Pierre Yovanovitch Guest-Edits Whitewaller Paris 2026 Ahead of Art Basel Paris

Pierre Yovanovitch serves as guest editor of Whitewaller Paris 2026, the Whitewall edition timed to Art Basel Paris. In his editor's letter, the French designer draws a parallel between early 20th-century Paris — when Art Deco, Dada, Surrealism and the avant-garde upended convention — and the present moment, arguing that disciplinary boundaries are again dissolving as artists, architects, designers and craftspeople seek new methods. He credits Art Basel Paris with turning the city into a meeting point for artists, designers, collectors and architects from across the globe, while insisting the energy outlasts the fairs: it lives in galleries, museums, historic interiors, ateliers and restaurants, and in chance encounters. His advice to visitors is to leave the fair floor — turn an unexpected corner, study a building, step into a workshop, sit with an artwork — since the best discoveries tend to be unplanned. Paris, he writes, keeps evolving without ceasing to be itself, and the fair week exposes the tension between heritage and invention, permanence and change. He closes with a wish for an Art Basel Paris full of discoveries, conversations and beautiful encounters. Accompanying images document his projects: Helene Darroze at The Connaught (photographed by Jérôme Galland), Istanbul, Trocadero and Suvretta (all by Giulio Ghirardi), and Opera Rigoletto (Paolo Abate).