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The Gulf region is rapidly transforming into a primary axis for the international art trade, marked by the upcoming debut of Art Basel Qatar and the rebranding of Abu Dhabi Art as a Frieze event. While state-led museum projects have long dominated headlines, a surge of commercial activity is now taking hold as blue-chip galleries like Pace and David Zwirner join local stalwarts. This expansion comes at a strategic time as traditional markets in the U.S., U.K., and China face contraction.

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Artnet News asked several working artists—Manuel Mathieu, Hanna Salomonsson, Aki Sasamoto, Nigel Hall, Sharmistha Ray, and Miljohn Ruperto—to share the practical and philosophical lessons that sustain their creative practices. Topics include building trust with collaborators, navigating financial uncertainty, setting up shared studio spaces, using recycled materials, maintaining optimism at age 82, reframing rejection, and adapting to the expectation that artists must act as entrepreneurs before their first gallery show.

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Todd von Ammon, a young gallerist, critiques the contemporary art market's over-reliance on art fairs and the homogenization of gallery spaces into a sterile, grid-like system. He contrasts this with the lost charm of discovering hidden, architecturally unique galleries in labyrinthine neighborhoods, which he argues fosters a sense of urban belonging and agency for collectors and art workers. The article traces the shift from the rabbit warrens of SoHo to the dense Chelsea gallery district and the rise of the modern art fair, epitomized by Art Basel's expansion to Miami Beach in 2002, which he likens to a pyramid scheme that burdens young galleries with high costs for minimal returns.

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The article recounts the author's experience at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, beginning with a moment of reflection on the beach before the fair week's chaos. Three veteran attendees—an artist, an advisor, and a gallery owner—chose to skip the event this year, citing lackluster parties, declining collector interest in Miami compared to Paris, and poor sales attrition. Despite these doubts, the fair saw strong sales, with Hauser & Wirth reporting a 40% increase in the first three hours, and a new digital art sector boosting optimism. Pop-up exhibitions, like "The Body is The Body" at the Rice Hotel, were highlights, while Vanity Fair's party remained the most coveted invite.

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Paula Tsai, a key figure in Asia's art market, discusses the evolving landscape of collecting in the region, focusing on mainland China and Korea. She notes a surge of new buyers from China, many of whom are young entrepreneurs, while the Korean market remains more mature and stable. Tsai addresses the impact of tariffs on importing art, particularly for Chinese collectors, but asserts that passionate collectors will continue to buy, adjusting timing rather than abandoning purchases. She also highlights the growing Thai market and the complexity of the Chinese market, where established collectors are cautious but new entrants keep activity high.

These Are the 7 Best Destinations for Pop Culture Exhibits

Chicago's diverse landscape of pop culture and contemporary art is highlighted through a curated list of seven key destinations in the metropolitan area. The selection ranges from the Volo Museum’s collection of Hollywood vehicles and Titanic artifacts to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s extensive permanent collection of over 2,000 modern works and high-tech media displays.

‘My paintings are always really kitchen sink, everything’s thrown into them’: Christina Quarles on her new solo show in Los Angeles

Artist Christina Quarles has launched her first solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, titled "The Ground Glows Black." The new body of work features her signature fluid, elastic depictions of bodies, but introduces a more "untethered" and monochromatic aesthetic influenced by recent personal trauma. The paintings and works on paper were created in the aftermath of the Eaton fire, which destroyed the artist's home and community in Altadena.

Portland Art Museum celebrates opening of major expansion with four days of free admission

The Portland Art Museum will celebrate the opening of its major expansion and renovation with four days of free admission and activities from November 20 to 23, 2025. The centerpiece is the new Mark Rothko Pavilion, a nearly 22,000-square-foot transparent entrance that connects the museum's two campus buildings, adding nearly 100,000 square feet of new or upgraded public and gallery space. The transformed museum features a complete reinstallation of its collection with nearly 300 major new acquisitions by artists including Marie Watt, Simone Leigh, and Carrie Mae Weems, alongside thematic displays that emphasize place, community, and identity. Free tickets are available for reservation starting November 1, and the museum will also expand its regular hours beginning November 25.

