with Gen Z and Millennials but is too often constrained by the rigid hierarchies of the traditional art world. The community he built around him includes collectors aged 18 to 35 who neither identify with nor seek to conform to those old rules. From there, the network grew organically—one introduction leading to another—spanning continents and forming a parallel ecosystem of its own.

Immersed in this community, Isvy began hearing about artists before they reached broader recognition. “When both Asian and American collectors were mentioning the same names, I knew it was a signal worth paying attention to,” he says. Those insights, combined with his instinct, led him to make early acquisitions that proved remarkably prescient: a large Robert Nava painting bought for $9,000 before gallery representation; an Anna Park piece purchased while she was still an undergraduate for $900; and an Anna Weyant work acquired at NADA in 2019 for $3,000. “People often say I got lucky—but it wasn’t luck. I did my homework. I have a process and I’m meticulous about it.”

Isvy’s story reveals the deep need for connection, community and shared discovery that drives a new generation of collectors. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

When Isvy buys art, it’s never entirely spontaneous—he reads, researches and cross-checks everything. “We see about twenty new artists a day now and most are talented—but the real challenge is spotting the exceptional ones, the ones who will last,” he notes. As seasoned collectors know, that requires more than recognizing talent; it’s about identifying the right combination: an artist with originality, supported by the right gallery, at the right moment. “Those indicators are hard to find, but they form your own recipe—your personal algorithm. That’s what drives me. It’s not luck; it’s preparation meeting opportunity.”

Collecting with a purpose

For Isvy, his goal as a collector soon became clear: to own remarkable works. He first drew inspiration from older collectors—the kind he saw in books, magazines and on Instagram—showcasing homes filled with art. “When you start collecting, you get obsessed with the books, the magazines, the collectors you see online,” he says, explaining that what fascinated him was how art, furniture and architecture could merge to form a complete aesthetic statement. “It’s not about showing off; it’s about assembling design furniture, an apartment and artworks in a way that feels balanced. It’s actually really hard.” But that, he says, is what defines true taste. “You can be a billionaire and still ruin everything with bad lighting or the wrong couch. That’s why I wanted white walls, simplicity, space for the works to breathe.”

Although his collection now includes more than a hundred works (some co-owned with friends) the display in his apartment feels cohesive, with the art integrated naturally into the space, in dialogue with both furniture and architecture. To achieve this, Isvy collaborated with architect Sophie Dries, a close friend, who designed the interiors around the collection rather than the other way around, ensuring it remained a home first—a place where his daughters could live and move freely. The result preserves the apartment’s historic Haussmannian details while infusing it with the lightness and understated elegance of contemporary design.

Over time, Isvy also began selling some works—but always within his community and with full transparency. “The one rule I’ve stuck to is reaching out to the gallery first. Most of the time, when they couldn’t help me resell, I would wait or find a responsible way to do it,” he explains, showing he understands the rules of the game. He recalls one case involving a painting by Anna Weyant that he bought at NADA in 2019 for $3,500. Two years later, as her market soared, he received offers as high as $400,000 from collectors in Korea. Out of loyalty to the artist and her gallerist, he refused to sell privately. “It was still my early years collecting and I was terrified of being canceled,” he recounts. He asked 56 Henry, where he had purchased the piece, to handle the resale, but they couldn’t, as Weyant had since joined Gagosian. He then consigned it to the mega-gallery, which held it for six months without success. “Later I learned they’d doubled the price—asking nearly $400,000 without even showing it properly. Of course it didn’t sell. They never even brought me an offer. They didn’t care; they had other inventory to push.” He eventually took it to auction because the offer was life-changing. Still, this decision caused backlash with the artist, despite the fact that he had followed every protocol.

Isvy is openly critical of how written and unwritten rules often constrain the healthy circulation of art and value in the market. “The art world is an economic cycle like any other asset class. If you want it to stay healthy, you can’t break the links. Every time I sold an artwork, it was to buy another one to keep the cycle moving,” he explains. “When collectors reinject liquidity into the market, it benefits everyone. Instead of shaming people for selling, galleries should teach them how to do it properly, how to reinvest in a way that sustains the ecosystem.”

