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Gustav Klimt's 1908 landscape painting *Blumenwiese* (Blooming Meadow) sold for $86 million at Sotheby's, slightly above its $80 million-plus estimate. The work was part of the Leonard A. Lauder Collection, a major consignment also featuring pieces by Matisse, Munch, and Martin. Lauder had acquired the painting in 1985, drawn to Viennese modernism and Klimt's Attersee period. The sale marks the second-highest price ever for a Klimt landscape, trailing the $104.5 million record set by *Birch Forest* in 2022.

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Crypto billionaire Justin Sun and entertainment mogul David Geffen are locked in an escalating legal battle over Alberto Giacometti's sculpture *Le Nez*. Sun purchased the work for $78.4 million at Sotheby's in 2021, but claims his former art adviser Sydney Xiong fraudulently sold it to Geffen for $10.5 million in cash and two paintings, using forged documents and fictitious lawyers. Sun filed suit in New York in February; Geffen countersued in April, calling the allegations "bizarre and baseless" and accusing Sun of "seller's remorse." Sun's legal team now asserts that Xiong has been detained in China since February, while Geffen's camp points to inconsistencies in Sun's story and his broader financial and legal troubles.

Final book in trilogy asks: What is the future of the art world?

Cultural strategist András Szántó has published the third and final volume of his trilogy on the future of museums, titled *What Is the Future of the Art World?*. The book features dialogues with a wide range of art-world figures—including gallerists José Kuri and Atsuko Ninagawa, collectors Alain Servais and Sylvain Levy, artists William Kentridge and Holly Herndon & Mathew Dryhurst, curator Fatoş Üstek, network scientist Albert-László Barabási, former Art Basel director Marc Spiegler, and Sheikha Al-Mayassa Al Thani—who discuss topics such as the definition of the art world, its rules, and its future trajectory. Szántó notes that there is no consensus on whether the art world is still expanding or entering a phase of slowdown, with different regions moving on divergent paths.

Art Market Minute: March 2

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Frieze Los Angeles has concluded with reports of strong sales, with some dealers noting higher transaction volumes than at Art Basel Miami Beach. This surge in activity was accompanied by a record number of satellite events, signaling a growing interest in alternative fair models and a localized boost for the Southern California art scene.

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In this year-end roundup episode of The Art Angle, co-hosts Kate Brown and Ben Davis, joined by Artnet Pro editor and art critic Andrew Russeth, review the defining trends, themes, and stories of 2025. They cover the art market's slump and subsequent rebound in New York's fall auctions and Art Basel Miami Beach, the political impact of Trump 2.0 on arts funding and museum governance, the question of a 'post-woke' art world, the return of digital art, and the ongoing power of red chip art. The episode also highlights the multi-front crisis facing institutions due to changing public expectations, rising costs, and political shifts, alongside lighter, unusual stories from the art world.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1983 painting *Onion Gum*, priced at $21.5 million, was one of the most expensive works for sale at the 23rd edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. The large square canvas, featuring a white head and handwritten text, has a long market history: it sold for $7.36 million at Sotheby's in 2012 to hedge fund manager Daniel Sundheim, then failed to meet its estimate at auction in 2016, fetching $6.6 million. Since 2017, Van de Weghe Gallery has used the work as collateral for bank loans, showing it at multiple Art Basel fairs with prices rising from $16.5 million in 2018 to the current $21.5 million.

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Art Basel launched its inaugural Art Basel Awards ceremony at the New World Center in Miami Beach during Art Basel Miami Beach week. The awards, first introduced in New York in May, recognized 36 medalists across categories including Icon, Established, Emerging, Patron, Institution, Curator, and Media & Storytelling. Top winners included Cecilia Vicuña (Icon), Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama (Established), Mohammad Alfaraj and Saodat Ismailova (Emerging), and Meriem Bennani (BOSS Award). The event was hosted by musician and collector Kasseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean, with performances by cellist Kelsey Lu and recorded narration by actor Emma D'Arcy. Each artist received $50,000, and established artists will debut commissions at Art Basel in Switzerland next year.