Despite new autumn slot, Tokyo Gendai remains a largely local affair

Tokyo Gendai held its third edition from September 11-14, 2025, in Yokohama, shifting from its original July slot to an early autumn date to attract more international dealers and collectors. The fair reported mixed sales amid a slow economy, with local Japanese collectors making up the vast majority of buyers. Notable sales were reported by Pace Gallery, while other galleries like Anomaly noted a slower start but eventual sales. The fair also featured a new partnership with Art Busan, bringing Korean and Chinese galleries with subsidized booth fees.

Sotheby’s Tries Again to Sell $40 M. Picasso Painting That Didn’t Make It to Auction in 2008

Sotheby’s has announced the sale of Pablo Picasso’s 1909 Cubist masterpiece, Arlequin (Buste), which is expected to fetch approximately $40 million during the New York marquee auctions this May. The painting is the crown jewel of a collection belonging to the late Surrealist artist Enrico Donati and his wife Adele. This marks the second time Sotheby’s has attempted to sell the work; it was famously withdrawn from a 2008 auction just a week before the sale due to undisclosed private reasons.

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Nayland Blake, a conceptual artist known for blending cerebral ideas with visceral, queer sensibilities, is the subject of a major solo exhibition at Mathew Marks Gallery in New York, running through October 2025. Concurrently, a new book titled *My Studio Is a Dungeon Is the Studio: Writings and Interviews 1983–2024* is set for release next month, compiling decades of the artist's writings and interviews. The article explores Blake's unique approach to art, which combines psychoanalytic theory, queer aesthetics, and a critical stance toward institutional power, as seen in their analysis of figures like Judge Daniel Paul Schreber and artist Jack Smith.

Online Auctions Continue to Draw in First-Time Art Buyers as Sales Grow

Online-only sales of fine art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Bonhams, and Artnet Auctions reached $423.9 million in 2025, an 8 percent increase from 2024. The number of lots sold remained steady at 29,623, but the average price per work rose 8.6 percent to $14,309. Sales were 270 percent higher than in 2019, before the pandemic accelerated the shift to digital auctions. Christie’s reported that 63 percent of new buyers in 2025 made their first purchase online.

Dealer Scott Nichols on His Lasting Love for Iconic California Photographers

Veteran art dealer Scott Nichols reflects on his long-standing career and the evolution of his eponymous gallery, which specialized in 20th-century California photography for nearly three decades in San Francisco before relocating to Sonoma in 2019. The gallery is renowned for its deep expertise in Group f.64, maintaining one of the largest private collections of Brett Weston’s work alongside masterpieces by Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Imogen Cunningham.

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Cowley Abbott’s Fall Live Auction of Important Canadian Art will take place on November 26 at Toronto’s Globe and Mail Centre, featuring a curated selection of historical and contemporary Canadian works. Highlights include Jean Paul Riopelle’s *Sans titre* (1950, est. CA$1.2–1.5M), Emily Carr’s *Pole of Harhu* (1912, est. CA$800,000–$1.2M), Lawren Harris’s *Rocky Mountains; Abstract Composition* (est. CA$400,000–$600,000), Jack Bush’s *Awning* (1974, est. $200,000–$300,000), and Jean Paul Lemieux’s *Jeune fille en jaune* (1964). Founded in 2013 as Canada’s first online art auction house, Cowley Abbott has evolved into a hybrid gallery and digital marketplace, with onsite viewing at its Dundas Street West gallery through the auction date.

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Bode Galerie in Nuremberg has opened a new group exhibition titled “The Woman in Art – Muse and Creator,” running through July 5, 2025. The show traces the representation of women across the 20th and 21st centuries, featuring works by artists such as Henri Matisse, Ida Kerkovius, Alain Clément, and Elvira Bach. It begins with early 1900s works where women were primarily muses for male artists, then moves through decades of reclamation by women artists, culminating in contemporary autonomous depictions of the female form.

