A first-person dispatch published on 23 October 2026 follows Paris art week through a city in turmoil. The writer arrived at Gare du Nord on 17 October to the smell of burning plastic, police chasing protesters and firefighters putting out scattered fires, while friends in the Marais found themselves unable to get home. The account sets the week that followed against that backdrop: fairs opening, collectors buying and galleries exhibiting, all within earshot of sirens and helicopters.

The disruptions reached deep into the cultural calendar. The Grand Palais was locked down on the Saturday of installation week while Art Basel Paris was being built, with nobody allowed in or out for a time. A design show at the Quai d'Orsay was postponed as ill-timed, the Jeu de Paume called off a VIP opening, students from the Ecole du Louvre blocked the Louvre's entrance, and students forced the cancellation of a Gina Pane opening at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Embassies warned their citizens away from protest areas, and an overnight curfew was imposed around Place de la Republique and Les Halles.

Inside the fair, however, the mood was strikingly different. By the time the ultra-VIP preview opened on Tuesday, the Grand Palais was ringed with concrete barriers and patrolled around the clock, and business proceeded as usual. One collector told the writer he had already bought several pieces and felt safe doing business, while a dealer noted that sales were essentially complete before the fair's early closure was announced. On Thursday afternoon, as the writer sat at the Offscreen fair, an email arrived: Art Basel Paris would close on Friday at 7pm, two days early, to safeguard visitors.

The dispatch closes on the split at the heart of the week. Outside on Avenue Winston Churchill, Alicja Kwade's tall stack of stone spheres came down on Friday instead of Sunday, one of several outdoor works removed ahead of the weekend. Artists quoted in the piece disagree about what the moment means: one calls the fairs grotesque in any context, another, who once wished for a voice while living in Baghdad, sees protest and art-making as parallel ways of challenging what is happening.