*See image gallery for more pictures of fiac 2013

Celebrating FIAC‘s 40th in Paris’ Grand Palais, which with its glass dome lends the fair a certain high-end je ne sais quoi. But not only the architecture was a step up from last week’s art fair in London. Apart from New York’s Paula Cooper, Barbara Gladstone and Andrea Rosen, Art Basel main section selection committee members neugerriemschneider (Berlin) and Xavier Hufkens (Brussels) all preferred to do business at FIAC rather than even considering Frieze this year. “I always do FIAC,” Hufkens told me, and when I asked Stephane Custot why this year one of London’s big guns chose to participate at FIAC instead of Frieze, he told me that he felt that for Waddington Custot Galleries, “The time is up at the main Frieze fair,” but the gallery was looking into participating at either Frieze Masters or PAD next year. “However, we will definitely return to FIAC,” he added. Despite the exceptionally high quality in the selection of galleries, the buying mood at the fair seemed unchanged. While national and international collectors abounded, the age-old proverb holds also for this year’s FIAC: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. The French art fair FIAC runs till Sunday evening.

(front) Bertrand Lavier, “Dipo”, 1993, and (back) Garder Eide Einarsson “Cruising the Anime City – An Otaku Guide to New-Tokyo (I)”, 2012, available at Yvon Lambert, Paris

(front) Dora Garcia, “The Joycean Society #1″, 2013 and (back) Hans-Peter Feldmann “Bookshelves”, 1999, available at Projectes SD, Barcelona

Roman Ondak “Outlined Stream”, 2012 at gb agency, Paris

Markus Oehlen, “Freefidelity-Camp,” 2001. Available at Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf.

Ai Weiwei, “Iron Tree,” 2013. Available at neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Yoshitomo Nara, “Setsuko the Cat”, 2012. Available at Pace Gallery

Rudolf Stingel, “Untitled”, 1994. Available for just under $0.5 million at Paula Cooper, New York