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The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York has announced the closure of its MA in Curatorial Practice program, effective upon the retirement of its founding chair, Steven Henry Madoff, in May 2027. The decision to "teach out" the program comes despite recent recruitment efforts and follows a period of financial instability for the institution. The announcement also coincides with the recent abrupt resignation of David A. Ross, chair of SVA’s MFA Art Practice program, following revelations regarding his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

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British museums are increasingly turning to citizens' assemblies to guide policy, priorities, and funding decisions, with the National Gallery launching its NG Citizens panel following similar initiatives at Birmingham Museums Trust, the Imperial War Museum, and the Migration Museum. Separately, Donald Trump hosted a New Year's Eve gala at Mar-a-Lago where a live-painted portrait of Jesus Christ by artist Vanessa Horabuena sold for $2.75 million, with proceeds split between St. Jude's Children's Hospital and the local sheriff's department. The article also reports a £30 million donation to the Royal Academy of Music's museum, the discovery of a 9,500-year-old cremation pyre in Malawi, a list of major 2026 exhibitions, the death of artist Janet Fish, and research by Daisy Fancourt linking arts engagement to better health outcomes.

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Earlier this spring, artist Julia Isídrez led a guided tour at São Paulo's Gomide & Co. gallery for a joint exhibition with Maria Lira. The show highlights two artists from different generations and mediums—Lira from Brazil (painting) and Isídrez from Paraguay (sculpture, featured in the 2024 Venice Biennale)—who both engage Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous traditions from a contemporary perspective. Gallerist Thiago Gomide rejects labels like 'folk' or 'popular,' insisting it is simply an art exhibition. The article profiles a network of Brazilian dealers, including Vilma Eid of Galeria Estação and Antonio Almeida of Almeida & Dale, who have worked to revive interest in arte popular, a category historically applied to self-taught, Indigenous, and Black artists.

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A new analysis by The Asia Pivot reveals that total global auction sales for Asian artists born between 1990 and 1999 dropped to $9.7 million in 2024, the lowest level in three years. The market for these young artists shows clear signs of cooling, with 696 lots sold out of 1,128 offered, a 62% sell-through rate, and an average price per lot falling 26.5% year-over-year to $13,905. Top-ranked artists like Raghav Babbar and Anna Park saw steep price declines, while a few consistent performers like Yukimasa Ida, Sun Yitian, and Chris Huen Sin-Kan maintained strong market recognition.

Anthony Elms and Hamza Walker in Conversation

The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh has announced a public conversation between its new Artistic Director, Anthony Elms, and renowned curator Hamza Walker to mark the institution's 50th anniversary. The event focuses on the evolution of artist-centered institutions and Elms's vision for the museum following his tenure as Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Philippe Parreno: Film, the Digital, and the City Beyond

Renowned artist Philippe Parreno joined Hans Ulrich Obrist for an artist talk at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, hosted by Fondation Beyeler and UBS. The conversation spanned Parreno's career, from his early projects like the manga-inspired 'Annlee' to his current role as Artistic Director of the 2025 Okayama Art Summit. Parreno detailed his shift into filmmaking, including a new project featuring Jennifer Lawrence, and his use of AI and technology to create 'living' art installations.

Remembering Erik Bulatov, the Soviet artist who reframed propaganda

Erik Bulatov, the Soviet-born artist known for overlaying Communist Party slogans onto luminous landscapes, died in Paris on 9 November. A key figure in the underground art movement of the 1970s and 80s, he was part of the Sretensky Group alongside Ilya Kabakov and others, navigating state censorship by illustrating children's books. His most famous work, *Glory to the CPSU* (1975), sold for $2.1m in 2008, and in 2025 he was ranked the most expensive living Russian artist by The Art Newspaper Russia.

The new era of fashion’s art exhibitions

LACMA's upcoming David Geffen Galleries, opening in 2026, will feature over 130 costumes and textiles in its inaugural installations—more than any other time since the museum opened in 1965. The museum also plans exhibitions such as 'Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity' (with mannequins by Jason Wu) and 'Fashioning Fashion' (1900–2025). Other major fashion exhibitions include 'Virgil Abloh: The Codes' at Paris's Grand Palais, 'Westwood Kawakubo' at the National Gallery of Victoria, and 'Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art' at London's V&A. The article notes that fashion exhibitions are increasingly popular and profitable for museums, citing the Met's Costume Institute and its record-breaking Met Gala fundraising.

Primitivism to Reinvent Art

Le primitivisme pour réinventer l’art

Philippe Dagen has published the third and final volume of his series on primitivism, covering the period from World War II to the late 1970s. The book traces how Western artists, from Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock to members of the CoBrA movement and figures like Jean Dubuffet, Lucio Fontana, and Yayoi Kusama, engaged with so-called "primitive" art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, often as a means of rejecting or redefining modern civilization. Dagen also examines the intellectual debates surrounding primitivism, including the critiques of colonized peoples who refused the label "primitive," and the shifting attitudes of thinkers like Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Leiris, and Aimé Césaire.