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Miami is expanding its free water taxi service and shuttle routes for Art Week 2024, which coincides with Art Basel Miami Beach. The city will increase the number of water taxis from four to seven, operating between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park and the Venetian Marina, with service running from December 1 to December 7. Shuttles will connect the convention center to the Design District, mid-beach, and South Beach, where fairs like SCOPE, Untitled Art, SATELLITE, and Aqua Art Miami are held. The Transit mobile app will track all services in real time.

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Artnet News reports that AI-generated artworks are achieving record prices at art fairs and auction houses, with increasing presence in major exhibitions like the Digital Art Mile during Art Basel and a dedicated AI art auction at Christie's. The article features commentary from Artnet's European news reporter Jo Lawson-Tancred, who discusses how artificial intelligence is transforming both the market and business practices in the art world, while noting lingering concerns about market readiness and ethics.

First-ever oil painting depicting an artist at work to star in female Old Master exhibition

The first-ever exhibition dedicated to Catharina van Hemessen, Europe's most important early female painter, will open at the Snijders&Rockox House in Antwerp (15 October 2026 – 31 January 2027) before traveling to the National Gallery in London (4 March – 30 May 2027). The show will reunite most of her surviving works for the first time in nearly 500 years, including her groundbreaking 1548 self-portrait at the Kunstmuseum Basel, which is the earliest known self-portrait by a female artist and the earliest surviving oil painting depicting an artist at work. Archival research on her family is underway, and the exhibition will also feature works by her father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen.

‘In every drop of paint he slurped, you see the Holocaust’: the genius and torments of Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz, the German painter and sculptor known for his provocative confrontations with Nazi history, has died. Born in 1938, he was one of the last living artists with direct childhood memories of the Third Reich. His early works, such as *Die große Nacht im Eimer* (1961) and his upside-down German eagles, deliberately shocked postwar West Germany by depicting obscene, shameful images of a society trying to forget the Holocaust. He famously exhibited a zombie Hitler woodcarving at the 1980 Venice Biennale alongside Anselm Kiefer, insisting on confronting rather than ignoring the Nazi heritage of the German Pavilion.

At Hong Kong Art Basel, an Exhibition of Works by El Anatsui

El Anatsui, the celebrated Ghanaian artist, is presenting a major exhibition of new works at Art Basel in Hong Kong. The presentation, titled "The Way of the Earth," features large-scale metallic tapestries and sculptures created from found materials like bottle caps and copper wire, reflecting his signature style.

Frieze Taps Art Basel Veteran Frank Lasry as Chief Operating Officer

Frieze has appointed Frank Lasry as its new Chief Operating Officer, effective this June. Lasry joins the organization with an extensive pedigree in the art market, having previously served as COO at Perrotin and managing director at Art Basel, where he was instrumental in launching Art Basel Paris. His career also includes senior leadership roles at major auction houses Christie’s and Phillips, positioning him as a veteran executive with deep operational expertise across multiple sectors of the industry.

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A survey by market researcher Iddem, conducted among the Professional Committee of Art Galleries (CPGA), reveals that 85% of French gallery owners are pessimistic about the art sector's economic outlook in 2025. Turnover among French galleries dropped 6% in 2024, while the global art market fell 12% per the UBS Art Basel 2025 report. Philippe Charpentier, new CPGA president, told Le Monde the market has regressed to 2010 levels, with one-fifth of dealers reporting sales declines of over 20%. France also struggles to attract young collectors, unlike Asian markets where buyers average in their thirties, according to CPGA vice president Magda Danysz.

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Coumba Samba, an artist born in Harlem and raised in Senegal, presented a 2024 exhibition titled "Dress Code" at Empire, a small gallery near the United Nations in New York. The show featured painted poles referencing national flags, green carpeting, and livestreams of UN General Assembly meetings, exploring how color and power intersect in international diplomacy. Samba also exhibited works at Arcadia Missa in London, including painted radiators that evoke Russian Suprematism while commenting on global energy politics and supply chains.

