Because in Paris, art isn’t seasonal—it’s ritual.
There are cities where art is occasional. And then there’s Paris, where art is perpetual motion. Galleries open before your morning coffee, exhibits debut like theatre premieres, and biennales arrive with the gravity of a royal procession. Whether you’re a collector, a critic, or just someone who likes the smell of oil paint and fresh catalogues, the Parisian art calendar is a parade you’ll want to follow religiously.
The Socialites have curated the ultimate annual art agenda—from glittering fairs to avant-garde interventions. These are the cultural dates that shape the city’s visual rhythm and should be inked in your diary, every year.
🖼 FIAC / Paris+ par Art Basel
📍 Grand Palais Éphémère (and soon the restored Grand Palais)
🗓 October
Paris’s most prestigious contemporary and modern art fair, now under the Art Basel banner, is a dizzying mix of blue-chip galleries, new talent, and global collectors. Think white cubes, champagne flutes, and conversations about “materiality” in three languages. The whole city gets in on it—satellite shows, private collections, gallery nights.
🎯 Must-see offshoot: The outdoor installations in the Tuileries and Place Vendôme.
🎨 Drawing Now Art Fair
📍 Carreau du Temple, 3e
🗓 March
Focused entirely on contemporary drawing, this is a collector’s dream and a sketchbook-lover’s paradise. From pencil to ink to conceptual draftsmanship, it’s intimate, tactile, and often the first place you’ll spot rising stars.
✏️ Why go: It’s quieter than the big fairs, but no less thrilling—like discovering an artist in their diary phase.
🖌 Salon du Dessin
📍 Palais Brongniart, 2e
🗓 March
Not to be confused with Drawing Now, this salon is all about master drawings and antique works on paper, attracting museum curators and Old Master aficionados. A jewel box of a fair.
🎩 Who goes: The Louvre, the Met, the discreet billionaire in bespoke suede.
🖼️ Art Paris Art Fair
📍 Grand Palais Éphémère
🗓 April
More accessible than FIAC/Art Basel and with a strong focus on European and Francophone galleries, this fair is where discovery meets investment. Expect a rich mix of modern art, emerging voices, and curated themes around geography, feminism, and ecology.
🌍 2024 theme: Art & the Mediterranean—think North African modernism and sunlit palettes.
🪩 Nuit Blanche
📍 All over Paris (and suburbs)
🗓 First Saturday of October
All-night contemporary art. Installations in abandoned train stations, performances under bridges, video art on cathedral walls. Paris becomes a walking dream, and you become part of the artwork.
🌙 Socialite tip: Start in the Marais, end near the Seine. And bring a scarf—it’s always colder at 3am.
🖼 Paris Photo
📍 Grand Palais Éphémère
🗓 November
The world’s leading photography fair, from vintage prints to post-internet lenswork. Whether you’re a collector or an iPhone obsessive, this fair offers everything from Man Ray to Zanele Muholi.
📷 Best moment: Browsing platinum prints while eavesdropping on curators arguing over framing.
🖼 Biennale de Paris
📍 Various venues (often Grand Palais or Palais de Tokyo)
🗓 Every two years
A renegade, evolving biennale focused on conceptual and performative art. Often experimental, sometimes cryptic, always deeply intellectual. The Biennale was born in rebellion, and it retains that edge.
🪞 Expect: Events without objects. Art that may vanish before you’ve grasped it. And that’s the point.
🖼 Salon d’Automne
📍 Avenue des Champs-Élysées (or nearby venues)
🗓 October
Historic, radical, and full of surprises. Founded in 1903 as a response to the conservative Salon de Paris, it once showcased Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp, and the whole revolution. Today, it’s a platform for contemporary artists across disciplines, and still fiercely independent.
🎨 Why go: For the mix—emerging artists, international work, and sometimes, the next big thing hanging humbly by a radiator.
🏛 Journées du Patrimoine (European Heritage Days)
📍 Citywide
🗓 Third weekend of September
Not strictly art-focused, but an unmissable cultural moment. Over 17,000 monuments and institutions open their doors, including artists’ studios, private museums, and usually closed archives. Some even host special exhibitions and live art interventions just for the weekend.
🔑 Top secret entry: The Hôtel de Soubise archives or rarely seen apartments in the Louvre.
🖼 Private Collection Shows at Fondation Louis Vuitton & Bourse de Commerce
📍 16e & 1er respectively
🗓 Major exhibitions rotate annually
Both spaces aren’t fairs, but they deserve a place in your perennial calendar. The Fondation Louis Vuitton stages massive blockbuster retrospectives (Basquiat, Rothko, Monet-Mitchell) while Pinault’s Bourse de Commerce is Paris’s temple of minimalist staging and conceptual curation.
👁 When to go: Always. Especially mid-week mornings for silence and clean lines.
Final Notes from The Socialites:
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Art here is oxygen—follow the seasons by what’s hanging in which salon
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Never skip preview days—that’s when the collectors float and the gallerists talk
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Mix your venues—grand fairs, obscure galleries, artist studios in 19th-century courtyards
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Always bring one black notebook, one outrageous accessory, and one unexpected question
Because in Paris, art isn’t something you observe. It’s something you inhabit.
—The Socialites