Art Dubai announces details for revised 2026 edition

Art Dubai has unveiled the details for its 2026 "special edition," which features a significantly reduced scale in response to ongoing regional conflict. The fair will host 50 galleries—a sharp decline from the 120 participants in 2025—with a strategic focus on regional representation, as nearly two-thirds of the exhibitors hail from the Middle East. To compensate for the smaller commercial footprint, the event will deepen its ties with local institutions like the Sharjah Art Foundation and Alserkal Avenue through expanded collaborative programming.

Roma accoglie all’Ara Pacis 52 importanti opere dell’Impressionismo provenienti da Detroit

The Museo dell'Ara Pacis in Rome is hosting an exhibition titled 'Impressionismo e oltre' (Impressionism and Beyond), featuring 52 masterpieces on loan from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Curated by Ilaria Miarelli Mariani and Claudio Zambianchi, the show spans from the 1840s to the early 20th century, tracing the evolution of European painting through Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the avant-garde. Works by Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, and others are displayed across thematic sections that explore the shift from academic tradition to modern visual language.

What the tenth edition of Art Monte-Carlo fair in the Principality of Monaco will be like

Come sarà la decima edizione fiera Art Monte-Carlo nel Principato di Monaco

Art Monte-Carlo, the boutique art fair in the Principality of Monaco, celebrates its tenth edition from April 29 to May 1, 2026 (preview April 28), under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II. The fair will host 26 international galleries of modern and contemporary art at the Grimaldi Forum, moving to new spring dates and coinciding with the Monaco Art Week (April 27–May 1). Newcomers include Italian gallery Secci, Mitterrand from Paris, A&R Fleury, Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Fabienne Levy, Giovanni Martino Projects, Lee & Bae, Ritsch-Fisch Galerie, and Monegasque galleries Hartford Fine Art – Lampronti Gallery and M.F. Toninelli Art Moderne. Returning exhibitors include Almine Rech, Cortesi, Galleria Continua, Suzanne Tarasieve, Semiose, Van de Weghe, Voena, and Wilde. A curated section features a collective exhibition titled "Earthly Delights," curated by Stefano Rabolli Pansera and inspired by Luis Buñuel, centered on a functioning bar as a conceptual and physical space. The fair also includes a public program and talks with figures such as photographer Juergen Teller, auctioneer Simon de Pury, and collector Batia Ofer, and has moved under the influence of Informa Prestige, the luxury division of events company Informa.

NADA Miami and Untitled Art Test the Temperature of the Mid-Tier and Emerging Markets

NADA Miami and Untitled Art opened on December 2, 2024, in Miami Beach, both targeting the mid-tier and emerging art markets. The fairs saw strong early sales and a predominantly American and local audience, with fewer European and Asian collectors than in previous years. Dealers reported a rebound in market confidence, with sales activity signaling a recovery in the mid-career and emerging segments, though not reaching the frenzy of earlier boom periods. The fairs also showcased a shift away from bright figuration and identity politics toward deeper reflections on reality, mediatization, and materiality.

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The Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) in Ghent has refused to return Gaspar de Craye's Nazi-looted *Portrait of Bishop Triest* to the heirs of its original owner, Samuel Hartveld. An independent commission found the painting was sold under duress after the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, but concluded that Hartveld and his family were later financially compensated by the city, leading MSK to retain the work. Jewish groups EJA and JID are contesting the decision, arguing that international principles mandate restitution regardless of compensation.

Lost Lincoln Portrait From Teddy Roosevelt’s Office Reemerges After a Century

A long-lost portrait of Abraham Lincoln by American realist Ernest Wells has reemerged after more than a century. The painting, which hung in President Theodore Roosevelt’s office throughout his term and served as a source of personal inspiration, was recently identified in the collection of the descendants of antique dealers Ann and Jack Rouchaud. The work’s provenance was confirmed via a letter from Roosevelt’s friend and Lincoln’s former bodyguard, Colonel William H. Crook, which remains affixed to the back of the canvas.