Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Apr 14, 2026 visibility 36 link 5 artists

Which Country’s Art Market Came Out on Top in 2025?

The United States solidified its position as the world's leading art market in 2025, with fine-art auction sales rising 25.3 percent to reach $5.4 billion. Despite early volatility caused by trade tariffs, a surging stock market and cooling inflation fueled a massive November auction season in New York, where nine of the year's ten most expensive artworks were sold. In contrast, China's market contracted by nearly 11 percent due to a persistent property crisis, while the United Kingdom and France saw significant growth, with Paris benefiting from the momentum of Art Basel Paris.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 2, 2026 visibility 48 link 10 artists

The Prints Market Is Having a Moment—Driven by New Collectors and a Taste for the Historic

The prints and multiples market is experiencing a significant transformation, driven by an influx of new collectors and a shift in taste toward historically significant works. Artnet Auctions data shows that 50% of prints and multiples lots sold between 2020 and 2025 went to first-time buyers on their platform. This surge in demand is coinciding with major events like the IFPDA Print Fair and Artnet's own Premier Prints and Multiples sale, which features works from modern masters like Frank Stella and Jeff Koons.

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trending_up market schedule Mar 31, 2026 visibility 53 link 9 artists

These Artists Dominated Auction Sales in 2025

The article presents a data-driven analysis of the top-performing artists at auction in 2025, highlighting specific works and their record-breaking sales. J.M.W. Turner re-entered the top ranks with a $11.9 million sale, while Jean-Michel Basquiat dominated the contemporary category with a $48.3 million result for his painting 'Crowns (Peso Neto)'. Other notable sales included works by René Magritte, David Hockney, and the ultra-contemporary artist Matthew Wong.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 5, 2026 visibility 23 link 10 artists

giancarlo politi founder flash art magazine died at 89

Giancarlo Politi, the influential founder and publisher of Flash Art magazine, has died at the age of 89. Established in Rome in 1967, Flash Art became a cornerstone of international art criticism, famously documenting the rise of the Arte Povera movement and providing an early platform for iconic artists like Marina Abramović, Maurizio Cattelan, and Jeff Koons. Politi, alongside his wife Helena Kontova, transformed the publication into a global network that bridged European and American art scenes, effectively serving as a "hands-on school" for generations of critics and curators.

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article culture schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 9 link 3 artists

artist turns celebrity fad diets into old master style still lifes

Photographer Dan Bannino has created a series titled "Still Diet," in which he photographs bizarre celebrity fad diets in the style of Old Master still life paintings. The series features diets associated with figures such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Charles Saatchi, Beyoncé Knowles, Henry VIII, and others, using carefully arranged food items and props to mimic classical compositions.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 18 link 6 artists

philip leider artforum founding editor dead

Philip Leider, the founding editor of Artforum, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 11 at age 96. Leider helped transform Artforum into a leading source for rigorous art criticism after becoming its editor in 1962, but he left the publication in 1971 and largely disengaged from the mainstream art world, later teaching at the University of California, Irvine and the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel.

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person people schedule Jan 12, 2026 visibility 19 link 15 artists

philip tinari leaves ucca beijing hong kong tai kwun

Philip Tinari is leaving his role as director and CEO of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing after 14 years to become deputy director and head of art at Tai Kwun Culture & Arts in Hong Kong, starting February 23. He succeeds curator Pi Li, whose contract expires in February. Tinari oversaw UCCA's transition to a nonprofit museum in 2018 and its expansion with three new venues, including UCCA Dune, UCCA Edge, and UCCA Clay, while organizing major exhibitions of artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Cao Fei, and Anicka Yi.

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trending_up market schedule Jan 4, 2026 visibility 17 link 7 artists

art fairs luxury collaborations 2025 market

In 2025, art fairs and auction houses have deepened their integration with luxury brands, with Sotheby's and Christie's reporting that luxury items like handbags, jewels, and watches now account for a significant share of revenue—roughly a third at Sotheby's, with private luxury sales surging 350% year-on-year. Art fairs such as Frieze London and Art Basel's global editions have moved beyond traditional sponsorship, embedding luxury partners like Tiffany & Co., Ray-Ban, Stone Island, and De Beers into curated sections, mentorship programs, and immersive installations. Industry figures like Marc Spiegler and Emily Glazebrook emphasize that the most successful collaborations prioritize artists over brands, with initiatives like UBS's Unlimited sector and the Chanel Culture Fund serving as models.