The aesthetics of living and collecting converge; here, home becomes both gallery and manifesto of a taste grounded in balance and restraint. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

Isvy believes when a collector consigns a work back to a gallery—choosing to avoid auction and protect the artist’s market—the gallery should reciprocate that gesture. Offering trade-in credit or discounts toward another piece, for instance, would help sustain mutual trust. “That’s how you build trust and keep the wheel turning,” he says.

For him, the cause of today’s stagnation is clear. Between 2019 and 2022, everyone was buying, often under restrictive three-year no-resale agreements, and collectors were afraid to act. No one wanted to break those rules, even as the market overheated. “The fear came not from greed, but from the culture of silence that galleries built around selling,” he notes. Now that those agreements have expired, the market is flooded with works—and many aren’t good. “Galleries were taking everything out of studios instead of curating and showing only what was great. During that period, there was no real filter—no accountability. There was too much abundance,” he says. Even when artists asked galleries not to show weaker works or to limit annual price increases to no more than 10 percent, few listened. “Everyone got greedy. Collectors, galleries, artists—we all played a part in pushing things too far. That’s why the market looks the way it does now.”

When asked if this disillusionment has dulled his enthusiasm, Isvy admits that some of the magic has faded. “When you see how things really work behind the scenes, it’s not as enchanting as you once thought. It’s not disgusting, but it changes your perspective.”

Still, surrounded by art in every corner of his home, he insists the passion remains. He’s simply more deliberate now—more thoughtful and selective. “I still love the emotion of collecting, that instinctive excitement,” he says. “But now I feel like my role is to help others see what needs to change—to make the system better. I have hope because there’s a new generation that wants to do things differently. When the old dinosaurs are gone, we’ll finally have a chance to rebuild.”

Isvy’s role in rewriting the rules

Raphaël Isvy represents a new generation of collectors determined to claim agency by reshaping the system from within. Like many millennials, he sees his role in the art world as deliberately fluid—collector, curator, advisor and connector all at once. “I do deals, I buy, I sell, I help people collect, I introduce them to artists,” he explains. For him, those boundaries are artificial. “In the past, collectors were patrons; today, we can be activators,” he says, recalling how last year he curated a large cultural exhibition in the South of France, set in a vineyard, which received an enthusiastic response. He insists he doesn’t fit neatly into any single label. “I don’t have a defined role. I just love art and people.” Yet, he admits, the traditional art world resists those who refuse to stay in one box. “The truth is, the more dynamic you are, the more everyone benefits; more activity means more liquidity, more buyers, more fairs, more growth.”

For Isvy, even the distortions that have plagued the market reveal that the system’s old rules no longer fit its global scale and speed. With production volumes far exceeding what the traditional model can absorb, he argues, the only way forward is to broaden the collector base and rethink how art circulates.

He finds hope in younger galleries already experimenting with new models. “Many organize events that have an actual purpose—not just hanging a Rothko and waiting for the wire to come through. There’s a sense of responsibility and intent that wasn’t there before.”

If given the chance to introduce concrete reforms, Isvy says he would start with enforceable rules—beginning with banning auction houses from selling works less than three years old. “This rule alone would already make a huge difference,” he argues. “It would bring more stability, discourage speculation and give artists time to grow before being thrown into the market machine.”

In his view, part of the market’s instability stems from its lack of structure and accountability. Auction houses should face stricter limits—fewer sales per year, fewer lots per sale—to prevent oversaturation. Similarly, mega-galleries should adopt principles borrowed from finance, employing in-house risk managers responsible for ensuring artists are paid consistently and reserves are properly maintained. “Setting aside around 30 percent of income for operational stability, salaries and artist payments would bring the professionalism this sector urgently needs,” he explains. These are not radical reforms, he adds, but necessary corrections.

