Nights and Networking

The reporting we found on evenings is thin and mostly about dinners, private viewings and gallery receptions. In our first pass we found no announced club nights or after-parties tied to the week, and we have not invented any. Since then one club program has been announced, a day and a night with Richie Hawtin and John Gerrard (below). What follows is what is documented, with the access rules the sources give.

Sotheby’s has turned a Paris apartment overlooking the Tuileries into a week-long private sales exhibition, October 19 to 24, a short walk from the Grand Palais. Cultured calls it “intentionally private”: interested guests could email Sotheby’s to inquire from September 22. Works are for private purchase.

The scale is quoted two ways. Cultured says nearly $150 million of art is on offer. Artnet, in a column dated September 18, says “more than $150 million worth of artwork is on the menu” and places the apartment on the Rue de Rivoli. Cultured gives no street address. Value and address differ between reports

The program was conceived with the advisory POLIMENO. Cultured names Olivier Fau, Sotheby’s European Head of Sales, David Rothschild, a Sotheby’s senior vice president, and Valerio Polimeno as the people behind it. Picasso’s Deux nus couchés (1968), George Condo’s The Day They All Got Out (2021) and Wayne Thiebaud’s Sucker Tree (1962) are named, along with a presentation of 18 works by Alexander Calder, and gouaches by Calder at the bar beside works by Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Pierre Soulages.

The evenings carry a menu. The chef Erika Blu of Atelier Renata cooks Italian food with French desserts, and the bartender Colin Field shakes the martinis. The living room is modeled on Hubert de Givenchy’s Le Jonchet and the bar on the Paris nightclub Le Montana, as decorated by Vincent Darré.

From October 19 to 25, the dining company WE ARE ONA presents “Dalad’s x Rirkrit Tiravanija”, a pop-up restaurant near the Place de l’Étoile. The artist Rirkrit Tiravanija built two stainless-steel boats inspired by Thai fishing vessels, fitted with communal tables and built-in steam pots, and the chef Dalad Kambhu cooks Thai food in them, according to Haute Living. The exact address had not been announced when the magazine published, and reservations, prices and seating times come from WE ARE ONA. Address not yet announced

The public days close at 7 pm, so the fair itself is not a late-night event. Among ticketed entries the Vernissage is the only evening the fair sells as a social occasion, and its 8 pm close is the latest; the Premium Connection Pass adds a Saturday night tour (below). Hours and prices are from the fair’s press dossier; confirm them in the ticket shop before you buy.

Official partners with a hospitality role include Maison Ruinart (official champagne), Qatar Airways (a Qatar Lounge), and Dorsia. The fair’s official hotel partners are Le Royal Monceau–Raffles Paris, the Shangri-La Paris, Castille Paris, SAX Paris and B Signature Hotels & Resorts. The dossier does not say whether the lounges are open to ticket holders.

The fair sells two upper-tier passes with a hosted program. A third-party listing (Slash Paris) gives the Premium Pass at €650 and the Premium Connection Pass at €1,400; the fair’s dossier lists no prices. Prices unconfirmed The fair’s Premium Connection guide lists these events, with an RSVP to premium@artbasel.com required for the Thursday reception, the Friday studio visit, the Saturday lounge reception and the night tour:

This is the only after-hours opening of the fair we found documented.

The fair’s official hotel partners are listed above. Two independent hotels have published guides for the week, so these descriptions are their own marketing. Hôtel R de Paris, a 40-room four-star at 41 Rue de Clichy in the 9th, says line 13 from Place de Clichy runs to Champs-Élysées–Clemenceau without a change. Hôtel Fabric, at 31 Rue de la Folie Méricourt in the 11th, puts itself between the galleries of the 11th and the Marais and says line 9 reaches Franklin D. Roosevelt in about 20 minutes. Both advise booking direct and early, since four fairs overlap. Neither time is independently checked.

Apart from the private apartment, Sotheby’s holds public sales in Paris during fair week. Sotheby’s lists Le Temps retrouvé: The Schlumberger Collection as a live auction on Thursday, October 22, at 6 pm Paris time. The house also lists Surrealism and Its Legacy in its autumn Paris calendar; check Sotheby’s for that sale’s day and hour. Second sale: time not confirmed

The one club program we have found for the week is at FVTVR, 34 Quai d’Austerlitz, on October 24 and 25, according to Electronic Groove. It opens at noon on Saturday, October 24, with INFIN.1.IRIDESCENT.STREAM, a digital work by the artist John Gerrard with an original score by Plastikman, the alias of Hawtin. Entry is free until midnight. The opening includes a conversation between the two, moderated by Marc Spiegler.

At midnight it becomes MINUS+ / SPIRITS, a ticketed party curated by Hawtin that runs until noon on Sunday. Hawtin, Matador, Courtesy, Kristin Velvet and Reece Pritchard are listed; tickets are on Shotgun. Gerrard also shows SPIRITS, a work first commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through its Art + Technology Lab, with a live performance by Ana Osj. The article does not give admission terms or times for that piece. Single source

Paris Saint-Germain has commissioned a painting, Et on dansera (“And we will dance”), from the Paris-born painter Nadjib Ben Ali, according to the club’s announcement. The image appears around Paris, including at the Grand Palais, in the Metro and at the Parc des Princes, from October 12 to 25. Before the Champions League match against FC Barcelona on Tuesday, October 20, the players wear a pre-match jersey carrying the work, sold in very small numbers at the club’s stores that day. A sweater in the painting’s colors is sold only at the fair.

The club also lists a guided fair tour for its academy players on October 23 and a morning tour on October 25 for participants in its “One Team” community programme. It names two earlier projects with the fair: Georges Rousse’s temporary work inside the Parc des Princes in 2024 and a jersey designed by Emeric Tchatchoua in 2025.

Art Basel’s Paris team has put together a loose, personal soundtrack for the week, which the team says is not a definitive playlist. Air’s La Femme d’argent is for the arrival, Joe Dassin’s Les Champs-Élysées for the taxi past the Grand Palais, Jim Morrison’s Feast of Friends for a visit to Père-Lachaise and Daft Punk’s Veridis Quo for the traffic after a long day at the fair.

Gallery openings are the usual currency of the week, and the press had named only a few by October 10. Frith Street Gallery’s show at Le Molière (40 Rue de Richelieu) runs from October 19 to 25 with Dayanita Singh, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Tacita Dean and Cornelia Parker. The Charles Riva Collection’s REFRACT, with Bureau of Innovation, runs October 20 to 25 at two sites that Haute Living does not name. Neither source lists reception dates. See The Scene for the daytime listings.

The Foreign Ministry’s Passages: pas sages at the Quai d’Orsay (October 20 to 23) is the other evening-adjacent address, though the report we read does not say how the public gets in.

If you want a keepsake, the Biennale shop’s Paris tees start at $35 and ship from the Paris city shop.

Apart from the FVTVR program above, no source we read names a club night, a DJ set or a concert programmed for the week. Reports of a Thomas Bangalter set concern Art Basel’s June fair in Basel, not Paris (Luxury Tribune). A widely shared Vanity Fair piece on an Art Basel Paris opening party could not be opened by our tools, so we have not used it. Unofficial chatter is not a source, so we have left it out. If you have a listing that belongs here, write to contact@biennalemail.com and we will check it and add it with credit.