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person people schedule Dec 30, 2025 visibility 11 link 3 artists

guy wildenstein resigns wildenstein gallery president

Guy Wildenstein has resigned as president of Wildenstein & Co., the prestigious art gallery founded by his family in 1875, after 35 years in the role. He is succeeded by his son David Wildenstein, who previously served as vice president overseeing investment and real estate, while his daughter Vanessa Wildenstein becomes vice president and director of the New York location. The announcement was made to the Art Newspaper, which first reported the news. Wildenstein, 80, was convicted of tax fraud in 2024 in a high-profile French case involving the concealment of masterworks to avoid inheritance taxes, receiving a four-year prison sentence with house arrest and a €1 million fine.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 22 link 12 artists

report rebounding art auction market 2025 arttactic

ArtTactic's year-end report reveals that the global art auction market rebounded to $4.55 billion in 2025, an 11.1% increase from 2024. Sotheby's saw a 17% sales jump and Christie's a nearly 7% rise. Historic single-owner sales, including estates of Leonard Lauder, Cindy and Jay Pritzker, and Pauline Karpidas, drove recovery with $884.9 million in total. Old Masters, Impressionist, and modern art surged 42.3% year-on-year, while contemporary and post-war art lagged. The trophy market (works over $10 million) grew 19.4% to $1.48 billion, led by Impressionist art up 80.4% to $1.04 billion, fueled by three Gustav Klimt canvases from the Lauder collection.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

alex rotter christies private auctions market rebound interview

Christie’s Global President Alex Rotter discusses the auction house’s strong November sales, which brought in $690 million across two evening sales in New York, with sell-through rates exceeding 96%. In an interview with ARTnews, Rotter attributes the rebound to restored confidence rather than a sudden influx of money, noting that he sensed a turning point as early as September through subtle improvements in mid-season sell-through rates. He also addresses Christie’s growing use of private auctions, which he describes as "basically a private sale, just with competition."

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trending_up market schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 17 link 9 artists

blink 182 banksy sale

A Banksy painting from his 2005 'Crude Oils' exhibition sold for £4.3 million ($5.5 million) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction in London. The work, *Crude Oil (Vettriano)*, came from the collection of Mark Hoppus, co-founder of the pop-punk band Blink-182, who acquired it in 2011. The painting reimagines Jack Vettriano’s *The Singing Butler*, replacing the idyllic beach scene with environmental pollution, including hazmat-suited workers and a sinking container ship. The sale occurred shortly after Vettriano’s death at age 73.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

documentary pretty dirty marilyn minter art

A new documentary titled "Pretty Dirty: The Life and Times of Marilyn Minter" premiered at the DOC NYC film festival at IFC Center, chronicling the artist's four-decade career and personal struggles. Directed by Jennifer Ash Rudick and Amanda Benchley, the film follows Minter's journey from a dysfunctional upbringing in the South—with an emotionally abusive mother and her own battles with addiction—to her eventual rise as a major figure in contemporary art. It highlights her gritty, provocative enamel-on-metal paintings, her commercial work for Tom Ford and Zara, and her cultural impact through projects like Madonna's 2009 tour and the TV show Gossip Girl. The documentary features interviews with celebrities such as Lizzo, Jane Fonda, and Miley Cyrus, as well as art-world peers like Laurie Simmons and Jeff Koons.

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article culture schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

billboard 200 chart everybodys album

Artist Danny Cole, known for previous public stunts like covering the Hollywood sign's O with a giant cow, has launched 'Everybody's Album,' a project aiming to hack the Billboard 200 chart. The plan involves recruiting 100,000 people to each record one second of audio, paying them with a Shopify gift card that can only be used to pre-order the album, thereby exploiting chart metrics. With help from influencer Anthony Po, who has millions of followers, they have already secured 80,000 participants.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 28 link 13 artists

john moran modern contemporary fine art

John Moran Auctioneers is holding a Modern and Contemporary Fine Art sale at its Monrovia headquarters, featuring standout works by Deborah Butterfield and Joel Shapiro, alongside pieces by Alice Baber, Sandro Chia, Jonas Wood, Banksy, and Takashi Murakami. Highlights include two horse sculptures by Butterfield—Untitled (Foal) (2015) and Untitled (Large Horse) (2013)—and Joel Shapiro's Untitled (1996), all from the Estate of Herbert and Anne Lucas. The sale also includes works from other notable 20th- and 21st-century artists, positioning it as a key end-of-year auction event.

