Art Basel Paris opened its fifth edition this week after a weekend of rioting across France, with the fair proceeding on schedule behind anti-ram barriers, additional private security and guards with dogs patrolling the Grand Palais perimeter. According to The Art Newspaper, some collectors decided not to travel, but many came anyway — a dealer with Sprüth Magers said numerous clients had already booked and went ahead with their plans.

The edition opened on Tuesday with Avant Première, a super-VIP window giving invited collectors early access before the main preview. Reported sales were solid. Pilar Corrias placed virtually all of her solo presentation of paintings by Christina Quarles, with Aerial! from this year going to a Midwestern American museum at an undisclosed price. Sprüth Magers reported placements including a George Condo painting at $2.2m and a Jenny Holtzer collaboration with Lady Pink at $450,000. White Cube logged 16 sales, among them Julie Mehretu's Rise of the New Suprematists from 2001, tagged at $7.8m, and two reclaimed-tyre works by Ibrahim Mahama at €100,000 each.

Almine Rech sold Ha Chong-Hyun's Conjunction 23-96 for $390,000 and had replaced it with another work by the same artist by day two. Jeff Koons's ten-foot-tall Corks (Couple), a bronze stack of corks from 2011–2018 presented by Gagosian as a portrait of embracing couples, sold all three of its edition at seven-figure prices, one of them at the fair.

The most expensive work on view was a 1917 Modigliani reclining nude, Nu étendu (Lolotte), on the Pace Di Donna Schrader stand, priced at more than $100m. The painting is not in the long-standard Ceroni catalogue but appears in Marc Restellini's new catalogue raisonné — a test of that publication's authority. Hauser & Wirth reported selling Gerhard Richter's 1965 Rococo Table at the Avant-Première for $10.5m.

A shadow remains: the causes of the demonstrations have not gone away, and the gilets jaunes were threatening to protest again. Fair staff said the event was being monitored and could close early on the advice of the Paris police prefect, but the opening proved the market can absorb considerable turbulence.