‘Money! Glamour! Yachts! But not for me!’ Adrian Searle relives 30 glorious years as our chief art critic

Adrian Searle, the outgoing chief art critic for The Guardian, reflects on his 30-year career by recounting a vivid, personal montage of the art he has witnessed. He describes unforgettable encounters with works ranging from Vermeer's intimate paintings to Fiona Banner's suspended jet fighter, Roger Hiorns's crystal-filled flat, and Emily Jacir's poignant project on Palestinian displacement, highlighting how these experiences blend memory, story, and direct observation into a critic's life.

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Timo Kappeller has joined Pace Gallery as a senior director in New York, focusing on sales and artist relationships, starting January 20. He arrives from The Campus, a collaborative exhibition space in upstate New York, and previously held senior roles at Hauser & Wirth and Andrew Kreps, with early career experience at Documenta and KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. His hiring follows several high-profile departures from Pace, including senior vice president Jessie Washburne-Harris to White Cube and artist Yoshitomo Nara to David Zwirner.

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Art Basel 2025 opened in Basel with VIP previews, featuring a mix of high-priced works like Félix González-Torres's $16 million performance piece and Yu Nishimura's fresh-to-market triptych at €375,000. The fair adapts to a shifting market with lower price points, faster decisions, and new sectors like Premiere for ultra-contemporary art, alongside global expansion including a new fair in Doha. Satellite events like Liste and the Basel Social Club offer alternative experiences, while curated booths, such as Gagosian's 30th-anniversary presentation, blend curatorial idealism with the fair format.

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Günther Uecker, the German postwar artist known for hammering nails into canvases to create abstract works, died at age 95. His death was announced by his New York gallery, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, after he had been hospitalized in Düsseldorf. Uecker was a core member of the avant-garde ZERO group, founded in 1957 by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, and his nail-based abstractions—applied to surfaces from canvases to lightboxes and TV sets—defined his practice from the 1950s onward. He participated in major exhibitions including Documenta and MoMA's 1965 "The Responsive Eye," and continued working daily in his Düsseldorf studio into his 90s.

The Most Expensive Jean-Michel Basquiat Works Ever Sold at Auction

ARTnews published a listicle ranking the most expensive Jean-Michel Basquiat works ever sold at auction, updated as of May 15, 2026. The article traces Basquiat's rise from street artist under the moniker SAMO to a major figure in the downtown New York scene, highlighting key relationships with Keith Haring, Diego Cortez, and curator Henry Geldzahler. It notes that Basquiat's entire mature output was created between 1981 and 1984, and that his 1983 painting *Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)* sold at Sotheby's in May 2026 for $52.7 million, placing it among his top sales. The piece also details earlier top sales, including *Untitled* (1982) for $29.3 million at Christie's in 2013 and *Flesh and Spirit* (1982–83) for $30.7 million at Sotheby's in 2018.

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Marc Restellini’s Institut Restellini is set to release a definitive six-volume catalogue raisonné for Amedeo Modigliani after four decades of research. The publication, which includes 100 newly authenticated works, utilizes a rigorous methodology combining advanced scientific analysis—such as spectrometry and carbon-14 dating—with traditional stylistic evaluation and archival documentation. To mark the launch, Pace Gallery will host events in London and New York in April.

Nan Goldin: Why The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is So Important

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Gagosian London is hosting an exhibition of all 126 photographs from Nan Goldin’s seminal work, "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency," to mark the 40th anniversary of the photobook's publication. The exhibition traces the evolution of the project from its origins as a DIY slideshow performance in New York nightclubs to its status as a cornerstone of contemporary photography, featuring intimate portraits of Goldin’s inner circle across New York, Berlin, and beyond.

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The commercial market for performance art is undergoing a significant shift in value and sophistication. While performance has been sellable for decades through archival editions and documentation—a model pioneered by figures like Marina Abramović and dealer Sean Kelly—newer methods include oral contracts for 'live' works and high-stakes secondary market sales. Recent examples, such as Hauser & Wirth offering a Felix Gonzalez-Torres performance piece with an eight-figure price tag, signal that the medium is moving from a niche interest into a high-value asset class.

Art Market Minute February 2026

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The art market is witnessing a significant shift in the commercial viability and valuation of performance art. While the medium has been sold in various forms for years, its increasing presence at major art fairs and galleries suggests a new era where collectors are beginning to prioritize the documentation and rights to live works as legitimate assets.

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Artnet News examines the top five auction results for Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose meteoric rise and tragic death at age 27 fueled a legendary market. The list includes works such as "Versus Medici" (1982), which sold for $50.82 million at Sotheby's in 2021; "El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)" (1983), which fetched $67.1 million at Christie's in 2023; and "Untitled" (1982), which reached $85 million at Phillips in 2022. The article highlights the artist's synthesis of graffiti and Renaissance aesthetics, his relationships with figures like Andy Warhol, and the explosive growth of his market over the past decade.

