Profile·Paris
At 35, Karim Crippa takes charge as Art Basel Paris opens its pivotal 5th edition
In a new interview, 35-year-old Karim Crippa — Art Basel's new Paris director, in the role since last fall — previews the fair's fifth edition opening to VIPs on Tuesday, from the exhibitor-driven Avant-Première preview to his Paris must-sees including the new Le Large art center.
Art Basel Paris opens its fifth edition to VIPs on Tuesday with a new person at the helm. Karim Crippa, 35, stepped into the director's role last fall, and this year's fair — which launched in 2022 as Paris+ par Art Basel — is his first full edition in charge. In a new interview, the former communications executive — with Art Basel since 2018 — lays out how he wants to sharpen the young fair's appeal as galleries question how many fairs they can afford.
Crippa's answer starts with listening to exhibitors. Last year the fair introduced Avant-Première, a small Tuesday-afternoon preview ahead of the main VIP day, built directly from gallery feedback; this year it was baked into the planning cycle from the start so dealers could coordinate invitations. The pitch, he says, is giving galleries the ultimate luxury — unhurried time with their collectors. He is equally direct about why Paris keeps winning over the trade: the city offers both the fantasy collectors carry in their heads and a genuinely young, diverse contemporary scene, and the fair's job is to cultivate the spot where those two meet.
On the current appetite for small boutique events, Crippa is relaxed, quoting the French saying that nature abhors a void: new formats fill gaps, force bigger players to innovate, and ultimately strengthen the ecosystem. He also notes a generational shift among buyers — younger collectors prize immersion, experience and real-world connection with artists and peers over pure transaction, something the fair is building into its VIP programming.
Asked what to see in Paris beyond the Grand Palais, his picks run from the blue-chip to the insider: a small Kader Attia and Elizabeth Peyton pairing at the Louvre, a contemporary show by Ali Banisadr at the Musée Gustave Moreau — the Symbolist painter's former house and studio — and the opening of Le Large, collector Laurent Dumas's new art center in western Paris, whose inaugural exhibition is curated by Cecilia Alemani. And on the eternal question, he is firmly team Coke Zero: "This is Europe, baby."
