With Art Basel Paris at the Grand Palais in full swing, the gravitational pull of Paris Art Week has again been rippling far beyond its main fair. From the Champs-Élysées to the Marais, a constellation of smaller fairs is revealing the city’s true creative temperature.

Paris Internationale and Asia Now—both celebrating their 10th anniversaries—anchor the week with distinct visions: one focused on human-scale independence, the other on plural, borderless Asias. Newcomers 7 rue Froissart and Upstairs Art Fair bring a sense of community and irreverence to the Paris art scene, while Detroit Salon, a citywide contemporary art show launching in Detroit in 2028, embarks on a three-year global roadshow with its first stop in Paris. Boundary-pushing and defiantly independent, these satellites are where the next chapter of contemporary art is being written.

If Art Basel is the establishment, Paris Internationale is its counterpoint. Founded in 2015 by gallerists Ciaccia Levi, Crèvecœur, and Gregor Staiger who wanted “to redefine what an art fair could be,” as director Silvia Ammon explained to ARTnews, the fair is now a cornerstone of Paris Art Week. This year’s 11th edition unites 59 galleries and seven non-profit spaces from 19 countries—a reduction of nine exhibitors from 2024—to “ensure breathing room for each project and allow a more fluid and reflective visitor ex...