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article news schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 20 link 9 artists

ai brueghel santa scene removed

A controversial AI-generated Christmas mural installed at Riverside Walk, a mall in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, was removed after public backlash. The artwork, rumored to be by YBA artist Mat Collishaw, featured nightmarish imagery including deformed snowmen, monstrous Santas, and distorted figures, sparking outrage on Reddit and in local media. The private developers behind the installation claimed it was inspired by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, but the council denied involvement in its planning or funding.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 34 link 23 artists

christies 21st century evening sale totals november 2025

Christie's 21st-century evening sale on Wednesday, November 2025, achieved a hammer total of $99.7 million on 44 lots, within the pre-sale estimate of $87.5–$127 million. With fees, the final total reached $123.6 million. The sale opened with 18 lots from the collection of Chicago philanthropists Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, featuring works by Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, and Diego Giacometti. A Giacometti coffee table sparked a seven-minute bidding war, selling for $4.53 million. Three artist records were set: Firelei Báez ($1.1 million), Olga de Amaral ($3.1 million), and Joan Brown ($596,500). Only one work, by Cecily Brown, failed to sell.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 22 link 11 artists

christies hauls in 690 million at robust 20th century art sale led by 62 million rothko

Christie’s kicked off the fall auction season in New York with a two-part 20th-century art sale that brought in approximately $690 million, led by Mark Rothko’s *No. 31 Yellow Stripe (1958)*, which sold for $62.2 million. The evening featured 18 works from the collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis, totaling $218 million, followed by a 61-lot main sale that realized $471.7 million. Other top lots included Claude Monet’s *Nymphéas (1907)* at $45.4 million and a new auction record for Beauford Delaney’s *The Sage Black (1967)* at $1.5 million.

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rate_review review schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 23 link 25 artists

blank space book review cultrure over men

W. David Marx's book "Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century" argues that 21st-century culture has stagnated, blaming the Internet and its economies for a lack of innovation. The book cites critics like Jason Farago and Alex Ross who lament the death of monoculture and the failure of the Internet's promised diversity, while Marx himself longs for a past era of linear artistic progress defined by -isms like Realism and Cubism. However, the review criticizes Marx's framework as rooted in a 19th-century positivist fallacy, noting that art history has never been a clean linear progression and that overlooked artists—such as Hilma af Klint and Hector Hyppolite—have always complicated the canon.

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article culture schedule Oct 31, 2025 visibility 19 link 3 artists

justin sun maurizio cattelan banana trump memecoin

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun announced on X that he is purchasing $100 million worth of President Donald Trump's memecoin, $TRUMP, which will soon be tradeable on the TRON blockchain. This follows Sun's previous high-profile art world moves, including buying Maurizio Cattelan's duct-taped banana artwork "Comedian" at Sotheby's for $6.2 million and later eating it, as well as a legal dispute with collector David Geffen over a stolen Alberto Giacometti sculpture. Sun also attended a White House dinner for leading $TRUMP buyers in May, which spurred $148 million in coin purchases.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 29, 2025 visibility 26 link 9 artists

christies four paris art week 2025 auctions

Christie's and Sotheby's both posted strong results during Paris Art Week 2025, with Christie's four auctions totaling $107.4 million—a 16% increase year-over-year—and Sotheby's two sales reaching €89.7 million ($104 million), a 50% rise from the previous year. The top lot at Christie's was Yves Klein's monumental painting *California (IKB 71)*, which sold for €18.4 million ($21.4 million), setting a record for the artist in France. Other artists including Max Ernst, Paul Signac, Lee Ufan, and Berthe Morisot also achieved new auction records in France during the week.

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person people schedule Sep 23, 2025 visibility 11 link 3 artists

hong kong adrian cheng web3 blockchain immersive experiences

Adrian Cheng, the mega-collector and regular on ARTnews' Top 200 Collectors list, has announced his new venture ALMAD Group after resigning as CEO of his family's Hong Kong property firm New World Development Co. (NWD) last year. The company will focus on digital assets, blockchain technologies, and immersive digital experiences across entertainment, sports, and media in mainland China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. ALMAD has absorbed Cheng's art-meets-commerce platform K11 by AC, which includes the K11 Craft and Guild Foundation, the K11 Art Foundation, and the K11 Art Malls that pair luxury retail with exhibitions by artists like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 28, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

banksy piranhas london museum

A Banksy mural featuring a fish tank full of piranhas, installed overnight on a police sentry box in London's financial district in August 2024, has been acquired by the London Museum. The work was one of nine animal-themed pieces the artist created across the capital over nine consecutive days. After being removed by the City of London Corporation, the booth was displayed at Guildhall Yard and then placed in storage; it will go on permanent view in 2026 at the London Museum's new Smithfield location, part of a $280 million relocation project.

