Paris this week is a city of contrasts. Protests and unrest have given the streets a more unsettled atmosphere, even as the art world descended on the French capital for its annual flurry of fairs, gallery openings, and museum shows. With Art Basel Paris now set to close its doors on Saturday and Sunday, the week’s events have taken an unexpected turn. Still, with art popping up everywhere from the Grand Palais to tucked-away spaces in the Marais, even the most seasoned art lovers have their work cut out.
Art Basel Paris 2026 is, of course, the main attraction, drawing the international art world to the Grand Palais for a suitably majestic affair. But some of the week’s most interesting discoveries were made elsewhere. Paris Internationale, in its new home beside Canal Saint-Martin, offered a characteristically adventurous lineup, while Asia NOW brought a rich mix of artists and galleries from across Asia and its diaspora to the Monnaie de Paris. Newcomer Post-Fair added a dose of Los Angeles energy to the Marais, and the intimate, four-gallery Coucou Paris is among the week’s unexpected highlights.
There was plenty to tempt collectors with deep pockets, naturally, but you don’t need a six-figure budget to find something special. From delicate photography to sculptures that gave familiar objects a mischievous twist, here are six artworks under $10,000 that caught our eye.
Art Basel Paris
Through October 25
Grand Palais. Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008
The grand dame of Paris Art Week, Art Basel Paris is back at the Grand Palais, bringing the art world’s biggest players beneath its magnificent glass roof. With blue-chip heavyweights, buzzy emerging galleries, and plenty of spectacle, it’s the week’s main event—though its run has been cut short by the announcement that it will close on Saturday and Sunday amid unrest in the French capital.
Miguel Afa, Céu no quintal, 2026
Presented by A Gentil Carioca
Price: $8,000
Céu no quintal, 2026
Miguel Afa
A Gentil Carioca
Who says you need to venture far to find a good subject for a painting? Brazilian artist Miguel Afa makes a strong case for staying close to home. His Céu no quintal (2026), which translates to “Sky in the Backyard,” captures a barely there yard scene in dusky pinks, purples, and browns, with plants, hanging fabrics, and a figure resting in the foreground.
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Afa got his start painting graffiti on the streets of Complexo do Alemão in 2001. He has since traded the spray can for the paintbrush, turning his attention to the homes, people, and everyday routines of his neighborhood. His layered brushwork gives even the most ordinary details plenty of character.
—Arun Kakar, senior art market editor
Paris Internationale
Through October 24
187–189 Quai de Valmy, 75010 Paris
The cooler, scrappier cousin of Art Basel Paris, Paris Internationale returned for its 12th edition with a new home along Canal Saint-Martin. Bringing together 56 galleries and 5 nonprofit spaces, the independent fair traded polished booths for raw architecture, experimental presentations, and some of the week’s most exciting emerging talent.
Agnès Waruguru, Heavens, 2026
Presented by Vistamare
Price: €6,000 ($6,734)
Heavens, 2026
Agnès Waruguru
Vistamare
Agnès Waruguru is happy to let her materials have a mind of their own. The Kenyan artist—who was featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2025—often leaves drawings out in the rain and washes textiles in the ocean, allowing water to play an active role in her work. In Heavens (2026), presented by Italian gallery Vistamare, she brings this experimental approach to a modest sheet of salted watercolor paper, using acrylic ink and natural pigments to create a delicate abstract composition.
Born in 1994 and based in Nairobi, Waruguru draws on techniques passed down by the women in her family, incorporating embroidery, beadwork, and natural dyes into her practice. Her works are often inspired by landscapes, though she is less concerned with recording specific places than capturing her experiences of them. In Heavens, the pigments soak, spread, and settle into the paper, leaving delicate traces of the artist’s hand and the materials’ own unpredictable behavior.
—A.K.
Post-Fair
Through October 24
74 and 79 Rue du Temple, 75003
The newish kid on the block. Formerly known as Place des Vosges, Post-Fair makes its Paris debut this year, bringing a little Los Angeles cool to the Marais. Spread across two neighboring spaces on Rue du Temple, the fair’s 34 solo and duo presentations put artists in the spotlight, offering a refreshing alternative to the city’s bigger fairs.
Anouk Tschanz, Blatt, 2019
Presented by Galerie Tschudi
Price: CHF 3,000 ($3,634)
Some of the best portraits are of subjects that can’t pose. Swiss artist Anouk Tschanz takes her camera into the wild, photographing the plants and foliage she encounters along the way. This particular leaf, she told Artsy, was spotted on one of her walks in Glasgow. In Blatt (2019), presented by Zürich’s Galerie Tschudi, she gives her botanical discovery the full portrait treatment, isolating its delicate, perforated form against a softly blurred background.