Liquidity, transparency and dialogue are emerging as the values that sustain—not threaten—the collecting ecosystem’s future. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

At the same time, transparency remains the art market’s greatest weakness. Coming from a background in risk management, Isvy has seen firsthand how chaos unfolds when an unregulated system operates without rules. He recalls helping a friend sell a large painting that set a world record at Christie’s last October. “Everyone was celebrating, talking about millions of euros. What people don’t know is that the work wasn’t paid for in the end. There’s a huge lack of transparency in this market. No one realizes how many auction sales actually fall through, or how many so-called records are never settled,” he says.

While auction data are theoretically the only public numbers the market can rely on, prices are often published without verification and used as benchmarks even when deals collapse. “That work eventually sold for a third of the supposed record price—but in the meantime, that inflated figure distorted the entire market,” Isvy notes. To him, as a former finance professional, the outcome is predictable. “Without a serious purge and some structural reforms, I don’t see how the market can restart.”

He often describes the art market as “an ocean dominated by predators.” “Dealers are the sharks; collectors are the fish,” he says. “It’s almost impossible to navigate without getting eaten along the way. You get layers of intermediaries adding price on top of price and I’ll sometimes get three different offers for the same work, each one higher because it’s passed through multiple hands. It’s absurd. I’ve even had people steal images from my Instagram to pretend they’re selling my pieces.”

Yet he doesn’t exempt anyone from blame. “We can’t really complain about the market’s current state—we all knew what was happening. But what’s different now is that younger collectors aren’t coming in blind. They research, they cross-check and they know the system before they buy. The old guard was drawn by instinct; they lived in a smaller art world, with a handful of galleries and fairs. For us, information is everywhere—and that changes everything.”

A more fluid idea of contemporary culture

For Isvy, the solution begins with greater liquidity and openness. The art market, he argues, must operate as fluidly as other collectible markets, because the old formula of engineered scarcity and opaque pricing—supercharged during the pandemic—has eroded trust.

He compares the art world to the Pokémon card market, where transparency and liquidity keep everything in motion. “In that world, inventory changes hands every day. Payments can be made through crypto, PayPal, cash or trades—it’s fluid. People post story sales on Instagram, with clear prices and everything sells in minutes,” he explains. “Imagine trying that with art—everyone would freak out, say you’re breaking the rules. But it would work.”

For Isvy, this kind of openness could reinvigorate the entire ecosystem. “If someone sells a $3,000 work, that person will probably reinvest that money in another artist. The wheel keeps turning. Liquidity creates opportunity—for collectors, for dealers and for artists who can produce new work. That’s how you sustain an ecosystem, not by freezing it.”

When Isvy brings up this comparison, he leads us to what he calls his “little secret”—a private room that reveals another side of his personality. “The world knows me as a collector, but there’s another part of me. I’m a gamer, a geek. I collect Pokémon cards, NFTs and sneakers. I play PlayStation 5 every night. I love Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Final Fantasy. I couldn’t imagine my home without that side of who I am.”

When he moved in, he told his designer he needed an office for remote work but also a personal space. Since her aesthetic was more classic, his architect introduced him to a younger, eccentric designer known for creating gaming and YouTuber rooms. “He had orange diamonds on his teeth,” Isvy laughs. “I told him my story and we figured out how to make a small space work as both an office and a world of my own.” Together, they designed the room from scratch. “He called it The Glitch—like a bug in a video game—because it doesn’t fit with the rest of the apartment.”

The art market’s rigidity contrasts with the fluid economies that younger collectors are familiar with from gaming paraphernalia, sneakers and cryptocurrency. Courtesy Raphaël Isvy

Inside, the space feels like a cross between a gaming den and a cabinet of curiosities. There’s a retro bench upholstered in tapestry, a BS Invader console, manga shelves, Pokémon cards, Rubik’s cubes and a miniature painting by Robert Nava—his favorite artist. The walls are covered in wallpaper that mimics the black-and-white static of an old television screen, paired with ceramic terrazzo tiles forming a custom mosaic floor. “It’s vintage, weird and perfect,” Isvy says.

