vima art fair cyprus review recap 1234743448

The inaugural VIMA contemporary art fair opened in Limassol, Cyprus, at a former SODAP winery industrial site. Co-founded by Lara Kotreleva, Edgar Gadzhiev, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya, the fair aims to spotlight Cypriot and Mediterranean art, featuring a curated outdoor exhibition titled 'The Posterity of the Sun' with 17 artists, including Valentinos Charalambous, Monia Ben Hamouda, and Adrian Pepe. Curator Ludovic Delalan emphasized the site's historical and natural context.

All the Looks That Made It From the Runway Into the Met’s “Costume Art” Exhibition

V&A East Museum: Inside London’s New Venue In Stratford

The V&A East Museum is set to open in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a major new cultural hub for East London. Housed in a striking five-story building designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey—inspired by the couture tailoring of Cristóbal Balenciaga—the museum features two permanent galleries titled "Why We Make" and a dedicated space for major temporary exhibitions. The site emphasizes accessibility with a barrier-free entrance and a collection of over 500 objects spanning art, design, and performance, curated to highlight themes like social justice and environmental action.

SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection Including Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art - Christie's

Christie’s has announced a major auction titled "SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection," scheduled for November 6, 2025, in London. The sale features 20 exceptional works from the Beirut-based Dalloul Collection, a premier repository of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern art, alongside pieces from other private owners. Key highlights include masterpieces by Paul Guiragossian, Mahmoud Saïd, and Samia Halaby, with a specific focus on Lebanese and Palestinian artistic heritage.

SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection Including Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art - Christie's

Christie's will hold a live auction titled 'SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection including Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art' on 6 November 2025 at King Street, London, with an online sale running from 28 October to 11 November. The evening sale features 20 exceptional works from the esteemed Dalloul Collection in Beirut, Lebanon, led by masterpieces from artists such as Mohamed Melehi, Mahmoud Saïd, Dia Al-Azzawi, Marwan, Huguette Caland, Paul Guiragossian, Samia Halaby, and Kamal Boullata. A preview will be held at Christie's Dubai from 3-10 October, showcasing highlights including Guiragossian's 'Automne (Autumn)', El Rayess's 'Soukhour Meyrouba', and Said's 'La colline de Mekarzel'.

Tour the Museum-Quality Art Exhibition Inside the Megayacht Carinthia VII

The luxury megayacht Carinthia VII, owned by the Austrian billionaire Heidi Goëss-Horten and designed by Tim Heywood, has been transformed into a floating museum this summer. Curated by Florencia Cherñajovsky, the yacht features approximately forty museum-quality works from her family's collection of around 500 artworks, including pieces by Tracey Emin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Lutz Bacher, Petrit Halilaj, Louise Nevelson, Carol Rama, Sarah Lucas, and Brazilian women artists like Ana Maria Maiolino. The exhibition spans photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture, arranged to create dialogues between artists and the yacht's interiors, which include reclaimed 17th-century parquet floors and custom rugs from Cherñajovsky's brand Lalana Rugs.

New dealer-run fair aims to fill gap left by Design Miami

A group of 11 mostly French galleries, led by Charlotte Ketabi-Lebard of Parisian gallery Ketabi Bourdet, have launched Maze Design Basel, a new dealer-run design fair to fill the gap left by the cancellation of Design Miami Basel. The fair is held in the 19th-century Elisabethenkirche church next to Basel's Kunsthalle, with stands arranged throughout the nave, mezzanines, chancel, pulpit, and clerestory. The vernissage on June 16 was playful and relaxed, with sales reported by all exhibitors and about 1,000 guests attending the preview.

Christie’s Third Arab Art Summer Exhibition Marwan: A Soul in Exile 16 July – 22 August - Christie's

Christie’s will host its third annual Arab Art Exhibition, titled "Marwan: A Soul in Exile," at its London headquarters from 16 July to 22 August 2025. The non-selling retrospective features over 150 works on loan from museums, institutions, and private collections across Europe and the Middle East, spanning paintings, drawings, works on paper, and editions. Curated by Dr. Ridha Moumni, Chairman of Christie’s Middle East & Africa, the exhibition traces the six-decade career of Syrian-born artist Marwan Kassab Bachi (1934–2016), known for his facial landscapes that blend German expressionism with Syrian identity and Arab political themes.

