Paris gallery that launched emerging artists closes physical space after 12 years

High Art, the Paris gallery that turned unknowns into auction-house names, is shutting its doors. After 12 years of championing unconventional work in Belleville and Pigalle, the gallery's last exhibition closed in July. But the story isn't quite an ending.

Founded in 2013 by Romain Chenais, Jason Hwang, and Philippe Joppin with pooled money and no institutional backing, High Art became one of Paris's most influential small galleries by doing something simple: showing work that mattered before the rest of the art world noticed. Rachel Rose had her first solo show there in 2014—two years later, she exhibited at the Serpentine Galleries and the Whitney. Lucy Bull's abstract paintings, first shown internationally at High Art in 2019, now regularly sell at auction for six figures. Julien Creuzet went from his first solo show at the gallery in 2019 to representing France at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

That track record wasn't accident. High Art built its reputation on a willingness to take risks on challenging, unconventional work. The gallery hosted everyone from emerging talents to established artists like Bracha L. Ettinger and Max Hooper Schneider. By 2018, Artsy wrote that High Art had "successfully made Paris's gallery scene hip again."

The physical closure arrives amid a broader contraction in the global art market. Gallery shutdowns have accelerated over the past year, driven by economic fragility and shifting patterns in how art gets discovered and sold. High Art is the latest casualty.

But the founders aren't disappearing. In an Instagram announcement, they said the gallery is entering "a new chapter," transitioning toward offsite exhibitions, collaborations, and individual artwork representation. The details remain sparse, but the framing suggests evolution rather than defeat—a pivot to a model that doesn't require the overhead of a physical space.

There's something fitting about that. A gallery that started with three people pooling their own money in a Belleville storefront never needed walls to do what it did best: spot artists before anyone else did and give them room to become themselves.