This hidden office and private room capture the spirit of an entire generation of collectors like Isvy—for whom contemporary art, Pokémon cards, anime and manga, video games and collectible figurines coexist within the same cultural imagination. It’s the universe that shaped their childhood and, ultimately, their identity. For this generation, these objects are not mere toys or décor but artifacts that equally express contemporary culture and their idea of collecting and supporting it.

For Isvy, the space is more than an ode to nostalgia—it’s a statement. “The contemporary art world still struggles to accept that someone can collect a Condo and also Pokémon cards,” he says. “But that’s going to change. Our generation grew up with gaming and pop culture; it’s part of us. You can’t tell people to shut off that side of themselves. That’s how the next generation of collectors will come in—through openness, not hierarchy.” Gesturing toward the Nava painting behind him, he adds, “If I cared only about money, I would have sold it—I’ve had offers. But I paid $9,000 for it and to me, it’s priceless. He’s one of the most important artists of our generation. This room reminds me why I started collecting in the first place.”

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Elisa Carollo

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November 12, 2025
A New Exhibition Series Celebrates the Visionary Sculptural Practice of Lynn Chadwick

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A view of the installation at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux–Hôtel de Sully. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of the Lynn Chadwick’s Estate and Perrotin.

British artist Lynn Chadwick was instrumental in liberating modern sculpture from its traditional figurative and celebratory forms, pushing it towards more abstract, innovative expressions. His market remains robust, largely due to the careful management of his estate by his family. Now, “Hypercircle,” a series of exhibitions split into three chapters across two venues, seeks to further cement Chadwick’s reputation and enhance his market standing.

Timed to coincide with Art Basel Paris, the first show, “Hypercircle – Chapter 1: Scalene,” opened at Galerie Perrotin alongside a display of works at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux–Hôtel de Sully. This exhibition focuses on Chadwick’s formative years, showcasing sixty pivotal works produced between 1947 and 1962—a period during which the artist defined his distinct style and gained international recognition. Observer spoke with curator and art historian Matthieu Poirier, who played a central role in orchestrating the show.

Poirier revealed that this exhibition is the culmination of years of dialogue with the Chadwick estate. He first connected with them during research for his groundbreaking “Suspension” exhibition and publication, which looked at artists who pioneered the idea of sculpture beyond the pedestal. Despite some of these pieces not being Chadwick’s most recognized works, the show highlights the artist’s exploration of “Mobiles” in the 1950s. “They are something deeply connected with the history of abstract art,” Poirier said. “It’s about losing boundaries and creating abstraction.”

The Lynn Chadwick exhibition at Perrotin Gallery in Paris was curated by Matthieu Poirer. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of the Lynn Chadwick’s Estate and Perrotin.

Chadwick’s fascination with suspension and his intuitive approach to working with unconventional materials were fueled by his diverse background as an architectural draftsman, furniture and textile designer, and later, a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II. According to Poirier, for the artist, “mobiles were an extension of architecture, moving parts of the architecture. He always had a fascination for flying objects, also for his past as a pilot.”

As Chadwick sought to liberate sculpture from mass and traditional support, his works evolved into more animal-like forms, often featuring angular bodies and delicate, spindly legs. Though deeply abstract and imaginative in their hybrid forms, these sculptures retained some references to the natural world. Poirier noted that Chadwick was fascinated by biology, particularly Darwin’s theory of evolution, with illustrations from those scientific texts inspiring his distinct biomorphic language.

SEE ALSO: For Nicola Vassell, Art Market Success Is Rooted in Character

For this reason, the sculptor’s creations often appear more like fossils suspended between present and past, between remoteness and presentness of their forms, evoking humanoid forms figures with anthropomorphic heads and limbs while maintaining their “otherness.” Many of Chadwick’s pieces also resemble insects, particularly referencing the exoskeleton—a concept that fascinated the artist as he explored the idea of a protective shell or carapace encasing the body structure.

