Art Industry News: November 1, 2021

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The global art landscape is undergoing significant shifts, from the cultural erasure facing Afghan artists under Taliban rule to a surge in grassroots restitution efforts led by organizations like the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign. Meanwhile, major institutional moves include the appointment of Julieta González as artistic director of Brazil’s Inhotim and the opening of the Nesr Art Foundation in Luanda, Angola, which aims to bolster the local contemporary art scene through residencies and private collection displays.

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The Making Their Mark Forum recently convened 350 women in the arts—including artists, curators, and over 20 museum directors—at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. Organized by collector Komal Shah alongside Cecilia Alemani and Loring Randolph, the invitation-only conference coincided with a traveling exhibition of Shah’s collection at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The event featured high-profile speakers like Chelsea Clinton and Ava DuVernay, focusing on dismantling structural gender inequities and celebrating the foundational contributions of women to art history.

Jeweled Snuffboxes Stolen in Brazen Paris Heist Go on Display

Jeweled Snuffboxes Stolen in Brazen Paris Heist Go on Display

Two 18th-century jeweled snuffboxes, stolen in a 2024 axe-wielding heist at Paris's Musée Cognacq-Jay, have been restored and will go on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The boxes, part of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, were among seven luxury objects stolen; five were later recovered after an insurance payment, but a third snuffbox remains missing.

Japan's Art Market Growth and Asian Art News

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Japan’s art market demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2024, growing by 2% to reach $692 million despite a 12% contraction in the global art market. A government-commissioned report by economist Clare McAndrew revealed that the Japanese market is characterized by high-volume, lower-value transactions, with 93% of sales occurring at price points under $10,000 and dealers accounting for the vast majority of trade.

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The gallery Anthony Meier in San Francisco is hosting "Barbara Stauffacher Solomon: Garden = Grid = City," the first exhibition of the late artist’s work since her estate began being co-represented by the gallery and von Bartha. The show highlights Solomon’s diverse eight-decade career, moving beyond her famous "supergraphics" to showcase rarely seen paintings and drawings from the 1980s that explore the intersection of city grids and landscape architecture.

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The New York art scene is witnessing a shift in the Tribeca gallery landscape as 1969 Gallery, a fixture known for championing emerging painters, has shuttered its physical space at 39 White Street. Founder Quang Bao confirmed the closure following the building owner's decision to sell the property, noting that he is currently operating from Barcelona with plans to pivot toward collaborations and residencies rather than the traditional gallery model. Meanwhile, the itinerant Ward Gallery continues to gain traction by hosting pop-up symposia at institutions like the International Center for Photography, signaling a broader trend toward real-estate-free dealership.

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The American Federation of the Arts (AFA) has launched a major touring exhibition titled "Abstract Expressionists: The Women," featuring nearly 50 works from the collection of Christian Levett. Currently on view at the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Virginia, the show highlights 32 artists who were pivotal to the movement but often overshadowed by their male peers. The exhibition includes masterpieces by celebrated figures like Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner alongside rediscovered works by lesser-known painters such as Emiko Nakano and Yvonne Thomas.

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Praise Shadows Art Gallery, a respected contemporary art gallery, is relocating from Brookline to a 2,000-square-foot downtown Boston storefront in the Leather District. The move was facilitated by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the city's Space for Creative Enterprise Downtown initiative, which helped founder Yng-Ru Chen secure a 10-year lease. The gallery opens on March 13 with a group show titled "Summoning" and has a slate of solo shows planned for Boston-based artists in 2026.

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Austrian-born, Netherlands-based performance artist Florentina Holzinger has joined the roster of blue-chip gallery Thaddaeus Ropac. This move comes just months before she is set to unveil her project "Seaworld Venice" for the Austrian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, marking a significant shift of her boundary-pushing, interdisciplinary practice from the theater and dance worlds into the commercial art gallery system.

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The Flemish government in Belgium has reversed its controversial plan to dismantle Antwerp's Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA). The original proposal would have stripped the museum of its status and transferred its permanent collection to another institution in Ghent, but following significant opposition, authorities have agreed to preserve M HKA as a museum with its collection intact.

