Paris biennales - Report from Europe - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2002 by Miriam Kramer

From September 20 to 29 about one hundred antiques dealers and several jewelers will exhibit their wares at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris for the twenty-first Biennale des Antiquaires. Not surprisingly, the largest contingent of exhibitors comes from France, but there are also representatives from Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Canada. The fair is organized by the Syndicat National des Anti-quaires.

This year the biennale has been shortened from seventeen to ten days, and the layout has been changed so that there are fewer exhibitors. The theatrical lighting director Jacques Chatelet and the architect Patrick Jaouanet have been commissioned to create a suitable ambiance for the fair.

The range of offerings is vast and includes antiquities, Asian works of art, tribal art, silver and gold, coins, textiles, hooks, drawings, paintings of all epochs, furniture, and other decorative arts. A handbook of the highlights of the exhibition may be ordered by telephoning 33-1-44-51-74-74.

At about the same time as the biennale at the Carrousel du Louvre, the first Biennale des Arts asiatiques will be held in the Carre des Sangliers in the Jardin des Tuileries, also in Paris. It runs from September 21 to 25 and is organized by the Association des specialistes des Arts asiatiques (ASAA) as a spin-off of the Automne asiatique that was inaugurated in Paris in 1998. The loan exhibition at the Asian biennale is a private collection of fibulas mainly from the fifth century B. C., showing how Chinese craftsmen used gold and silver as well as assimilated the introduction of cast iron.