Paris Photo is in town; and although there are rumors afoot that it will be the last edition of the fair to be exported to Los Angeles, Deborah Vankin reports today in the Los Angeles Times that it will be back in 2015, to be paired alongside the French art fair, FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), with Paris Photo returning to the Paramount lot in Hollywood and FIAC set to take over the L.A. Convention Center downtown.  Is that for the benefit of the out-of-towners?  I have to say that, although I usually feel super-saturated if not drowning (art-boarded?) by the end of a week of art fairs (or fashion shows) in one place or another, I appreciate the convenience and efficiency of being able to schedule it all within a single trip.  It’s hard to justify flight, hotel and related expenses, without some expectation of seeing/dealing/trading/reporting on a substantial scale.  Given L.A.’s pre-existing sprawl and inadequate mass transit, any relief is welcome (although it doesn’t necessarily make it much easier for natives already challenged by intineraries between arts and entertainment destinations that can easily extend to 40 miles and more). 

I was aware of FIAC’s plans for an L.A. edition (which were formally unveiled this afternoon at a press event at the Ace Hotel downtown).  But prior to this account, I had also heard rumors that Paris Photo would not be returning in 2015; that FIAC was to be more or less substituted in its place (the two fairs are both managed by Reed Expositions France); for the simple reason that Paris Photo had not made money last year and was not expected to make much of a profit (if any) this year.  The rumors were not confirmed, denied, or commented upon by anyone associated with the fair – including, as far as I know so far, its participating galleries, dealers and publishers. 

I had the opportunity to pose the question directly to Michel Vilair, the Reed managing director charged with oversight over Paris Photo (Julien Frydman is the Director), who more or less sidestepped it, in favor of positioning the Paris Photo-LA performance parallel to FIAC and within the larger scheme of Reed’s global enterprise in terms of business development.  In that respect, their strategy doesn’t seem too different from their competitors:  establishing a firm foothold in the production hub that Los Angeles has become, while extending both the fairs’ reach across both the Pacific rim and into the Southern hemisphere.  It almost makes more sense for FIAC than for Paris Photo, whose somewhat narrower compass nevertheless makes such an elegant fit into Paramount Studios’ ‘legacy’ property.  FIAC, after all, is in a position to bring far more international galleries to an L.A. fair than any of its predecessors.  There’s an obvious attraction here for galleries eager to stake out the turf here, both in terms of artists and collectors and the commercial environment, which sometimes seems stuck in the ‘niche’ developmental stage. 

Vilair and his colleagues, Jean-Daniel Compain and Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts (a former director at Lisson Gallery in London, among others, and at one point a cultural journalist herself), who has been appointed the Director of FIAC-Los Angeles, are apparently set on a longer (and ambitious) timeline.  Its place on the calendar of international fairs is probably no less important.  The dates will fall at the end of May, to more or less coincide with Paris Photo – a slightly longer week-end (presumably not counting the vernissage), May 27-31.  (Which does not coincide with Memorial Day in 2015.)  The dates also seem to pinpoint its position relative to its competition – the Frieze New York fair (the beginning of May) and Art Basel (in June – or for that matter, its Miami Beach edition in December).  Its planned “Space for Art” program – focusing on art, architecture and design projects throughout the entire city – seems not only to duplicate the “Hors les murs” program of the Paris fair, but to answer the Frieze’s claim to make New York the art world’s “entire circumference” from Randall’s Island.  (FIAC itself will take over the Los Angeles Convention Center, which arguably is something of a city within a city.)

So will the native Angelenos come to the fair?  Who knows?  But setting aside speculations on FIAC-LA 2015, if any fair could bring them in, you’d think it would be Paris Photo.  In the hours before the evening opening, a very sophisticated colleague tweeted her anticipation of the possible charms of the fair.  I assumed she was being sarcastic – but no.  For those of us who go to quite a few of these things, it’s hard not to become a bit jaded, but there’s an undeniable charm to the Los Angeles edition of Paris Photo – and not just because of the slightly surreal and quintessentially ‘picturesque’ New York backlot storefronts appropriated for gallery exhibition space.  (And for me personally, there are surreal and simply nostalgic moments to be savored all over the Paramount lot.)  But the generous arrangement of exhibition spaces throughout the airy soundstages themselves make for a very civilized viewing experience.  My too-brief walk-through of Stages 27 and 32 alone were abundant evidence of this.  I can’t wait to return to the Filles du Calvaire (Paris) and Catherine Edelman (Chicago) spaces on Stage 27; and you should not miss the opportunity to see Karin Apollonia Müller’s most recent photographic abstractions of JPL data into her “Far Out” skyscapes juxtaposed with her signature quasi-alien Los Angeles landscapes in the Diane Rosenstein space. 

I already have an early favorite in the remarkable installation of Santiago Porter’s photo-documents in the Rolf Art (Buenos Aires) space on Stage 32.  You may feel compelled to spend some time with these photographs which speak eloquently of the evocative power of the material remains of human lives violently broken or abruptly cut short by political violence.