10 Power Players in Paris

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The inaugural edition of Paris+ by Art Basel has opened in Paris, marking a significant shift in the city's art fair landscape. The article profiles ten key figures instrumental in shaping the French art market, including fair director Clément Delépine, dealer and committee president Marion Papillon, and institutional leaders like Suzanne Pagé of the Fondation Louis Vuitton and Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel of Lafayette Anticipations.

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Lower Manhattan is getting a new nonprofit art space called Times (styled in lowercase), founded by Summer Guthery and Francesca Sonara. Located on the fourth floor of 151 Lafayette Street above the Museum of Chinese in America, the 3,000-square-foot venue will operate for only three years. Its inaugural exhibition, featuring Danish artist Nina Beier, opens February 21 with a display of melting Cornetto ice cream cones. The space will officially open February 12 with a performance by Latvian choreographer Jana Jacuka. Guthery, previously founding artistic director of Canal Projects, and Sonara, former director of communications at Minnesota Street Project, met as graduate students at Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies.

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Nicolas Party's exhibition "Dead Fish" at Karma gallery in Chelsea, New York, features approximately 40 postcard-sized oil-on-copper works and a mural of three dead fish, a departure from his usual large-scale pastel paintings. Only 10 of the works were for sale, priced between $165,000 and $205,000, and all sold quickly. The show includes replicas of his earlier compositions, described as a "retrospective in miniature," with many pieces drawn from his archive and not available for purchase.

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Rebecca Salsbury James, an artist who mastered reverse painting on glass and colcha embroidery, is gaining renewed attention. Born in 1891 in London to parents involved in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, she later moved to Taos, New Mexico, where she lived until her death in 1968. She was married to photographer Paul Strand, a close friend of Georgia O'Keeffe, and exhibited at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery. Recent milestones include her inclusion in the 2025 Site Santa Fe International, a new acquisition by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, and a record auction price for her work at Christie's in 2016.

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This week's art industry roundup covers a flurry of developments across art fairs, auction houses, galleries, and museums. A new boutique fair called Enzo will launch alongside Frieze Los Angeles in an Echo Park warehouse with 10 New York galleries, while Felix Los Angeles returns to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with 50 exhibitors. Art Cologne's revived Palma Mallorca fair announces 88 exhibitors for its April debut. At auction, Christie's London will offer the Vanthournout collection of modernist and Surrealist works, including a Magritte painting estimated at $4.7 million, while Bonhams sells rare Oscar Wilde materials and three Bob Ross paintings. In gallery news, Roland Augustine steps down at Luhring Augustine, Lehmann Maupin opens a London space, and several galleries announce new artist representations. Museums see leadership changes at the Park Avenue Armory and Wrightwood 659, and the Rijksmuseum plans a new sculpture garden.

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This edition of State of Play, part of Artnet Pro's The Asia Pivot newsletter, reports on multiple developments across Asia's art scene. Highlights include the launch of Art Fairs Pavilion Taipei, a new alternative art fair co-founded by Hong Kong dealers Willem Molesworth and Ysabelle Cheung, with 13 galleries for its inaugural edition. Galleries Antenna Space and Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery are expanding into Hong Kong and Singapore respectively, while veteran Beijing gallery Long March Space has closed its physical venue. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum announced Taiwan's collateral exhibition at the Venice Biennale, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art named artists for its collateral show. The Asia Society Museum in New York will open a 70th-anniversary exhibition, and the H+ Museum in Suzhou, designed by Tadao Ando, officially opened with two inaugural shows.

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The article examines the posthumous market resurgence of painter Robert Colescott, who died in 2009. After his commercial profile faded, Los Angeles dealer Tim Blum and his gallery Blum & Poe began working with the artist's estate in 2017, staging five solo shows and rescuing a disorganized estate with works stored in shipping containers in Arizona. Major auction prices followed, including a record $15.3 million for 'George Washington Carver Crossing The Delaware' in 2021. In 2024, after Blum & Poe closed, Gladstone Gallery took over representation. A current exhibition at the Tacoma Art Museum, 'The One-Two Punch: 100 Years of Robert Colescott,' runs through March 29.

