Paris, 4 September 2015

Launched by a handful of Parisian dealers in 2001, the Parcours des mondes has, in less than fifteen years, succeeded in attracting the most important tribal art dealers from France and the rest of the world, and has re-established Paris as the center of the tribal art world.

Widely recognized as the most important international tribal art fair, in terms of the number of visitors it brings in, the quality of the works shown, the level of the exhibitions, the publications produced in association with it, and the diversity of its participants, Parcours des mondes celebrates its 14th anniversary this year from Tuesday September 8th through Sunday September 13th in the heart of Paris.

Some fifty dealers from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia and other parts of France join their colleagues with permanent galleries in the Beaux-Arts of SaintGermain-des-Prés.

Altogether 84 galleries with specialties in the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas will be represented.

London based dealer Gregg Baker (specializing in screens and Japanese and Buddhist art), Bangkok based dealer Mehmet Hassan Asian Art (Himalayan, Central Asian & Chinese art) and their Parisian colleagues Jacques Barrère (Arts of the Far East) and Christophe Hioco (Asian arts) will be among the show’s first-time participants. Dealers Didier Claes, Bernard de Grunne and Adrian Schlag, all specialized in African art, will also be returning this year.

DIVERSITY SYNONYMOUS WITH OPENNESS Strengthened by its ever increasing success and development over the past years, Parcours des mondes is broadening its horizons this year with the inclusion of dealers with specialties in Asian art, and will thus include a wider spectrum of artistic expressions than ever before. As ever, the show takes place at multiple venues, all at most a short stroll away from one another, and admission is always free.

Pierre Moos, the event’s director says: “Opening the show to Asian art represents a natural evolution for us, and a response to a growing interest on the part of collectors, and of dealers, who are organizing more and more exhibitions focused on Asia, Nepal, Tibet and Indonesia.”

Parcours des mondes (World Journey) earns its name more than ever with its dynamic new policy of featuring art from all continents. The inclusion of Asian arts greatly broadens the fair’s artistic scope - henceforth, Yupik and Baule masks, Yoruba figures, Melanesian spears and maternity figures will be seen side by side with Chinese and Japanese prints and screens, Shivas and Boddhisatvas, Indian textiles, decorative objects, miniatures, and even Samurai armor.

The show will be a unique concentration of works by artists from very varied places and times, with the common thread being a very high level of quality that cannot fail to elicit enthusiastic and passionate reactions.

The heightened presence of Asian art will be one of the highlights this year’s Parcours. About twenty dealers will be a part of it. Parisian galleries with specialties in Asian art will be present in great numbers, and so will their counterparts from abroad.

EVENTS AT THE HEART OF PARCOURS Participating dealers have shown much imagination in their efforts to produce high quality exhibitions that will captivate and surprise their audiences for the event. Over thirty of these exhibitions will be an ideal opportunity for visitors to acquaint themselves with new aesthetic languages, and to learn more about little-known cultures and peoples. They will also be a measure of the dealers’ standards, and the works offered will be of interest to both neophytes and connoisseurs, as well as to informed collectors and museum curators.

The management of the Parcours des mondes hopes that interactions between its visitors and the players in the tribal art world will also unfold at its simultaneously organized events, such as Café Tribal, a series of encounters and discussions which Tribal Art magazine began in 2014, and whose theme this year will be restoration. An exhibition devoted to the work of photographer Hughes Dubois will also be among the many featured events. For nearly fifteen years, aficionados have been combing the streets of the sixth arrondissement with common goals – those of finding works that remain little-known by the larger public, or of finding exceptional pieces with irreproachable provenances.

Parcours des mondes is a journey to the heart of faraway cultures, and the alliance of Asian and Tribal arts it now proposes will enhance its position as a long-term part of the Parisian art scene, and will continue to reinforce and uphold the city’s status as the world’s capital of the arts.