A Record for Lalanne

Un record pour Lalanne

Sotheby's New York achieved a major result with the sale of a set of fifteen mirrors by Claude Lalanne (died 2019), commissioned between 1974 and 1985 for the music room of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé's Paris apartment. Estimated at $10–15 million, the lot—from the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg after the 2009 Saint Laurent-Bergé sale—fetched $33.5 million including fees, setting a record for the artist.

À Bordeaux, la métamorphose du MADD

The Musée des arts décoratifs et du design (MADD) in Bordeaux has reopened its design-focused wing after three years of renovation, featuring a new entrance pavilion designed by Antoine Dufour Architectes that connects the historic Hôtel de Lalande and the former municipal prison. The overhaul includes a monumental shelving display of eighty vases by designers such as Andrea Branzi and Gaetano Pesce, a new "gallery of know-how" dedicated to rotating thematic presentations (starting with ceramics), a graphic arts cabinet showcasing the Jacques Sargos collection of over 130 drawings, and improved climate control for conservation.

Julie Hamisky's garden, the artist who fixes the ephemeral in time, is on show in a Milan auction house

Il giardino di Julie Hamisky, l’artista che fissa l’effimero nel tempo è in mostra in una casa d’aste di Milano

French artist and designer Julie Hamisky presents 'Giardino Alchemico' (Alchemical Garden) at Pandolfini Auction House in Milan during Fuorisalone 2025. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Galerie Mitterrand of Paris, features around twenty works including monumental sculptures like 'La Géante' (a giant poppy), jewelry, and a chandelier titled 'Aqua'. Hamisky uses electroplating—a 19th-century technique she learned from her father-in-law—to preserve fresh flowers and botanical forms by coating them in metal, freezing them at the peak of their beauty before decay begins.

Drawing attention

Collector Patricia Poon and artist Angel Hui are among the figures highlighted in a series examining how Hong Kong women artists are gaining market share and recognition. The article reports that major auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips have moved their Asia headquarters to Hong Kong and now employ young women in key auctioneering roles. It notes a sharp increase in women artists featured in Chinese auctions, from 79 in 2019 to 231 in 2024, with 201 of those in Hong Kong. Works by artists like Firenze Lai, Elaine Chiu, and Kristy M Chan have performed strongly at auction, and Phillips has made promoting Hong Kong women artists a key priority.

Top auction houses draw Southeast Asia’s elite art buyers

Auction houses Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams are seeing a surge in participation from wealthy Southeast Asian collectors, particularly Millennials and Gen Z. Elaine Holt of Sotheby's Asia reports significant growth in collector activity from the region, with strong bidding at recent Hong Kong sales. Christie's Asia-Pacific president Francis Belin notes Southeast Asia is now the firm's third-largest buying market in Asia-Pacific, led by Singapore and Indonesia, with notable increases from Vietnam. Bonhams' managing director for Asia, Julia Hu, reports a 67% year-on-year rise in Southeast Asian auction spending. Younger buyers are driving demand, with Millennials and Gen Z accounting for 37% of Bonhams' Hong Kong buyers and 40% of Sotheby's Hong Kong marquee sales. A Renoir painting sold for $23.56 million to a collector in their 30s, highlighting youthful buying power.

Pauline Karpidas collection estimated to make £60m at Sotheby's

Sotheby's will hold a two-day sale in London on September 17-18 of around 250 works from the collection of British patron Pauline Karpidas, estimated at over £60 million—the highest estimate ever for a single-owner collection at the auction house in Europe. The sale includes Surrealist works by Max Ernst, Niki de Saint Phalle, Francis Picabia, and Salvador Dalí, alongside pieces by Andy Warhol and design objects by Les Lalanne, all drawn from Karpidas's London home.

Aste a Parigi: nuovo record per Claude Monet da Sotheby’s e per Ettore Spalletti da Christie’s

Sotheby's Paris achieved a new French auction record for Claude Monet on April 16, 2026, with 'Vétheuil, effet du matin' (1901) selling for €10.2 million, far above its €6-8 million estimate. The evening sale generated €35 million total, an 84% increase over the 2025 session, also featuring strong results for Marc Chagall, Lucio Fontana, and Rembrandt Bugatti. Meanwhile, Christie's Paris celebrated the 25th anniversary of its 'Thinking Italian' section with a complete sell-out of 11 lots, including a new auction record for Ettore Spalletti's 'Mobile' (1974) at €203,200. The overall Paris modern and contemporary art week reached a record €80.9 million, up 39% year-on-year.

fashion anthony vaccarello saint laurent designer

Anthony Vaccarello, creative director of Saint Laurent, has opened a new Paris flagship store at 37 Avenue Montaigne, housed in the former Canadian embassy. The store reflects his vision with a mix of modern design and vintage furniture, including pieces by Jean-Michel Frank and François-Xavier Lalanne, alongside contemporary artworks by Mark Bradford, Camille Henrot, and Thomas Houseago on loan from the Pinault Collection. Vaccarello discusses the two-year transformation, his approach to retail as a context for the clothes, and his broader creative expansions into film with Saint Laurent Productions and the revival of Charlotte Perriand furniture designs.