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Artnet News reports on the top five most expensive Helen Frankenthaler paintings sold at auction, all from the 1970s and all sold within the past five years. The list includes "Basin" (1979, $4.53M at Christie's New York in May 2025), "Carousel" (1979, $4.74M at Sotheby's New York in 2020), "Circe" (1974, $4.77M at Sotheby's New York in 2022), and "Dream Decision" (1976, $5.89M at Sotheby's New York in 2021), with the top lot yet to be fully detailed. The article highlights Frankenthaler's soak-stain technique, her influence on Color Field painting, and the role of Gagosian Gallery in elevating her market after her death in 2011.

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Gloria Klein, a late New York-based painter known for anxious acrylic arrangements and methodical mathematical systems, is the subject of a new solo exhibition titled "Crisis Management" opening January 9, 2026, at Anat Ebgi New York. The show presents many of her later paintings for the first time, and coincides with the announcement that Anat Ebgi now represents her estate. Klein, born in Brooklyn in 1936, was a queer artist who participated in the feminist publication HERESIES, created portraits of critics Arlene Raven and Lucy Lippard, curated the 1977 exhibition "10 Downtown: 10 Years" at PS1, and was a member of the Criss Cross art cooperative. Despite a recent sale of her work for $30,000 at Frieze Los Angeles in 2023, she remains relatively unknown.

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Artnet News highlights the top photography moments of 2025, including Sara Cwynar's exhibition of search-engine images at ICA Boston, Inuuteq Storch's debut at MoMA PS1 showcasing his Greenlandic hometown, and Dietemar Busse's Polaroid portraits celebrated at Amant, New York. The year also saw Wolfgang Tillmans' blockbuster farewell exhibition at the Centre Pompidou before its five-year renovation, and Marian Goodman Gallery's inaugural show of Ana Mendieta's work, "Back to the Source," featuring her iconic photographs and performances. Mendieta's work was also spotlighted at Art Basel Miami Beach, with her piece "Sandwoman" (1983) drawing emotional responses from visitors.

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This week's art industry roundup covers major auction results, gallery representation changes, museum leadership shifts, and a high-profile art theft. François-Xavier Lalanne's *Hippopotame Bar* sold for $31.4 million at Sotheby's Breuer headquarters, setting a record for both the artist and design works. A Tiffany Magnolia floor lamp also set a new auction record at Sotheby's, fetching $4.4 million. Meanwhile, a New Jersey auction house quietly sold over $100,000 of Jeffrey Epstein's belongings, including artworks, without disclosing his ownership. In the gallery world, several artists changed representation, and former Clearing director John Utterson joined Thaddaeus Ropac. Museum news includes the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art repatriating three Khmer-era sculptures to Cambodia, Maria Balshaw stepping down as Tate director, MoMA PS1 offering free admission starting January 1, and the Rijksmuseum planning a new branch in Eindhoven. Additionally, eight rare Matisse prints and five works by Candido Portinari were stolen from São Paulo's Mário de Andrade Library.

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On January 7, 2025, the Palisades and Eaton Fires erupted in Los Angeles, fueled by drought and Santa Ana winds exceeding 90 mph, destroying over 12,000 structures. The fires devastated Pacific Palisades and Altadena, including the homes and studios of numerous artists, collectors, and art professionals. The Getty Center and Getty Villa were under evacuation but remained safe. Artist Paul McCarthy lost three family homes and his son's editing studio, while many others like Christina Quarles, Analia Saban, and Ruby Neri also suffered losses.

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This week's art industry roundup covers major sales and developments across art fairs, auction houses, and galleries. At Art Basel Miami Beach, strong sales were reported, including an $18 million Warhol at Lévy Gorvy Dayan's booth, while NADA Miami featured around 140 exhibitors. The Art Dealers Association of America announced a new ADAA Fair at the Park Avenue Armory for November 2025, and Design Miami will expand to Dubai in 2027 with Alserkal. In auctions, Fabergé's 'Winter Egg' sold for $30.2 million at Christie's London, becoming the most expensive Fabergé egg ever auctioned, and Rembrandt's etching 'Arnout Tholinx, Inspector' set a world record for an Old Master print at $4.1 million. A rare 15th-century triptych also sold at Sotheby's for $7.6 million. Gallery news includes the formation of Pace Di Donna Schrader Galleries, Hauser and Wirth's acquisition of a Palermo palazzo, and several artist representation changes.