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Artist Jack Butcher (b. 1988) debuted his first-ever booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, titled *Self Checkout*, where he sells art—literally receipts—on a pay-what-you-wish model. Each receipt includes a seed phrase creating a custodial Ethereum wallet holding a digital copy, but the NFT cannot be sold; it merely proves ownership of the physical receipt. The project features a real-time tracker showing his progress toward recouping the $74,211 total cost of the booth, with purchases made at self-checkout kiosks or online in Ethereum. By the fair's second day, the amount needed had dropped to $33,103.56, and Butcher was optimistic about breaking even. If the countdown hits zero, he will auction the flip board and receipt case as a one-of-one sculpture.

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A survey by PwC found that 88% of U.S. companies plan to increase AI budgets, and the art world is following suit. The article explores how AI is infiltrating the art market beyond controversial authentication and IP issues, covering topics like autonomous agents, data privacy, logistics partnerships (Carpenters Workshop Gallery with Convelio), and new AI-powered search tools being developed by Artnet using Google's Gemini. It also notes that collector Jorge Pérez used AI assistance to acquire 24 works at Art Basel in Basel.

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MCH Group, parent company of Art Basel, announced a new Doha edition of the Swiss art fair, set to launch in February 2026. Art Basel Qatar will start with 50 galleries and expand to around 200, partnering with Qatar Sports Investments and QC+, a commercial arm of Qatar Museums. The fair aims to bolster markets across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

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Sotheby's will hold its second Saudi Arabia auction, 'Origins II,' on January 31, 2027, focusing exclusively on art after its first sale struggled with a 65.8% sell-through rate and unsold luxury lots. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art has voluntarily returned three statues to Cambodia after determining they were removed during the country's civil war. In digital art news, The Art Newspaper criticizes the 'culture of narcissism' in the field, citing Art Basel Miami Beach's new Zero 10 digital art initiative as an example of bypassing traditional curatorial safeguards.

Sotheby’s Sued by Cushman and Wakefield Over Unpaid $10.2 Million Commission

Real estate brokerage Cushman and Wakefield has filed a lawsuit against Sotheby’s, alleging the auction house failed to pay a $10.2 million commission following the $510 million sale of its former York Avenue headquarters to Weill Cornell Medicine. The broker claims that under a 2023 agreement, they were entitled to a 2-percent fee if the medical school transitioned from a tenant to a buyer, a deal that was finalized in 2025. Sotheby’s has dismissed the lawsuit as "baseless," asserting they will be vindicated in court.

Meet the artist turning Venezuelan protest music into art

Nadia Hernández, a Venezuelan-born artist now based in Melbourne, has created a multidisciplinary installation titled "Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo" (To see you better, at all times) currently on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The work traces the history of Venezuelan protest music, incorporating a textile collage, a soundscape, and a site-specific mural. Hernández, who won the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award in 2021 and was a finalist for the Ramsay Art Prize and Sulman Prize in 2023, began this project two years ago as an evolving archive of protest songs, building on earlier iterations shown at the Oslo Freedom Forum, TarraWarra Biennial, and Art Basel Hong Kong.

[Interview] Scenes of Memory and Modern Life: Sun Yitian x Samsung Art Store

Chinese artist Sun Yitian has partnered with the Samsung Art Store to feature her large-scale painting "Ken" (2023) as part of the Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 digital collection. The work, which depicts Barbie’s male counterpart at a massive three-meter scale, explores themes of mass production, the male gaze, and the hollow nature of modern plastic icons. The collaboration marks a bridge between Sun's physical painterly practice and the digital accessibility of contemporary art on domestic screens.

‘I don’t take advice on collecting. If I don’t like, I don’t buy’: Tariq Al Jaidah on his approach to acquiring art

Qatari patron and dealer Tariq Al Jaidah is a pivotal figure in building a grassroots commercial art market in Qatar. He opened the country's first commercial gallery, Waqif Art Centre, in 2007, later established the non-profit Katara Art Centre, and most recently founded the commercial gallery Wusum in 2023 to showcase emerging Qatari artists and cultivate young local collectors. He advocates for more private museums, foundations, and corporate collecting to create a self-sustaining ecosystem beyond the state-run institutions.

