Hot, relaxed, and doing something worthwhile — Elephant explores how ART-O-RAMA is a fair unlike the rest.
Unless you are what the French call un bébé népotisme, it’s a bad time to be trying to make it as an artist. Art students graduating in 2025 face a market that is teetering on the edge. It’s an industry that has always been notoriously hard to break into, let alone to make any money in, and now it’s that much more difficult.
This isn’t an issue that we expect fairs to tackle. While Frieze and Art Basel both invest in supporting emerging galleries, early-career artists mostly fall through the cracks until they can secure proper gallery representation, which, again, is no small feat. But at ART-O-RAMA, artists in the very earliest stages of their careers appear to be the priority.
Held in an old tobacco factory, ART-O-RAMA is nothing like the major fairs of London and Paris that will be upon us this fall. The relaxed atmosphere of the fair has been well documented in previous coverage, but still, it would be impossible not to note the graffiti-covered, sun-soaked walls. There’s an unmistakable sense of ease here; if you close your eyes and listen to the sound of clinking glasses and breathe in the scent of cigarette fumes wafting from the VIP lounge… Well, you might just think you’re on holiday.
But the fair is on a mission. Our first stop of the day is Between Two Waters, an exhibition within the fair whose title refers aptly to the location of Marseille, a city bordered by South and West, and the transitional period during which recent graduates face an uncertain, often lonely, path towards adulthood. The exhibition is a moving recognition of how daunting this moment can be, and gives them a space to reflect on the turbulent landscape that they are graduating into. Of course, their concerns don’t end with whether or not they will find a source of income; these students are grappling with climate change, a global recession, police violence, and the continued devastation in Palestine, Lebanon, and Congo.
From the walls hang prints reading Les Coupables sont les patron$, pas l’immigration (“The Bosses Are Guilty, Not Immigration”) and Pas de Fachos dans nos quartiers, pas de quartiers pour les fachos (“No Fascists in Our Neighbourhoods, No Quarter for Fascists”). These are the works of Capucine Parmentier, a student whose work reproduces the demands expressed during protest, turning them into conceptual works. The work mimics the rallying calls of graffiti sprawled across the entire city, where “Palestine Libre!” has been tagged on every street corner. Just as political discourse finds a home at ART-O-RAMA, the fair itself feels integrated with the city.
In the work of another student, Juliette S. Duval, columns of words are printed onto a plastic sheet in the middle of the room. The piece is titled LES GROTS MOTS (“Fat Words” or “Swear Words”), and shares Parmentier’s investigation into language: “How can I document, archive, and build on a concept that has no title? No words?” she asks, “Since I am basing my work on a body outside the norm, the word will also be outside the norm.” In this piece of work, Duval seeks to name a new concept, “a particular sensation inherent in large, fat bodies: the sensation of a larger body enabling greater ease in water.” It’s a vulnerable piece, sitting in the middle of the exhibition, and it’s moving to see that the trust between the fair and the students is mutual.
The fair itself is teaming with emerging galleries from across the globe. This year features the inclusion of two Marseillan galleries of note, Sissi Club and Double V — an important win for the fair and its late founder, Roger Phailhas, whose mission was to see Marseille represented on its own terms.
Moving through the fair and its crowded courtyard, you’ll find the Showroom, a space showcasing the work of the nominees of the Région Sud Art Prize, curated by Saâdane Afif and Yasmine D’Ô. Again, the award is a way that the fair looks for ways to support artists in the early stages of their careers by providing them with a platform and mentorship, in the pursuit of connecting them with galleries and buyers. This year’s nominees are artists Ix Dartayre, Juliette George, Rémi Lécussan, and Léon Nullans. The same prize exists for emerging designers, curated by Camille Lamy.
This desire to foster emerging talent is a city-wide affair. Marseille is famously home to Artagon, the non-profit organisation founded by Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni that offers crucial resources — studios, exhibition spaces, production support, scholarships and training — for artists just starting out. Artagon was founded on the belief that art is an essential part of a caring society. The art scene in Marseille is a distinctly compassionate one, where institutions like Artagon and ART-O-RAMA are willing to provide the city’s emerging artists with resources if the artists are willing to bring their all to the table — an exchange that appears to be working.
Our visit to Marseille ends at Systema, the unconventional art fair based in the jaw-dropping Palais Carli. Artworks are found scattered throughout the abandoned library — its high ceilings, dim lighting, and empty wooden shelves making for an eerie backdrop to the art, so integrated into the building that it’s hard to distinguish what is part of the fair and what is simply a remnant from the Palais Carli’s former lives. Systema carries the same renegade spirit that takes over Marseille during the art fair.
Words by Emily Burke
