Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Jun 20, 2025 visibility 32 link 57 artists, 13 galleries

art basel 2025 sales report

Art Basel 2025 in Switzerland, now in its 55th edition, opened with 289 exhibitors amid a soft and unpredictable art market. Major sales included a Ruth Asawa sculpture for $9.5 million at David Zwirner, a Gerhard Richter painting for $6.8 million, and a Keith Haring from 1983 for $3.5 million at Gladstone. The top reported sale was David Hockney's 'Mid November Tunnel' (2006) for $13-17 million at Annely Juda Fine Art. Hauser & Wirth headlined with a moody Mark Rothko from the early 1960s, while galleries adopted strategies of offering wide price ranges and diverse styles to hedge against market uncertainty.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 19, 2025 visibility 24 link 27 artists, 10 galleries

art basel 2025 major works sales

Art Basel 2025 opened in Basel, Switzerland, with nearly 300 leading galleries showcasing high-value artworks despite a turbulent art market. Major works include a Gerhard Richter abstraction (1987) at David Zwirner, priced around $30 million, a Ruth Asawa hanging sculpture sold for $9.5 million, and Picassos at Pace and Helly Nahmad Gallery, with the latter's *Femme nue couchée jouant avec un chat* (1964) listed at $28 million after fetching $21.2 million at auction two years ago. The fair runs through Sunday, offering rare opportunities to view and purchase blue-chip pieces.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 11, 2025 visibility 17 link 13 artists

pauline karpidas collection sothebys

The private collection of legendary collector and patron Pauline Karpidas, featuring masterworks by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Les Lalannes, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s London this September. Spanning 250 lots from her eccentric London home, the collection is expected to fetch over £60 million ($81 million), the highest estimate ever placed on a single collection at Sotheby’s Europe. Karpidas, who has collected for 50 years and supported artists like Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin, sees herself as a temporary custodian and is passing the works to a new generation.

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article news schedule Jun 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 4 artists

sfmoma pastry plagiarism

Bay Area pastry chef Caitlin Freeman has accused the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) of copying her art-themed cakes after the museum replaced her Blue Bottle café with a new vendor, McCalls Catering. Freeman, who operated the café on SFMOMA's fifth floor from 2009, created pastries inspired by artworks by Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Roy Lichtenstein, including a signature Piet Mondrian cake, and published a cookbook titled *Modern Art Desserts* in 2013. After SFMOMA's renovation, the contract was awarded to McCalls Catering, which Freeman claims is now producing similar desserts.

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article news schedule Jun 2, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists, 2 galleries

justin sun gave silk road founder ross ulbricht cattelan banana

At the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun presented Maurizio Cattelan's artwork *Comedian* (2019)—a duct-taped banana that sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby's—to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road online marketplace. Ulbricht, recently pardoned by Donald Trump after receiving a life sentence, accepted the gift and joked about replacing the banana as it perishes. Sun had previously eaten the banana at a press conference in Hong Kong after purchasing it at auction.

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article news schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 14 link 9 artists

damien hirst will keep making artworks after dies

Damien Hirst, the 59-year-old British artist and one of the world's wealthiest living artists, has revealed a plan to continue creating artworks after his death. In an interview with the London Times, Hirst described a system of 200 notebooks, each representing one year after his demise, which will contain instructions for artworks that collectors can buy the rights to produce. These rights will be tradable certificates, and the works will be signed by his descendants. The scheme allows for back-dating of works, including a sculpture of a pig in formaldehyde conceived in 1991 but never made, which could be fabricated 145 years after his death and dated to 1991. This follows criticism Hirst faced in 2024 for assigning 1990s dates to formaldehyde sculptures actually produced recently, which his company Science Ltd. defended as conceptual artworks dated by conception.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 17 link 15 artists

hot lots and top flops 6 artworks that had shocking results at the marquee may auctions

Artnet News analyzed six standout lots from the marquee May auctions at Christie's and Phillips, highlighting both surprising successes and failures. Among the 'hot lots,' Mark Tansey's study for "The Enunciation" (1992–93) sold for $3.2 million at Christie's—over ten times its low estimate—while Henri Matisse's tiny portrait "Henriette, robe jaune" (1923) fetched $1.4 million, nearly quadrupling expectations. Firelei Báez's "Untitled" (2017) also soared, selling for $381,000 at Phillips, more than triple its high estimate. The article contrasts these with 'top flops,' though the provided text focuses on the successes.