Sculptural works by emerging artists win Baloise Art Prize

The Baloise Art Prize has been awarded to London-based artist Rhea Dillon and Lebanese Canadian artist Joyce Joumaa for their presentations in the Statements section of Art Basel. Dillon, represented by Soft Opening gallery, exhibited *Leaning Figures*, a series of wall-mounted sculptures made from resin mixed with molasses and Jamaican soil, replicating cut-crystal plates. Joumaa, shown with Montreal’s Galerie Eli Kerr, presented *Periodic Sights*, an installation of repurposed fuse boxes illuminated with photographs of everyday scenes from Beirut and Tripoli, addressing Lebanon’s energy crisis. As part of the prize, Dillon’s work was acquired by the Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt, and Joumaa’s by Mudam Luxembourg.

“Where it doesn’t reach” at Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris

Lo Brutto Stahl in Paris is hosting a group exhibition titled "Where it doesn’t reach," featuring the works of Hélène Janicot, Park McArthur, and the late conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. The show creates a dialogue between contemporary sculpture and installation by Janicot and McArthur and historical lens-based media by Ader. Notably, the exhibition's reach extends beyond the Parisian gallery space to include a presence in Basel.

collectible body art: tattoos by lawrence weiner, peter marino and more hit the auction block

JOOPITER, Pharrell Williams's auction platform, launches its first standalone tattoo auction titled 'Inked: Tattoos by Contemporary Artists,' featuring commissioned designs by sixteen artists including Derrick Adams, Thom Browne, Jeffrey Gibson, and the late Lawrence Weiner. The sale runs from October 22nd to 31st, 2025, with select designs previewed at Dover Street Market during Art Basel Paris. Curated by Sharon Coplan, each tattoo design is accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity, and a complete set will be reserved for institutional donation.

designboom radar: exhibitions to see around the world this may

Designboom has published its monthly roundup of must-see art exhibitions around the world for May 2026. Featured shows include Nick Doyle's 'Collective Hallucinations' at Perrotin, Nicola Turner's 'Time’s Scythe' in collaboration with Annely Juda Fine Art at YSP, and Katharina Grosse's 'I Set Out, I Walked Fast' at White Cube. The article also includes a tribute to Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter who recently passed away at 88, and a guide to the 61st Venice Art Biennale 2026.

In with the bold: the new players igniting Hong Kong art week

Hong Kong’s art week is shifting from a post-pandemic recovery phase to a more exploratory period defined by innovative fringe events. A standout newcomer is the Central Yards Edible Art Fair, a 20,000-square-foot immersive experience at the Central Harbourfront that blends art history with culinary treats. The fair features ten zones themed after major movements like Impressionism and Surrealism, including a neo-pop installation where visitors can win jelly balloon dogs inspired by Jeff Koons.

Art Basel Qatar, Dürer portrait debate, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch—podcast

The Art Newspaper's podcast covers the inaugural Art Basel Qatar art fair in Doha, discussing its impact on Qatar and the Middle East art scene. It also examines a debate over a Dürer portrait in London's National Gallery, long considered a copy but now argued to be an autograph work by a new catalogue raisonné author. The episode features a double-header exhibition at the Albertinum in Dresden pairing Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch, with co-curator Andreas Dehmer discussing key works.

A Gerhard Richter pavilion and a new creative visa—Qatar’s Sheikha al-Mayassa reveals future plans

Sheikha al-Mayassa, chair of Qatar Museums and a leading collector, revealed significant cultural initiatives during a talk at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar fair. She announced a new "creative visa" to attract artists, with Egyptian artist Wael Shawky as the first recipient, and confirmed a Gerhard Richter pavilion will open in November as part of the Rubaiya Qatar quadrennial. She also highlighted upcoming institutions like the Art Mill museum and the Lusail Museum.