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A deadly fire in Hong Kong's Tai Po district, which killed at least 159 people and left 31 missing, has sparked an online battle over the role of bamboo scaffolding in the blaze. Photographer Elaine Li and other artists, architects, and cultural historians are defending the centuries-old craft against early news reports that implicated it, fearing it may be unfairly blamed and regulated out of existence. Officials have ordered all scaffolding mesh removed and arrested 21 people on suspicion of manslaughter, but the conversation has grown into a broader fight to protect a cultural symbol of Hong Kong's identity.

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Spanish Surrealist Joan Miró created the "Constellations" series of 23 paintings on paper between January 1940 and September 1941, during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Fleeing to Normandy and later Palma de Mallorca, Miró used oil and tempera on small sheets, producing joyful, abstract works filled with floating forms reminiscent of music and the cosmos. The series was shipped to New York in 1944 and exhibited in 1945 at Pierre Matisse's gallery, where it captivated exiled European artists and may have influenced Jackson Pollock's all-over drip painting style.

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Artnet News reports on the November 2025 day sales in New York, following the evening sales that signaled a market comeback. Hot lots included Gertrude Abercrombie's "Message for Mercy" (1950), which sold for $1.2 million at Sotheby's, setting a new auction record for the artist. Other strong performers were Julia Jo's "Rhyme or Reason" (2022) at Christie's for $203,200 and Mary Abbott's "Forest of Dak" (1965) at Phillips for $167,700. Top flops included Jacques Lipschitz's "Tete" (conceived 1915), which sold for $152,400 against a $300,000–$400,000 estimate at Sotheby's, and Sterling Ruby's "SP44" (2008), which underperformed at Christie's.

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Alma Allen, a self-taught Utah-born sculptor based in Mexico, has been confirmed as the U.S. representative for the 61st Venice Biennale, opening in May. His pavilion exhibition, titled “Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze,” will be curated by Jeffrey Uslip and commissioned by Jenni Parido of the American Arts Conservancy. Allen’s selection is notably unconventional: he has no major museum solo exhibitions and was dropped by his galleries, Mendes Wood and Olney Gleason, after accepting the commission. The U.S. State Department’s brief release frames the presentation as highlighting “alchemical transformation of matter” and “elevation,” aligning with the Trump Administration’s focus on “American excellence.”

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Machteld Rullens, a Dutch artist based in The Hague, is presenting her second solo exhibition with Page (NYC) titled “Beacon Road,” jointly staged at Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York. The show features works created during a residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut, using discarded cardboard boxes that Rullens collects from recycling bins and other sources. Her sculptures, which initially appear ceramic or metallic, are actually intricate assemblages of cardboard, exploring form, commodity, and waste. The exhibition marks a departure from her earlier work, with crushed and folded forms and exposed bolts conveying a sense of restrained energy.

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The 28th edition of Paris Photo, which closed November 16, saw a surge in representation of women photographers, rising to 39 percent of artists on view from 20 percent in 2018. This shift is driven by the fair's Elles program, launched with France's ministry of culture, and a broader market appetite for rediscovered women artists. Notable sales included works by Ming Smith, whose vintage prints sold for up to €60,000 at M77 gallery, and offerings from Les Filles du Calvaire featuring Helena Almeida and Katalin Ladik. Richard Saltoun gallery returned after six years with a booth focused on women photographers.

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Shanghai Art Week 2025 is underway, anchored by two major concurrent art fairs: Art021 Shanghai and West Bund Art and Design, running from November 13 to 16. West Bund has relocated to a new venue, the West Bund Convention Center designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, featuring over 200 participants including 106 galleries in its main sector. Art021 returns to the Shanghai Exhibition Center with 139 galleries from 22 countries, including 33 first-time participants. The Shanghai Biennale opened early at the Power Station of Art, curated by Kitty Scott under the title "Does the Flower Hear the Bee?" featuring 67 artists and collectives. Meanwhile, alternative events like "Artist's Treat," launched by Xu Zhen in collaboration with Hol Platform and ShanghArt Gallery, are drawing attention in repurposed local spaces.