These connections to natural forms and geometries became even more pronounced after Chadwick moved to Lypiatt Park, a neo-Gothic castle in the Cotswolds. From the late 1950s onward, he absorbed inspiration directly from the rich flora and fauna surrounding his new studio. Yet even as his biomorphic tendencies became more apparent, his work continued to blend elements of nature with the mechanical, industrial, and even futuristic, reflecting the aesthetic sensibilities of his time.

“Hypercycle” is a series of exhibitions at several sites, each tracing a part of the artist’s career. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of the Lynn Chadwick’s Estate and Perrotin.

Chadwick’s work was never tied to a specific narrative or political stance, which is why Poirier avoided categorizing his pieces by “type” in this exhibition. Instead, he wanted to highlight the artist’s abstract approach, allowing the sculptures to transcend direct references. By pairing the works organically and displaying them as if they were occasionally gathering on pedestals, Poirier emphasizes their fluidity. “They’re always highly stylized and maintain only the main lines of the real thing,” he said.

Some of Chadwick’s monumental sculptures are on display at the Monuments Nationaux–Hôtel de Sully. These pieces, which weigh up to 800 kg, are remarkable not only for their scale but also for the artist’s working method—Chadwick often worked alone and created his sculptures without preliminary sketches, relying on an intuitive and automatic process. Poirier likened this method to surrealist automatic writing, noting that his process had “no plan, leaving the materials leading the way.”

At the same time, Chadwick’s work is deeply rooted in the tradition of sculptural pioneers, from Russian Constructivists like Naum Gabo to Henry Moore, and even the existential sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, where bodies are reduced to their minimal forms. “I’ve always seen him as the missing link between Henry Moore, Giacometti and someone like Louise Bourgeois,” Poirier said, emphasizing the broader significance of Chadwick’s practice. “When you look at her spiders, it’s clear that she looked at Chadwick’s work, and she wasn’t the only one.”

Lynn Chadwick was one of the most significant sculptors of the twentieth century, alongside Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore and Louise Bourgeois. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of the Lynn Chadwick’s Estate and Perrotin.

When compared to Moore and Giacometti, Chadwick’s works convey a similar sense of precariousness and fragility, reflecting the uncertainties of the postwar era. He minimized the base of his sculptures, creating a sense of imbalance and instability through the use of triangular shapes, a key element of his sculptural language. As Poirier explained, this instability wasn’t merely aesthetic but also a means to evoke movement: “The idea of the scalene triangle, this irregular triangle, is an unstable shape that is on the verge of collapsing, not symmetrical. It is not orthogonal. There is no symmetry. It’s just on the verge of falling or giving birth to another triangle or tetrahedron—these shapes imagined from this simple structure.”

The concept of the scalene triangle was so integral to Chadwick’s work that it inspired the title of the first chapter of his exhibition in Paris. Poirier added that this formal approach likely stems from his architectural background, where he learned to stabilize structures using diagonal lines, creating a dynamic interplay between gravitational forces. This architectural influence is evident in the way Chadwick balanced strength and instability within his sculptures.

SEE ALSO: Jean-Marie Appriou’s Perrotin Show Celebrates the Perpetual Promise of Life in the Cosmos

Profoundly enigmatic, Chadwick’s hybrid sculptures seem to foreshadow new possibilities of symbiosis between nature and human creation. His concept of “organic growth” within sculpture offers a visionary anticipation of themes such as interspecies relationships and “alienness,” ideas that have become increasingly popular in today’s artistic and creative realms. As humanity is compelled to reconsider its place on the planet, this sculptor’s work feels more relevant than ever, whether viewed through dystopian or optimistic lenses.

“Hypercycle” will continue with a second chapter in New York focusing on Chadwick’s mature period from 1963 to 1979. The final chapter will be mounted in Asia. Complementing the exhibition series, a monograph set to be published in 2025 will provide a comprehensive overview of Chadwick’s career, offering diverse perspectives on his work and legacy.

