This is Not a Fair, Paris Oct 18 – 26 18 – 26 Oct 2025

For a long time, galleries were influencers, people who gave direction and discovered creators. However, the development of social media and the proliferation of media and distribution channels mean that anyone can now have their say in a kind of cacophony without a clear message. Today, anyone can improvise as an actor, writer, designer and therefore gallery owner. A garage with a leaky roof in the middle of the countryside, an Instagram account, image processing software, good AI, and you’re all set. This is undoubtedly a great opportunity, and a multitude of things will come out of it. Some good, some bad; the future will sort it out. And ultimately, does it make sense to have a gallery these days? We’re talking about a space and a selection of creators and works. Gallery owners invest, take risks, get involved. They put themselves on the line. Gallery owners make choices. Through their decisions, they develop ideas, meaning and create an intelligible narrative. We tend to forget this today, but it must be said that they are as important as those they exhibit. Take it from a gallery owner. One cannot exist without the other. At a time when Paris Art Week and art fairs have long been part of the contemporary cultural landscape, it is worth remembering these few ideas.

At a time when we are witnessing an increase in offers and opportunities to see, if not buy, we wanted to invite galleries whose work we admire. Galleries founded by passionate people who bring meaning and who are perhaps reinventing their profession. Four galleries. Not one more. Two spaces. A hundred square metres. This is Not a Fair. An event on a human scale. The galleries present here have a deep love of design. For them, it all starts with passion, not ambition. No posturing, just love. Love of objects, of the relationship between object and use. Everyone here has made choices, and that is what we wanted to highlight.

Etage Projects, Copenhagen. Since 2014, Maria Foerlev has developed her own unique identity. She is probably one of the first to have promoted productions that straddle art and design to such an extent and to have taken up the torch of the gallery owners of the 1980s and 1990s, who emphasised this aspect of design, which was somewhat neglected at the time. What do we see at Etage Projects? Art? Design? Art/design? While productions described as art/design can be criticised for their tendency to draw on an expressionist artistic register when they are not conceptual and minimalist, this is not the case at Etage. Here, there is no mimicry, but a genuine questioning of what constitutes art or design, or both at the same time. Etage Projects has helped to bring to the fore some of the most interesting creators of the moment.

Maniera. From Place de la Justice in Brussels to the Hotel Danckaert, there have been many exhibitions and events, and it’s not over yet, as the gallery is still evolving today. At Maniera, identity also comes from the personalities of its founders, Amaryllis Jacobs and Kwinten Lavigne. With their rich individual backgrounds, they have chosen creators who are not necessarily designers, and rather not, in the fields of contemporary art and architecture. It seems obvious, but when they started out, it wasn’t. The identity that emerges is strong. There is nothing gratuitous about Maniera’s creators. Because they are mainly architects, their relationship to function is very particular. When does an object become or cease to be functional? This is surely one of the main ideas found in the works exhibited at Maniera. The result is a collection of rare and original pieces.

Aad Kroll and Saskia Copper. Vivid Gallery, Rotterdam. The gallery celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. What can we say except that for a design enthusiast turned gallery owner, this gallery was a model. It was one of the very first to invent exhibitions and exhibition concepts with strong ideas, selecting unique objects, whether contemporary or already part of design history. Of course, the establishment of the gallery in the Netherlands in the wake of designers such as Richard Hutten, Hella Jongerius and Maarten Baas, to name but a few, is no stranger to this. But it was still necessary to have a taste for these objects and know how to choose them. The Vivid Gallery, whose reputation is well established thanks to the historical figure of Rietveld, was the first to showcase Jaime Hayon and Aldo Bakker, for example. When opportunities arose, Aad and Saskia had the flair to seize them. Intuition is one of the most important qualities of a gallery owner.

Finally, since it is time to introduce the participants, should we mention the authors of these lines who initiated this event? Even if you do not know them personally, you are surely already familiar with their story. There is therefore no need to repeat it.