ARTS FAIR VEERS INTO 'EMERGING' TERRITORY

Works by artists in Asia and Africa given spotlight at revamped Paris show

As a man who put Art Basel on the map of the international art world in the 1990s, Lorenzo Rudolf pretty much wrote the book on how to run a successful international art fair. Under his direction, Art Basel was the first international art fair to reach out to corporate sponsors and offer V.I.P. treatment to collectors. Mr. Rudolf also conveived Art Basel's successful sister fair in Miami Beach before moving on to similar projects elsewhere, including Art Palm Beach, Arte Fiera Bologna and, more recently, ShContemporary in Shanghai.

Now, Mr. Rudolf is turning his hand to ArtParis, a rather sleepy modern and contemporary art fair held each year at Grand Palais. With Caroline Clough-Lacoste, founder of the fair, and Henri Jobbe-Duval, its director, Mr. Rudolf hopes to revitalize this year's fair – rebranded ArtParis+Guests and running March 18-22 – by focusing on lesser-known but vibrant contemporary art scenes. At the same time, the organizers are challenging common practice by reaching out to new partners or "guests" like collectors, foundations and museums, in addition to the traditional dealers.

"The big problem with international art fairs today, I think, is that first there are too many these fairs, and everybody is showing the same thing," Mr. Rudolf said. "We want to change the classical limit of an art fair and enlarge it into different directions in terms of exhibitors, as well as in terms of the art scenes being shown."

Mr. Rudolf, who was recently in Singapore to work on Art Stage Singapore, a new contemporary art fair to be launched next year, said that while the Art Basel model has proven to be a successful one, it also reflects the art world of the 1990s.

"In the last 10 years, the art scene has become totally global," he said. "In some countries the infrastructure may not be there, but the artists are there. In fact, the most interesting inputs are increasingly coming from emerging regions."

For ArtParis+Guests, Mr. Rudolf decided to showcase works of contemporary art from Africa, Ukraine, Finland and Indonesia by giving each their own platform. "The Stressed Beauty," for example, will exhibit contemporary art and design from Finland selected by Leevi Haapala, a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art kiasma in Helsinki. Platforms for Ukraine and Africa are curated in collaboration with Paris galleries.

Mr. Rudolf believes Indonesia, in particular, is "ready to step into an international context." Instead of a small accumulation of booths showing a few artists, the country's platform's – "The Grass Looks Greener Where You Water It" – will be an open exhibition of works by 20 artists selected by the well-known Indonesian collector Deddy Kusuma. Mr. Kusuma acted as a sort of project manager for the selection, coordinating input from artists, curators and galleries.

"Every art fair has rules and most are copied word for word from what we did in Basel," including the requirement that an exhibitor be a gallery, Mr. Rudolf said. "Surely, nowadays there are also new formats of galleries and also new important active players in the art market."