To justify the choice of MCH as operator of the future contemporary art fair, the Grand Palais says it has selected a “world leader group in this field, allowing to ensure an essential investment dynamic with regard to the evolution of an increasingly competitive market”. Its flagship, Art Basel, which has split into Miami and Hong Kong, is indeed the Holy Grail of art dealers, an ostentatious and unequaled sign of excellence. For the first time, the fair is setting up in an artistic capital richly endowed with galleries and museums and which, since Brexit, has experienced unprecedented attractiveness.
But the Basel fair and its future Parisian offshoot, organized four months apart, aren’t they in danger of cannibalizing each other? “There is plenty of room for two fairs to thrive,” assures Marc Spiegler, patron of Art Basel. Daniel Hug, director of the Art Cologne fair in Germany, is more skeptical. “MCH Group is only interested in the money and maintaining Art Basel as the world’s leading fair, he posted on Instagram on Jan. 28 (a post he has since deleted). Which means that Paris will never have a fair of the stature of Basel. » And to list some misses of the Swiss giant, in particular its regionalization strategy. In 2019, in fact, he withdrew from India Art Fair, in Delhi, and from Art Düsseldorf, which he had failed to make prosper.
A new format
That year, the Swiss group also trembled on its bases. One of its most buoyant fairs, Baselworld, devoted to watchmaking, had been weakened by the defection of the Swatch group. The rout continued with the departure of other powerful brands such as Chanel, Rolex and Patek Philippe, citing prohibitive costs for low profitability. The Basel show is now closely followed by Watches & Wonders, which brings together some forty watchmaking houses in Geneva, and by operations carried out by the brands alone.
LVMH is thus organizing a “watch week”, which, after a first edition in 2020 in Dubai, was held in 2021 and 2022 online. Canceled three times, Baselworld now has little chance of being reborn in its old format. Questioned on January 31 by AFP, Beat Zwahlen, general manager of MCH, said he was thinking about a new format aimed directly at customers and no longer reserved for professionals only.
James Murdoch, one of the sons of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, saved him from bankruptcy by taking a 49% stake in 2020
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