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article news schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 28 link 43 artists

albright pennsylvania college selling art collection

Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, is quietly selling off the Freedman Gallery collection, which includes works by Romare Bearden, Salvador Dalí, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, to address a budget shortfall that recently reached $23 million. Art preparator Rich Houck discovered the storage space emptied without notice and was fired after reporting the move; the college has cut 53 positions, canceled academic majors, and considered selling real estate as part of a broader cost-cutting campaign. Former gallery staff are no longer employed, and major donors were not informed of the sale.

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article culture schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 15 link 7 artists

art bites robert rauschenberg erased de kooning drawing

American Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg created his controversial work *Erased de Kooning Drawing* (1953) by taking a drawing from Abstract Expressionist legend Willem de Kooning and erasing almost all of its marks. Rauschenberg, then 28, had recently returned to New York after studies at Black Mountain College and the Art Students League. He convinced de Kooning to donate a drawing for the project with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and de Kooning insisted it be a work he would miss. The erasing took about a month and wore down roughly 40 erasers. The finished piece, framed in a traditional gilded frame and inscribed by Jasper Johns, is now held by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), which used infrared technology in 2010 to reveal traces of de Kooning's original charcoal-and-pencil figures.

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article news schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 11 link 3 artists

cattelan gold toilet theft businessman sentencing

A British businessman, Frederick Doe, has received a 21-month suspended sentence at Oxford Crown Court for his role in the 2019 theft of Maurizio Cattelan's solid-gold toilet artwork "America" (2016), valued at $6 million. The toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site and former home of Winston Churchill, where it was installed as part of a Cattelan exhibition. Doe acted as a middleman, convicted of conspiring to transfer criminal property after being recorded offering to sell the 227-pound, 18-karat-gold toilet. Two other men, Michael Jones and James Sheen, were found guilty of planning the theft and are due to be sentenced next month. The gold has never been recovered and is believed to have been broken up and sold.

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

german photography typologien prada foundation milan richter bechers

The Fondazione Prada in Milan is hosting “Typologien,” a survey of 20th-century German photography curated by Suzanne Pfeffer of Frankfurt’s Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK). The exhibition features works by Karl Blossfeldt, Lotte Jacobi, Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Sybille Bergmann, and Candida Höfer, among others, all arranged in dead-on, grid-like typologies. It highlights the formal rules and ethical underpinnings of German photographic traditions, including the influential legacy of Bernd and Hilla Becher and their students from the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

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trending_up market schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 27 link 17 artists, 4 galleries

new york frieze auctions

Frieze New York kicked off at the Shed in Hudson Yards with a notable sale: Jeff Koons's Incredible Hulk sculpture (Tubas) purchased for around $3 million, signaling a reunion between the artist and Gagosian after his departure to Pace in 2021. Despite a cautious market amid President Trump's tariff uncertainties, dealers reported better-than-expected sales on VIP day, with a focus on affordable works in the $50,000-to-$200,000 range. However, challenges emerged including U.S. Customs delays affecting international shipments and tariff confusion that led some fashion designers to withdraw from the Esther II fair.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 16 link 9 artists

yayoi kusama georgia okeeffe pen pals

The article reveals the little-known friendship and correspondence between Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and American modernist Georgia O'Keeffe. In 1955, a 26-year-old Kusama, inspired by O'Keeffe's work, wrote to her from Japan seeking guidance. O'Keeffe replied within 20 days, offering advice and encouragement, including urging Kusama to move to the United States and show her art widely. Their decades-long correspondence helped Kusama make her career-defining move to America, though the two met only once, in New York, six years after their first exchange.