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The New York Gallery History Project, a partnership between Independent and Contemporary Art Library, has launched the digital archives of Jay Gorney Modern Art, a seminal New York gallery that operated from 1985 to 1998. The archive includes documentation of landmark exhibitions such as Lari Pittman's first New York solo show, Nan Goldin's first prints of "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (1985), and shows by Catherine Opie, Barbara Bloom, and others. The project also collects material from other closed galleries like Foxy Production, Off Vendome, and Paradise Garage to preserve art history that might otherwise be lost.

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A new two-volume collection of Okwui Enwezor's writings, titled "Okwui Enwezor: Selected Writings, Volume 1: Toward a New African Art Discourse" and "Volume 2: Curating the Postcolonial Condition," has been published by Duke University Press in 2025, edited by Terry Smith. Spanning over a thousand pages and covering the years 1994 to 2019, the collection gathers Enwezor's catalog essays, exhibition reviews, and analyses, tracing his evolution as a poet, writer, curator, theorist, educator, and museum director who died in 2019 at age 56.

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Artnet News published its quarterly museum artist ranking for June 2025, analyzing temporary exhibitions at over 250 U.S. museums to identify which living artists received the most institutional attention. The list includes over 4,500 names, with Indigenous contemporary artists dominating the top ranks: Cara Romero and Sky Hopinka remain highly visible, joined by Jeffrey Gibson and Andrea Carlson. Cindy Sherman appears in at least 10 group shows nationwide, while Alex Katz continues as a rare painter favored by museums at age 97. The ranking prioritizes career retrospectives, dedicated exhibitions, and special commissions over group show appearances.

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Artist Joe Coleman is the subject of a new documentary film, "How Dark My Love," directed by Scott Gracheff, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Concurrently, Coleman has curated a group exhibition titled "Carnival" at Jeffrey Deitch gallery, featuring his own hyperrealistic paintings alongside works by artists such as Derrick Adams, George Condo, and Anne Imhof, as well as his personal collection of oddities and ephemera. The film centers on the creation of Coleman's magnum opus, a life-size portrait of his wife, Whitney Ward, titled "Doorway to Whitney," which took nearly four years to complete.

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The largest-ever exhibition of Diane Arbus's work, titled "Constellation," opens today at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Featuring over 450 prints—many previously unpublished—the immersive show debuted at LUMA Arles in 2023 and arrives in the U.S. with its original labyrinthine format. Curated by Matthieu Humery, the exhibition presents Arbus's iconic photographs of marginalized figures, celebrities, and everyday people without chronological or narrative order, emphasizing her equalizing gaze. The prints come from the collection of Maja Hoffmann, who acquired the complete set of printer's proofs from Neil Selkirk, the only person authorized by the Diane Arbus Estate to print from her negatives.

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Artist Brad Kahlhamer prepares for his first solo exhibition with Venus Over Manhattan at 39 Great Jones Street, featuring energetic paintings on bedsheets that blend Plains Indian winter counts, pop-cultural graphics, and Manhattan's post-punk scene. The article follows Kahlhamer through the week leading up to the show, including his visit to TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory, where his work "American Horse" was displayed in the gallery's booth, and his reflections on the installation process and the portable bedsheet medium inspired by Indigenous traditions.

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The article examines the resurgence of ceramics as a fine art medium, tracing its history from ancient Chinese and Greek pottery to the record-breaking $36 million sale of a Ming Dynasty chicken cup in 2014. It highlights influential figures like Peter Voulkos, who established ceramics departments at major institutions, and artists such as Ken Price, Ron Nagle, and Betty Woodman. Recent major museum exhibitions—including 'Strange Clay' at London’s Hayward Gallery, 'Funk You Too!' at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, and 'Ceramics in the Expanded Field' at MASS MoCA—showcase a new generation of artists pushing the medium beyond traditional craft.

Valie Export, Groundbreaking Feminist Artist Who Questioned the Nature of Art, Dies at 85

Valie Export, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for challenging the conventions of art and cinema through body-centered, tactile works, died on May 14 at age 85, three days before her birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, which represents her. Over six decades, Export created influential works such as "TAP and TOUCH CINEMA" (1968) and "Action Pants: Genital Panic" (1968), using her own body to question gender norms and the nature of film. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, she reinvented herself as VALIE EXPORT in 1967, a name symbolizing her exportation of personal ideas. She was associated with the Viennese Actionists but developed her own expanded cinema practice, producing works like "Abstract Film No. 1" (1967–68) that redefined the medium.

Paige Powell Didn’t Just Document Warhol’s Inner Circle. She Shaped It, Too

Paige Powell, a close confidante of Andy Warhol and former associate publisher of Interview magazine, is presenting a new exhibition of her photographs titled "Private Andy: Religious Services" at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles. The show features intimate, often accidental images from 1986-87 that document Warhol's final days, including his volunteer work at a church and his funeral, revealing his spiritual side and the overlap of life and death.

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Beatriz González, a pioneering Colombian painter and one of the most important Latin American artists of the 20th century, died on Friday at her home in Bogotá at age 93. Her Zurich-based representative, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, announced her passing but did not specify a cause. González first gained fame in the 1960s by remaking art historical masterpieces by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci in a deliberately garish color palette, later pivoting in the 1980s to explicitly political works critiquing government violence in Colombia. Her career included major exhibitions at Documenta 14 in 2017, the Museum of Modern Art's 2019 rehang, and a retrospective that premiered at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo and will travel to the Barbican Centre in London and the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo.