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article news schedule Aug 14, 2025 visibility 15 link 3 artists

justin sun maurizio cattelan comedian bloomberg news lawsuit

Justin Sun, the billionaire founder of TRON and buyer of Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian," filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Inc. on August 11 in the U.S. District Court in Delaware. He seeks a temporary restraining order and injunctions to prevent Bloomberg from publishing his highly confidential financial information, including specific cryptocurrency holdings, which he claims would cause irreparable harm, risk of theft, hacking, and physical danger to him and his family. Bloomberg's attorney argued the application is moot because the article had already been published hours before Sun's lawyers gave notice. The Bloomberg profile estimated Sun's net worth at $12.4 billion, detailing his ownership of over 60 billion Tronix, 17,000 Bitcoin, 224,000 Ether, and 700,000 Tether.

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article news schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 26 link 10 artists

vito schnabel 190 bowery

Vito Schnabel's curated exhibition 'First Show/Last Show' at 190 Bowery, a landmark building recently acquired by Aby Rosen, was abruptly closed to the public just before its scheduled opening on May 16. The show, which would have been the first public access to the graffiti-laden former bank since 1966, was initially announced with a three-hour public opening, but organizers cited 'unprecedented demand' and switched to an appointment-only format from May 18 to 29. The exhibition features works by seven male artists: Joe Bradley, Dan Colen, Jeff Elrod, Ron Gorchov, Mark Grotjahn, Harmony Korine, and Julian Schnabel.

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trending_up market schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 13 link 9 artists

10 artworks perfect valentines day art

Artnet News has curated a list of 10 artworks available through its Gallery Network as Valentine's Day gift suggestions. The featured works include pieces by artists such as Damien Hirst, Marc Chagall, Man Ray, and Emilie Charmy, with prices available upon inquiry. The selection ranges from contemporary works like Hirst's 'Butterfly Heart' (2020) to historical pieces like Chagall's 'The Adolescents' (1975), all presented as alternatives to traditional Valentine's gifts like roses or chocolates.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 24 link 13 artists

quantel paintbox digital art exhibition and documentary

An exhibition titled “How Quantel’s Paintbox Changed Our World” at the Phoenix Cinema and Arts Centre in Leicester, U.K., showcases 20 long-lost digital artworks made with the Quantel Paintbox, a pioneering 1980s computer graphics machine. The works, created by artists including David Hockney, Keith Haring, Larry Rivers, and Jennifer Bartlett, were tracked down by graffiti artist and photographer Adrian Wilson, an early Paintbox user. The exhibition is organized by the Computer Arts Society and marks the first public display of these pieces.

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trending_up market schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 16 link 7 artists

by the numbers christies 20th century sale totals modest 217 million

Christie’s held a doubleheader evening sale on May 12, 2025, featuring its regular 20th-century art auction and the Riggio collection. The various-owners sale achieved $216.9 million in total sales after fees, a 52% decline from the $413 million equivalent sale the previous year. The top lot was Claude Monet’s *Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule* (1891), which sold for $42.9 million with fees. The sale had a 94% sell-through rate, with 34 of 36 lots sold and none bought in. Notable moments included a new auction record for Dorothea Tanning at $2.3 million and a strong result for Remedios Varo’s *Revelación* (1955) at $6.22 million.

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article news schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

kenneth griffin lends us constitution to the national constitution center

Billionaire Citadel CEO and art collector Ken Griffin has announced he will lend his rare copy of the U.S. Constitution to the National Constitution Center (NCC) in Philadelphia for public display through 2026. The loan is accompanied by a $15 million gift—the largest single donation in the NCC’s history—which will fund two new galleries focused on America’s founding principles and the separation of powers, both slated to open in 2026. Griffin will also loan a first printing of the 17 proposed constitutional amendments from 1789, ten of which became the Bill of Rights. In recognition, the NCC will rename its central hall the Kenneth C. Griffin Great Hall.

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trending_up market schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 16 link 12 artists

justin sun responds david geffen counter response giacometti

Hong Kong crypto entrepreneur and art collector Justin Sun has filed a new 100-page legal response in his ongoing lawsuit against megacollector David Geffen over Alberto Giacometti's sculpture *Le Nez* (1949/1965). Sun claims his employee Xiong Zihan Sydney stole the $78.4 million artwork—which he bought at Sotheby's New York in 2021—and sold it to Geffen without his knowledge. Geffen counters that Sun is experiencing "seller's remorse" and that the lawsuit is a sham. Sun's latest filing alleges that Geffen paid $2 million "under the table" to dealers David and Cole Tunkl to secure the piece, and reveals that Xiong has been detained in China since February at the Dezhou Detention Center.

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