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gavel restitution schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 21 link 7 artists

botticelli virgin and child export bar

The United Kingdom has imposed a temporary export bar on Sandro Botticelli's painting "The Virgin and Child Enthroned" (c. 1470), valued at £10.2 million ($13.5 million). The work was sold to a foreign buyer at Sotheby's London last fall for £8.6 million, but the export license deferral—recommended by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art—gives British institutions until August 8 to express interest in acquiring it. The painting, previously attributed to Botticelli's workshop, was confirmed as an autograph work through new scientific analyses and has been in the private collection of Lady Wantage since 1904.

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article news schedule May 3, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

art institute of chicago investigation james rondeau

James Rondeau, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2016, has voluntarily stepped away from his role amid an investigation into an alleged incident on a flight from Chicago to Munich in April. According to a CBS News report citing anonymous sources, police were called after a passenger reportedly stripped off his clothes following consumption of alcohol and prescription medication; sources identified that passenger as Rondeau. The museum confirmed it has opened an independent investigation and that Rondeau is taking time off during the process.

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trending_up market schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 19 link 24 artists

martha stewart joopiter contemporary art sale

Martha Stewart has curated a contemporary art sale for Joopiter, the auction platform founded by Pharrell Williams. Titled "The Contemporary Take," the auction runs from April 28 through May 6 and features nearly 50 artworks by leading artists, including Amy Sherald, Hank Willis Thomas, Adrian Ghenie, Alex Katz, Damien Hirst, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Stewart handpicked a selection of works for the Spring season, focusing on themes of growth, regeneration, and vitality. The sale marks Joopiter's first auction of contemporary art, following collection sales by Kim Jones, Kid Cudi, and Nigo.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 19 link 12 artists, 2 galleries

from the studio to the auction block morgan stanley

This article from Artnet News Pro analyzes how early auction market interest impacts the long-term prospects of contemporary artists, using data from Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips. It focuses on two categories: "Ultra-Contemporary" art (artists born 1975–present) and "Postwar and Contemporary" art (artists born 1900–1974). The study examines macro trends over the past 20 years and presents five case studies of living artists whose auction sales peaked at different points. Key findings show that from 2013 to 2021, sales of Ultra-Contemporary art grew by over 700%, from $91.4 million to $739.3 million, while sales for the older cohort peaked in 2014 at $6.95 billion, a modest 16% increase. The number of Ultra-Contemporary lots sold also surged by 250%.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 20 artists

state of the art market trophy lots and the new competitive auction landscape

The article examines the growing financialization and opacity of the fine-art auction market, highlighting how auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have made it increasingly difficult for outsiders to understand true demand for individual lots. It details how buyer's premiums, guarantees, and irrevocable bids (third-party guarantees) obscure the actual bidding dynamics, with only a small group of wealthy financiers and intermediaries having clear insight into the market's inner workings.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 18 link 18 artists

emily fisher landeau collection auction fate

Christie’s and Sotheby’s are competing to secure the estate of Emily Fisher Landau, the noted art collector who died in March at age 102. Her collection, valued between $375 million and $500 million, could become a major highlight of the November evening sales, helping offset a sluggish first half for auction results. The Big Three auction houses have seen a 51 percent drop in total sales year-over-year, with Christie’s and Phillips both reporting significant declines.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 14 link 10 artists

sothebys will sell the 500 million collection of the late art patron emily fisher landau the markets most coveted consignment this fall

Sotheby's has won the consignment of the late Emily Fisher Landau's art collection, valued at approximately $500 million, making it the most anticipated single-collector sale of the fall auction season in New York this November. The star lot is Pablo Picasso's 1932 portrait "Femme à la montre (Woman With a Watch)," estimated to fetch over $120 million, alongside major works by Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 29, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists, 3 galleries

jeff koons gagosian for frieze new york 2025

Jeff Koons will reunite with Gagosian for a solo presentation at Frieze New York 2025, less than four years after leaving the gallery. The booth will feature three sculptures from his Hulk Elvis series—Hulk (Organ), Hulk (Tubas), and Hulk (Dragon and Turtle)—staged against a custom backdrop from his painting Triple Hulk Elvis III. All works come from Koons's personal collection, and he supervised every aspect of the presentation. The reunion follows a turbulent period: Koons left Gagosian and David Zwirner in 2021 to join Pace Gallery exclusively, but that partnership ended after three years amid reported financial disputes over a Meissen-inspired sculpture project that involved $50–100 million in investor funding.