The first chapter brings together sixty key works produced between 1947 and 1962, a time when the artist defined his unique approach and achieved international recognition. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of the Lynn Chadwick’s Estate and Perrotin.

“Hypercircle – Chapter 1: Scalene” is on view at Galerie Perrotin in Paris through November 16.

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Elisa Carollo

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October 24, 2024
A Constellation of Salon-Style Fairs Rounded Out Paris Art Week

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Josef Strau and ASMA presented by Gaga, Mexico. © Margot Montigny.

A constellation of salon-style fairs opened in Paris this week, perfectly timed to coincide with an increasingly intense and vibrant Art Basel Paris, helping solidify the French capital’s status as Europe’s premier art hub. Leading the charge on Tuesday was Paris Internationale, which took over the raw, abandoned Central Bergère once again. Its grungy, unfinished atmosphere mirrored the experimental art displayed in the booths. This year, the fair hosted seventy-five galleries from nineteen countries, and a bustling opening day led to strong sales. Japanese artist Kajiito Ito, presented by Tomio Koyama Gallery, sold out his entire collection of paintings and sculptures priced between $3,500-5,000. Meanwhile, Athens-based The Breeder made its debut, showcasing works by artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi alongside sculptures by Georgia Sagri. By the third day, the gallery celebrated the sale of one of Sagri’s works ($30,000-40,000) to a prominent European institutional collection, along with several editions of Hassabi’s golden mirrored photographs, which were placed in private collections for $20,000-30,000. Hassabi is set to present a solo exhibition at the gallery at the end of November.

LoBrutto Stahl’s solo booth featuring the intriguing, esoteric paintings of Georgian artist Tornike Robakidze sold out by the end of the first day. Düsseldorf’s Lucas Hirsch also reported strong early sales of works by Kassel-based painter Lukas Müller, who studied under Albert Oehlen, with paintings going for around $10,000 and a few gouaches for $4,500. By Friday, Ludovico Corsini, now operating independently after parting ways with CLEARING, nearly sold out his booth at Paris Internationale. Javier Barrios’ works of intricate symbolism sold in the $8,000-30,000 range, while pieces by Meriem Bennani moved for $18,000-45,000.

Another standout was the Shanghai-based gallery Plateus, which brought the nature-inspired, meditative abstractions artist Wang Jung created in the open air. The artist spent hours immersed in nature, painting and sketching in the forests of Guangzhou, China, seeking a deeper connection between humanity and the natural world. His lively, gestural brushstrokes convey the movement of the trees, the air in between and their lymph and energy.

Maria Hassabi and Georgia Sagri presented by The Breeder, Athens. © Margot Montigny

Among the new fairs adding to the buzz of Paris Art Week was the first edition of NADA in the city, The Salon, launched in partnership with The Community. Unlike the sun-soaked Basel preview, this fair opened on a rainy, gray day in a modern building in the 10th Arrondissement that once housed SNCF, the French railway. The glass structure provided a sleek, seamless flow around the booths, though the atmosphere was noticeably quieter compared to other fairs—likely because Parisians are still warming up to this American-led event, which felt more like an “American community” gathering transplanted to Paris.

Despite the slower pace, some galleries saw early sales. Local dealer Cadet Capela presented a solo booth featuring works by Blake Daniels, selling two of the three pieces on display at prices between $20,000 and $25,000. “We had a great first day: dynamic, with a very international audience,” Mathieu Capela told Observer. Upstairs, New York favorites like Mrs. gallery showcased works by Alexandra Barth, Megan Bogonovich and Robert Zehnder. “We’ve had strong interest and a couple of small sales,” Sara Salamone, founder of Mrs., said. “We’re staying positive for the weekend and excited to engage with more Parisian and European collectors. It was quieter, but there was a good level of people.”

