The Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) starts on today and, as every year, is one of the most attended and hyped exhibition in Paris. But the fair is not the only interesting event happening in October and we’ve selected ten other exhibitions that take place around the same period and deserve a closer look. Between the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo or the Frac-Ile-de-France, it will be a busy month for all art lovers!

Untitled (3 bikes), 2018

OLIVIER MOSSET, UNTITLED 

Presented at the MaMo in Marseilles last summer, Olivier Mosset’s Untitled is back on the occasion of the Parisian fair. The Swiss artist confesses his love for motorcyles which exude freedom and a certain underground culture. He will be presenting three Harley Davidsons from the 40s, 50s and 60s in a large room. With a readymade approach, these motorcycles, disposed in a specific way, become art. Untitled is visible until October 21^st at the Petit Palais.

SUSPENSION

The Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE) is opening its doors to welcome the exhibition Suspension which brings together a century of suspended abstract sculptures by thirty different artists. The exhibition takes place at the Palais d’Iena, providing an interesting parallel between the abstraction of the artworks and the modern classicism of the space. The curator Matthieu Poirier conveyed pieces by world renown artists like Yves Klein, Julio Le Parc, Olafur Eliasson, Man Ray and many more.

Argyroneta aquatica in the air bubble of the underwater web she built at Studio Tomas Saraceno, 2017, courtesy of the artist.

ON AIR: TOMAS SARACENO

The Palais de Tokyo is giving a carte blanche to the Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno who presents a sort of moving ecosystem where human and extraterrestrial voices unite. With a real ecological conscience, the exhibition questions the living particles of the air that surrounds us and how it affects us, from carbon dioxide to cosmic powder. This invisible space is a mystery to many but should be more closely scrutinized. How much do we know about the planet we live on and the air that we breathe? ON AIR rethinks our way of consuming and producing, by imagining a world without fossil energy. To do that, many collaborators have taken part in the project, from scientific institutions to activists and philosophers. The exhibition breaks out into a “cosmic jam session” with concerts, seminars and workshops. It runs through January 6^th.

Mock-up of the Shibuya project, 1985

TADAO ANDO, LE DEFI

The Centre Pompidou is hosting a large retrospective exhibition for the work of Japanese architect Tadao Ando, a major figure of contemporary architecture. It is centered around four themes: the primitive form of space, the challenge of urbanism, the genesis of the project and the dialogue with history. You’ll be immersed in his creation process and principals like his use of smooth concrete, his love of simple geometric volumes or the integration of natural elements. The exhibition, presented on the occasion of the Japonismes cultural initiative, reveals fifty of his projects, illustrated by eighty drawings, many blueprints and mock-ups. It runs through October 31^st.

Kimsooja, Bottari, Truck – Migrateurs, 2007-2009

PERSONA GRATA

The MAC VAL and the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration are linking up to deliver an exhibition centered around the notion of hospitality through the prism of contemporary creation. Migration has been, more in more, in the center of many conversations at a time when immigrants everywhere are being marginalized and suffer from difficult living conditions. How does society really welcome immigrants and what impact do the numerous walls and camps have on us? Artists share their personal vision of these touchy subjects through different mediums. Art has always mirrored society’s problematics and it makes sense that hospitality has been at the center of many artists’ work these days. It runs through January 20^th.

Untitled, Elad Lassry, 2018

ELAD LASSRY

The Frac-Ile-de-France welcomes for the first time the Israeli artist Elad Lassry who is based in Los Angeles. By mixing photography, film and sculpture, he questions the relationship between an object and its representation. He finds the materiality of an image to be as important as what the image depicts, transforming it into an object. This time, Lassry is presenting a new series of photographs and sculptures that break the established rules of iconography. He interrogates our current fear of dematerialization of images, which become merely a file and confronts it with the recent renewed interest in analog photography. It runs through December 9^th.

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The exhibition’s unpronounceable title hides Mélanie Matranga’s work presented at the Villa Vassilieff. The French artist has chosen to work closely with the space she is exposing in, making the crisp white interior a part of her art. Walls, that are bound to become dirty, decomposed and full of stains from the passing of time, are covered in glue. Paper and fabric sculptures representing clothing float and hang loosely from the ceiling, producing light and sound. White rooms can feel aseptic or cold but here, this color is given a human aspect. The exhibition runs through December 22^nd.

Grayson Perry, Comfort Blanket, 2014, tapestry

GRAYSON PERRY: VANITE, IDENTITE, SEXUALITE

The Monnaie de Paris is hosting the first ever Grayson Perry retrospective in France. The British artist questions identity, gender, social status, religion and sexuality in very relevant pieces for today’s world. Society has become more and more interested in breaking down gender roles and giving humans a new way to apprehend their body without it being sexualized. Perry plays with his own identity as a male who doesn’t want to abide to the classic masculine image. Openly feminist, he uses his ceramic artworks and tapestries to convey strong messages. The exhibition runs from October 19^th through February 3^rd.

Nairy Barghramian, Drawing table (Homage to Jane Bowles), 2017

NAIRY BAGHRAMIAN

On the occasion of the festival d’Automne, The Paris Beaux-Arts school invites Iranian artist Nairy Baghramian. Based in Berlin, her work has already been shown in many European cities like Madrid and Lyon. The artist questions the relationship between sculpture and the history of institutions, as well as its interference with the world of design, architecture and entertainment. Sculpture can be seen both in theater sets and in art galleries and confronting the dialog between the object and its surroundings is fundamental. The exhibition runs through January 6^th.

L’ASIE REVEE D’YVES SAINT LAURENT

This important exhibition presents more than fifty haute-couture pieces inspired by trips to India, China or Japan. These permanent pieces will be exposed next to Asian artworks lent by the Guimet museum for a dialogue between East and West, tradition and evolution. Saint-Laurent often spoke about his “imaginary trips” where he imagined amazing landscapes without really going there physically. This has led to fantasized visions of Asia which have been at the center of the designer’s body of work. The exhibition runs through January 27^th.