$33.5 million set of mirrors by Claude Lalanne sets a new record for a work of design

A set of bronze mirrors by French sculptor Claude Lalanne sold for $33.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s in New York, smashing multiple auction records. The Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors from 1974 more than doubled its high estimate of $15 million after a 10-minute bidding war between five collectors.

Hong Kong Art Gallery Kwai Fung Hin Opens First Overseas Outpost In Singapore

Hong Kong’s Kwai Fung Hin gallery has expanded internationally for the first time, opening a new outpost at 30 Beach Road in Singapore. Founded by former banker Catherine Kwai in 1991, the gallery specializes in 20th-century modern and contemporary art with a focus on cultural heritage. The new space launched with an exhibition titled “Worlds beyond Reality – Monet’s Legacy II,” featuring a masterpiece by Claude Monet alongside works by Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun.

‘Hippopotame Bar’ Shatters Design Auction Records, Sells for $31.4 Million

François-Xavier Lalanne's 1976 'Hippopotame Bar,' a whimsical copper, steel, and wood cabinet shaped like a hippopotamus with hidden compartments, sold for $31.4 million at a Sotheby's auction on December 10, 2025. Originally commissioned by the late oil heiress and philanthropist Anne Schlumberger, the piece sparked a 26-minute bidding war that far exceeded its $7–10 million estimate, making it the most valuable design object ever sold at auction and shattering Lalanne's previous auction record.

From Mondrian to Man Ray, Here Are the Best-Sellers at Auction So Far This Year

The article analyzes the best-selling artworks at auction in the first half of 2025, covering Old Masters, Impressionist and Modern, and Postwar categories. Notable sales include a pair of Francesco Guardi views of Venice that sold for $10.5 million at Sotheby’s New York, a Piet Mondrian abstraction from the estate of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio that fetched just under $50 million, and a monumental rhinoceros-shaped desk by François-Xavier Lalanne that more than tripled its high estimate after a 13-minute bidding war. The report highlights that Old Masters sales were up 24% year-over-year, while top Impressionist and Modern lots saw lower prices compared to 2024.

Young artists take over Slidell's city gallery

Student artists from across St. Tammany Parish participated in the 35th annual Salad Days Juried Exhibition of Student Art at the George Dunbar Gallery in Slidell. The event featured an opening reception and awards ceremony, with 80 artists submitting 174 works, of which roughly 30% were selected for display. Artist and arts advocate Joshua Wichterich served as the juror for the competitive show.

Beloved Arts Gallery In The Woodlands Wants You To Look Through Glass — Showcasing a Vital Material

Ardest Gallery in The Woodlands, Texas, is presenting "Thresholds," a juried exhibition curated by Austin-based glass artist Malina Cipleu, running through May 30. The show features kiln-formed glass works from Texas artists, with first place awarded to Deborah Ellington for "Encased in Time III," second place to Mary Torres for "Polka Dot Jungle," and third place to Sandi Neiman for "River Dreams." Gallery owner Julie Verville hosted the opening and awarded ribbons, while Cipleu's curatorial statement explores glass as a material of transition and connection.

In Bordeaux, the MADD unveils its sublime metamorphosis and pays tribute to a shooting star of design

À Bordeaux, le MADD dévoile sa sublime métamorphose et rend hommage à une étoile filante du design

The Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design (MADD) in Bordeaux has unveiled a significant architectural renovation and expansion of its public spaces. The project, led by the architecture firm Antoine Dufour, transformed the 18th-century Hôtel de Lalande, creating a new open-air passage, a café-restaurant, a ticket office-shop, and improving accessibility and circulation between the historic mansion and the adjacent former prison used for temporary exhibitions. The redesign emphasizes natural light, reveals original stone walls, and incorporates contemporary, clearly distinguishable interventions.