Shot in velvety black and white, the photograph draws attention to the leaf’s unusual architecture, from its gently curling edges to the lopsided pattern of holes running along its surface. There’s something rather wonderful about the fact that Tschanz found her subject entirely by chance, without having to arrange a single thing.
—A.K.
Asia NOW
Through October 24
Monnaie de Paris, 11 Quai de Conti, 75006 Paris
Asia NOW returns to the historic Monnaie de Paris for its 12th edition, bringing together around 60 galleries, institutions, and foundations showcasing artists from across Asia and its diaspora. The fair offered an adventurous mix of materials, traditions, and fresh perspectives under this year’s theme of “Sentimental Value.”
Berna Dolmacı, Vikaye, 2023
Presented by Vision Art Platform
Price: €4,000 ($4,489)
Vikaye, 2023
Berna Dolmaci
Vision Art Platform
Coffee, tea, henna, and waste paper are some of the unlikely ingredients that Berna Dolmacı uses in her art practice. Born in Akşehir, Turkey, in 1994, the artist began by keeping visual diaries, collecting everything from leaves and flowers to receipts and sweet wrappers. These everyday scraps eventually found their way into her collages, which she makes using discarded paper dyed with natural materials.
At Vision Art Platform’s booth at Asia NOW, I had a difficult time picking a favorite from the many works that make up Dolmacı’s Vikaye (2023), which is hung across the booth (individual pieces are available separately for €4,000 each). Built up from irregular fragments of paper, the abstract collages are dense with earthy colors, delicate textures, and torn edges. Their layered surfaces create intricate abstract compositions, with each scrap retaining something of its original character. Up close, these works look almost weathered, thanks to the natural dyes used to make them.
Vikaye translates to “protection” or “preservation,” a fitting choice for an artist who gives discarded materials a second life. The only trouble is deciding which one to take home.
—A.K.
Coucou Paris
Through October 23
19 Rue de Poitou, 75003
One of the week’s best surprises, Coucou Paris proved that good things can come in small packages. Conceived by Milan gallery Studiolo, the nomadic contemporary art platform returned to the Marais for its second Paris outing, bringing together just four galleries in an intimate pop-up exhibition.
Rike Droescher, Through the Thicket, 2026
Presented by Alice Amati
Price: €3,000 ($3,367)
Through the Thicket, 2026
Rike Droescher
Alice Amati
German artist Rike Droescher has a talent for sculpting familiar objects in rather unexpected situations. In the pocket-size ceramic sculpture Through the Thicket (2026), presented by London gallery Alice Amati, the top of a gnarled, brown branch is covered with delicate white fabric. This pale ceramic hood is decorated with pink flowers and fine blue stripes, while a real clothing label hangs from the end of the branch. Here, the contrast between the rough, twisting branch and its rather prim floral dressing is particularly delightful: humorous in its contrast between its natural subject and man-made objects.
Born in 1990 and based in Düsseldorf, Droescher studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where her teachers included Andreas Gursky and Alexandra Bircken. Her practice brings together ceramics, textiles, and sculpture, often re-creating familiar objects entirely by hand rather than using found materials. She works intuitively, allowing unexpected connections between the domestic and natural worlds to emerge as she goes.
—A.K.
Ceramic Art Fair + Glass
Through Oct. 25
Maison de l’Amérique latine, 217 boulevard Saint-Germain / 1 rue Saint-Dominique, 75007
Ceramic Art Fair + Glass returns to Paris for its second edition, bringing nearly 40 international galleries to the elegant Maison de l’Amérique latine on the Left Bank. The festive fair celebrates the expressive possibilities of these age-old media, with works ranging from minimalist to maximalist, from austere to whimsical, by artists who make these rich traditions their own.
Ebony Russell, Foliate Rocaille: Blue and Pink Petite Urn, 2026
Presented by: Cynthia Corbett Gallery
Price: £1,100 ($1,470)
Foliate Rocaille: Blue and Pink Petite Urn, 2026
Ebony Russell
Cynthia Corbett Gallery
In a city famous for its exquisite pâtisserie, Australian artist Ebony Russell creates porcelain vessels that could almost pass for decadent confections. Drawing on cake decorating, her distinctive technique involves piping ruffled layers of pastel-colored porcelain by hand to create dainty yet sturdy vases. The resulting works are exuberant, recalling the decorative flair of the Rococo while feeling distinctly contemporary.
Russell’s practice also engages with the gendered history of craft and the decorative arts, long excluded from art history. In her work, decoration is no afterthought; the porcelain embellishment forms the basis of the vessel’s structure.
Presented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery, this small piece exemplifies that balance of delicacy and rigor, combining a whimsical appearance with remarkable control of the medium. With Russell’s work entering the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection in 2025, her inventive approach is gaining the institutional recognition it deserves.
—Casey Lesser, director of editorial and content
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