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Arnulf Rainer, the Austrian artist known for his relentless experimentation and his signature "overpaintings" (Übermalungen), died on December 18 at age 96 at his home in Austria. His death was confirmed by his gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac. Over seven decades, Rainer produced abstract works tied to the Art Informel movement, layering dense pigment over existing images—first his own, then works by artists like Emilio Vedova. He also created "blind drawings" and overpainted photographic self-portraits in series such as "Face Farces" and "Body Poses." His career included major exhibitions at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Pompidou, and he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1981 to 1995.

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In 1985, David Wojnarowicz and other New York artists traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, to create site-specific murals for a weeklong fundraiser benefiting the Kentucky Child Victims' Trust Fund. The murals were expected to be destroyed after the event, but in 2023, the Wojnarowicz Foundation discovered that Wojnarowicz's mural, titled 'The Missing Children Show' Mural, had survived behind a false wall. However, the work has since been covered again, leaving its fate uncertain.

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Rosalind Fox Solomon, a photographer known for her piercing black-and-white images of alienation, racism, and marginalization, died in New York at age 95. Her representative, Stephen Bulger Gallery, confirmed her passing. Over nearly six decades, she documented marginalized individuals—from Black Americans in the South to people with AIDS in New York to Palestinians in the West Bank—using a Hasselblad camera. Her work was marked by an empathetic yet distant approach, capturing the inner and outer realities of her subjects without close connection.

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Maurice Mielcarek, a 43-year-old Zurich-based collector, exemplifies a new generation of younger art buyers who prioritize lasting engagement over speculation. At Zurich Art Weekend, he introduced friends to New York artist Travis Boyer, whose velvet paintings Mielcarek has collected for two years. This cohort, mostly in their 30s and 40s, takes a slower, research-driven approach to collecting, often building relationships with artists and galleries before purchasing. They focus on discovery, conceptual works, and supporting artists' visions beyond mere acquisition.

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Thaddeus Mosley, a 98-year-old sculptor based in Pittsburgh, creates monumental wood sculptures that weigh hundreds of pounds and rise high into the air. Working alone in a cavernous studio, he carves cherry and walnut using gouges, comparing his process to judo. Despite his long career spanning seven decades, Mosley remained largely unknown outside Pittsburgh until recently. He has now gained wider recognition following his inclusion in the 2018 Carnegie International, and his work is currently featured in a major exhibition at New York's City Hall Park, where he shows giant bronze versions of his wood creations.

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Dara Birnbaum, a pioneering video artist known for subverting mainstream media through her re-edited television clips, has died at age 78. Her longtime representative, Marian Goodman Gallery, confirmed her death but did not disclose a cause. Birnbaum rose to prominence in the late 1970s and 1980s by pirating TV programs and resequencing their images to disrupt passive viewing. Her most famous work, *Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman* (1978–79), loops clips of Lynda Carter as the superhero, exposing hidden politics and questioning the show's brand of feminism. The piece is now regarded as a landmark in both feminist art and video art.

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Isaac Julien’s retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco features 13 multiscreen video installations, including works like *Baltimore* (2003) and *Ten Thousand Waves* (2010). The exhibition blends Renaissance art, Black cinema, science fiction, and documentary, with Julien’s signature use of multiple screens to create an overwhelming visual experience. Curated by Claudia Schmuckli, the show is billed as Julien’s largest in the US, requiring about four and a half hours to view in full.

Renowned feminist artist and film-maker Valie Export dies aged 85

Valie Export, the Austrian performance artist and film-maker known for her provocative feminist works that challenged the male gaze, has died at age 85. Her foundation announced she died in Vienna on Thursday, three days before her 86th birthday. Export gained notoriety in the late 1960s for low-budget performances such as "Tapp und Tastkino" (1968), where she invited shoppers to touch her bare breasts through a tiny curtain strapped to her chest. She also co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative, participated in documenta (1977, 2007) and the Venice Biennale (1980), and was a professor of multimedia and performance at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.

VALIE EXPORT, pioneering artist who centred the female body, 1940–2026

VALIE EXPORT, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for her provocative performances centered on the female body, has died at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she adopted the name VALIE EXPORT in 1967 and quickly rose to prominence with iconic actions such as *TAP and TOUCH Cinema* (1968) and *Action Pants: Genital Panic* (1968), which challenged passive representations of women. Her work spanned photography, film, and expanded cinema, and she participated in major international exhibitions including documenta 6 and 12, and the Venice Biennale, where she and Maria Lassnig became the first women to represent Austria in 1980.

The Interview: Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh discusses his new film *The Christophers* (2025), which follows a cantankerous artist and his young assistant tasked with forging his unfinished works, exploring themes of authorship, originality, and the ethics of art-making. In an interview with ArtReview, Soderbergh also addresses his recent use of AI in a documentary about John Lennon, defending the technology as a creative tool akin to his own filmmaking process, and reflects on his career spanning genres from indie dramas to studio blockbusters.