Art Basel Paris returned this October to a newly restored Grand Palais, bringing together 206 leading international galleries beneath its monumental glass roof. Meticulously choreographed by MCH, the fair opened in tiers — collectors first (vip vip’s), then press, then everyone else. I got access on Wednesday at 4 p.m., giving me barely four hours to see everything (less, if you count my Tezos meeting). Still, it was more time than the VIPVIP’s had on Tuesday, who were allotted just three!
Downstairs was packed. The central booths — Gagosian, Perrotin — were nearly impossible to navigate, dense with people and “a lot of art.” I escaped upward, to the balcony. From there, the fair opened up. I passed the always-intriguing Ginny on Frederick, showing Arash Nassiri — the same gallery that presented Alex Margo Arden, winner of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize, at Frieze London. How do they do it? Just beyond, Cibrian, from San Sebastián, drew me in.
Then came a moment of serendipity — the kind that slips past even the most meticulous planning. I felt it first, then saw it. Across the wide expanse of the Grand Palais, two booths seemed to be in quiet dialogue.
Cibrian presented Siyi Li’s New Energy, a 2 x 4.5-metre LED film installation backed by five concept drawings. Using the Chinese term for electric vehicles as metaphor, Li explores what powers creativity — not as a fixed current, but as something fluid, emotional, and ever-shifting. Two women move through Shanghai, their roles changing as they drive; fashion’s visual language becomes a way to trace energy, motion, and mood.
Opposite, Nassiri’s Untitled transformed digital fragments of Tehran’s disappearing shop signs into a miniature, glowing city — façades flickering with Farsi words and broken LED lights, housed within repurposed EPOCH toy buildings. Anchored by an aluminium truss mirroring the Grand Palais’ own iron frame, the installation compressed memory and architecture into a haunting loop of visibility and erasure. Where Li’s work hums with movement, Nassiri’s glows with absence — one tracing energy in motion, the other preserving its afterimage.
Different in form but identical in proportion, the two works echoed each other perfectly across the space — a chance alignment that felt quietly meant to be. A Chinese artist and an Iranian artist, each drawing on ancient cultures while working through the most contemporary of materials, finding resonance in the heart of Paris. Proof that some of the most vital conversations in art today are happening between the past and the present — and far beyond the traditional centres of the art world.
Art Basel Paris, October 24th-26th, 2025
Grand Palais
About the artists
Arash Nassiri (b.1986) lives and works in Berlin. Selected exhibitions include: Half-Light, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2024; Rayon Jouets, Hangar Y, Paris, 2024; GRIS NARDO, Octo Productions, Marseille, 2023; Barbe a Papa, CAPC Bordeaux, 2022; Metabolic Rift (Berlin Atonal), Kraftwerk Berlin, 2021.
Siyi Li (b. 1999, China) is an artist currently living and working in Shanghai, China. Li received a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2021 and Meisterschüler from Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main in 2024.
His recent solo and duo exhibitions includes: Adonis, Antenna-tenna, Shanghai, CN (2025); Study, Kettles, Frankfurt am Main, DE (2024); Crybaby, CIBRIÁN, San Sebastián, ES (2023); Softpretty, fffriedrich, Frankfurt am Main, DE (2023). He has participated in group exhibitions at various venues, including we know nothing about people who don’t cry, ROMANCE, Pittsburgh, US (2025); The Perennials, Balice Hertling, Paris, FR (2025); Half Life, Franz Kaka, Toronto, CA (2023); Mostly Sunny, Fragile, Berlin, DE (2022); +1, Tor Art Space, Frankfurt am Main, DE (2021); Late Works: Preparations, Cafe Oto, London, UK (2021) among others.
