PARIS — “Go ahead, feel them!” gallerist Lê Thiên-Bảo inspired guests to her sales space at Asia Now honest. Emboldened by her enthusiasm, I broke the well-worn rule of not touching artworks and caressed the fleshy ceramics of Vietnamese artist Hà My Nguyễn. Contained in the grand halls of La Monnaie de Paris, simply steps from the Louvre, the honest’s temper remained undisturbed by the museum’s current brazen heist, which has shaken the nation. The gang — worldwide, multicultural, and sharply targeted — bolstered the honest’s boutique repute.
Operating till October 26, and now in its eleventh version underneath the title GROW, Asia NOW brings collectively near 70 galleries from 28 territories throughout Asia. The honest prides itself on a program curated in collaboration with establishments and curators from throughout the continent, such because the Lahore Biennale Basis and COLOMBOSCOPE. It options installations and performances (principally staged within the courtyards of La Monnaie), in addition to kids’s workshops and conversations.
Guests to the courtyard on the honest (photograph Eurídice Arratia/Hyperallergic)
After dropping into a chat between curator Sofía Lanusse, artist Sajid Wajid Shaikh, and gallerist Sahil Arora on rising voices from South Asia, I made my strategy to Arora’s Methodology Artwork House sales space from Mumbai. A newcomer to the honest, Arora offered Indian and Pakistani artists underneath the banner We Had been At all times Neighbors. “Because of the political situation in India, we cannot show Pakistani artists in India, and vice versa in Pakistan,” he defined. “Paris is a good neutral ground for us to do so. People have been very curious about the presentation, and we’ve had conversations with a pretty mixed, cosmopolitan audience.”
Interconnected by open-air courtyards, the honest is nice to navigate. Crossing the central court docket — partly overtaken by Lebanese artist Pascal Hachem’s “Threaded Whole” (2025), a grand assemblage of picket furnishings neatly sliced into cross-sections, later to be animated by dancers — I made my means towards the 2 tents housing round 30 galleries. This space features a part entitled Now On, a grouping of galleries based after 2015, the place one may discover loads of prêt-à-porter works — small, nice items that crammed the area with out fairly altering it. Although the format and signage made it troublesome to inform which artworks belonged to which stands at occasions, it did include an upside. It inspired impromptu conversations between guests and gallerists — with even just a few artists lending a hand — who appeared genuinely glad to speak.
Set up of labor by Sumakshi Singh (courtesy 193 Gallery)
Architecturally, the galleries housed on the primary flooring fared higher, benefiting from a clearer format and the wow impact of their luxurious, historic environs. The view of the Seine from the home windows warded off the honest numbness that so usually units in amid countless rows of cubicles in enclosed areas. Put in alongside the palatial staircase resulting in the higher stage is “I Will Never, I Also Like Ever” (2024) a two-channel video set up of levitating our bodies by Sarah Brahim, whereas “Topographies of Belonging, Homeskins I to V” (2025) — a grouping of monumental columns made from burnt sand and paper material by Muhannad Shono — hung from the ceiling. The 2 Saudi Arabian artists are a part of a bit curated by Arnaud Morand that displays the honest’s robust give attention to West Asia this 12 months.
Highlights have been to be discovered upstairs, too. Virtually dealing with one another have been the cubicles of Esther Schipper gallery, with a putting, color-saturated multimedia solo presentation by Cemile Sahin; Carlier Gebauer gallery, providing a chic pairing of Egyptian artist Iman Issa and Filipino artist Maria Taniguchi; and Kaikai Kiki gallery from Tokyo, displaying a sequence of delicate, small work depicting scenes of on a regular basis life in Japan by Iori Nagashima. Close by, the Madrid-based Sabrina Amrani Gallery captivated me with a tightly curated sales space that launched me to some artists I’ll be maintaining a tally of, together with Manal Al Dowayan’s delicate but politically charged acrylic contour work of girls’s our bodies, and Jong Oh’s ethereal spatial constructions that appeared to drift in midair.
Ceramics by Hà My Nguyễn (photograph Eurídice Arratia/Hyperallergic)
I continued by means of the lateral salons and got here throughout a standout on the sales space for Seoul’s Arario Gallery. A spotlight was “Lottery Village” (1998) by Kim Soun-Gui, a pioneering Korean-born, Paris-based artist, comprised of a captivating doll-sized metropolis constructed from cardboard, each façade painstakingly papered with discarded, brightly coloured lottery tickets. (The work itself was a lot stronger than the accompanying overexplanatory press launch, which framed it as a critique of capitalism — a declare as flimsy because the cardboard of the village.)
Gallerist Sahil Arora (photograph Eurídice Arratia/Hyperallergic)
As a complete, the honest had extra of a delicate hum than a buzz, although conversations with gallerists advised in any other case. “The fair has been very successful for us,” Sabrina Amrani, a seasoned participant, enthused. “We’ve sold works to a Malaysian foundation, a Swiss foundation, a Belgian foundation, and to collectors from Australia and Jakarta.”
After hours of weaving by means of cubicles; buying and selling impressions with artists, guests, and gallerists; and listening on panels, it was time to go away. Close to the door, I bumped into Anissa Touati, one of many curators, whose earlier comment over espresso got here to thoughts: “It’s a fair, it’s a festival, it’s a bank of ideas.”
View of the tents from the primary flooring (photograph Eurídice Arratia/Hyperallergic)
Curators Anissa Touati and Shwetal Patel (photograph Eurídice Arratia/Hyperallergic)
Sabrina Amrani gallery’s sales space (photograph courtesy Sabrina Amrani)
Set up view of labor by Muhannad Shono (courtesy Asia NOW)
Arario Gallery sales space with Kim Soun-Gui, “Lottery Village” (1999) (photograph courtesy Arario Gallery)