FR MoCA at The Salon by NADA. Courtesy of FR MoCA

In the next booth, Olympia presented Coleen Herman’s vibrant, gestural abstractions priced between $5,000 and $12,000 in an airy, atmospheric display that drew a lot of attention. Upstairs, Montreal-based Bradley Ertaskiran showcased Veronica Pausova’s intricate reflections on the feminine body, available for $9,000. One of the standout projects at The Salon was a show by the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (FR MoCA), a nonprofit, artist-led collective centered around themes of transparency, screens and porosity. Founded by Massachusetts natives Harry Gould Harvey IV and Brittni Ann Harvey, the collective focuses on alternative, cyclical systems to sustain artistic production and co-creation, often collaborating with other galleries to engage communities through their innovative space.

Another highlight was Shary Boyle’s mysterious ceramics, presented by Patel Brown, displayed alongside small canvases by Muriel Jaouich. Boyle’s new ceramic works, created at the Ceramic Work Centre in the Netherlands, have her signature unsettling style but explore themes of silence and the unspoken truths that resonate in today’s world. The collaborative booth by 52 Walker and Mitchell-Innes & Nash (which recently closed the New York gallery to become an art advisory) also made an impression, with several works by the late, great Pope.L.

Patel Brown at The Salon by NADA. JEREMIE BOUILLON

Asia Now, housed in the sumptuous historical palace of the Monnaie de Paris, opened on the same day with a highly curated selection from the very first room. Each year, it seems, the fair elevates its offerings, attracting more established galleries like Esther Schipper, which presented the work of young, talented Korean artist Lee Linju, selling out in the $20,000 range. Perrotin dedicated one side of its booth to Hong Kong artist Ya Chin Chang, whose meticulously detailed paintings quickly sold in the $20,000-25,000 range ahead of a New York show next year. The Drawing Room Manila from the Philippines showcased a solo booth of hand-carved woodwork by Roberto Faleo, with three pieces selling in the early hours for $5,000-7,000. Parisian gallery Galerie LJ also made a strong impression, selling visionary works on paper by Georgian artist Rusudan Khizanishvili in the opening hours.

Nearby, Berlin’s Kornfeld gallery saw quick success with the sale of a large work by Rao Fu for $44,000 in the fair’s first hours—Fu’s demand has risen notably since his collaboration with Perrotin. “We’re thrilled by the overwhelming response from prominent museum professionals, curators, and collectors across the globe, particularly from France and Southeast Asia,” a gallery rep told Observer. “The sale of Tamara Kvesitadze’s kinetic sculpture to a collector in China, along with the enthusiastic reception of Egani’s striking Jean-Michel Basquiat portrait, underscores the international resonance of the artists we represent. It’s a testament to the dynamic and diverse energy of the fair.” Square Street Gallery from Hong Kong echoed this satisfaction. “It’s been an incredible start to the fair,” director Leon Jago told Observer. “We brought Daisuke Tajima’s work to Asia Now for his inaugural European presentation, and we received an excellent response from collectors and curators alike.”

View of the entrance to Asia Now entrance. Courtesy of Asia Now

The fair also presented a section co-curated by Nicolas Bourriad (who is behind this year’s Gwangju Biennial) and Alexander Burenkov. Centered around the notion of ceremony, the section featured work by eighteen artists who explored or revived the “ritual” as a space of spirituality, conviviality and social connectivity. Among them were up-and-coming and established artists from the region, like Charwei Tsai, ZADIE XA, Leelee Chan, Ming Wong and Trevor Yeung, who represented Hong Kong at the Venice Biennale this year.

Last but not least, another relatively new fair that collectors seemed to have appreciated was OFFSCREEN, which took place not far from the Grand Palais at Grand Garage Haussmann (yes, a former garage) and featured twenty-five works by artists Alfredo Jaar, Gordon Matta Clark and Lita Albuquerque, among others. This avant-garde fair focuses on experimental, image-based artworks, including video, film, photography and mixed-media installations. The late Belgian director Chantal Akerman was this year’s guest of honor, and her work was displayed in collaboration with Marian Goodman Gallery.

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Elisa Carollo

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October 19, 2024