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article news schedule Apr 24, 2025 visibility 12 link 8 artists

art institute chicago school pro palestine labor activism

Kelly Xi, an artist and lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), was placed under investigation and administrative leave after using a school photocopier to produce materials for a pro-Palestine student exhibition and sharing an email list for a faculty union petition. The exhibition advocated for divestment from Israel and criticized the school's handling of a protest encampment that led to dozens of arrests in May 2024. The actions were organized by Students for the Liberation of Palestine (SLP), targeting trustee A. Steven Crown, whose family owns a stake in defense contractor General Dynamics and donated to pro-Israel groups.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 21, 2025 visibility 14 link 13 artists

pope visits venice biennale

Pope Francis became the first pontiff in history to visit the Venice Biennale, touring the Vatican's Holy See pavilion at the 60th edition on April 28, 2024. The exhibition, titled "With My Eyes," was installed inside a women's prison on Giudecca Island and featured works by artists including Maurizio Cattelan, Simone Fattal, and Corita Kent. The pope met with about 80 female inmates, delivered a speech on art's power to address societal ills, and praised the contributions of women artists such as Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois. He also held an open-air mass in St. Mark's Square and spoke with young people at Santa María della Salute.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 14, 2026 visibility 65 link 3 artists

San Francisco’s Modern Art Museum Reimagines the Fisher Collection

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has unveiled a massive reinstallation of the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, featuring approximately 250 works. This presentation is part of a landmark 100-year partnership established in 2009, which requires the museum to dedicate significant gallery space to the Fishers' holdings every decade. The current exhibition showcases blue-chip staples of postwar and contemporary art, including major works by Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, and Agnes Martin.

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person people schedule May 1, 2026 visibility 26 link 12 artists

The Interview: Ei Arakawa-Nash

Ei Arakawa-Nash, a Japanese American performance artist, was selected to represent Japan at the 61st Venice Biennale, becoming the first non-Japanese national to do so in a solo presentation. This follows his first solo museum exhibition, "Paintings Are Popstars," at Tokyo's National Art Center in 2024, which was also the center's first solo show devoted to a performance artist. In an interview with ArtReview, Arakawa-Nash discusses his naturalization as a U.S. citizen, his complex relationship with national identity, and his upcoming Venice exhibition titled "Grass Babies, Moon Babies," cocurated by Lisa Horikawa and Takahashi Mizuki, which will explore themes of care and reparation using babies as a central motif.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 9, 2026 visibility 19 link 11 artists

Event: Hammad Nasar and Billy Tang, Off the Record

ArtReview and Ursula magazine have announced a collaborative talk featuring curators Hammad Nasar and Billy Tang as part of their "Off the Record" series in London. The event, held at the Farm Shop in Mayfair, is designed as an intimate, live conversation focused on the working methods and inspirations of creative visionaries. Nasar, a veteran curator and MBE recipient, will join Tang, the Artistic Director of the new Yan Du Project, to discuss their respective practices and the evolution of creative thinking.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 21, 2025 source 3 sources visibility 31 link 38 artists, 4 galleries

7 Essential Museum Exhibitions to Visit in Paris

Paris is hosting a major art week with Art Basel Paris returning to the renovated Grand Palais, alongside numerous other fairs like Paris Internationale, Design Miami.Paris, and Asia NOW. To complement the fair circuit, Galerie has curated a list of seven essential museum exhibitions across the city, including shows on Pontus Hulten with Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely at the Grand Palais, a Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton featuring over 270 works, and a survey of Melvin Edwards at the Palais de Tokyo, among others.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 15, 2026 visibility 9 link 17 artists, 9 galleries

Independent Art Fair Trades Downtown for the World

The Independent Art Fair has moved to Pier 36 on the Lower East Side waterfront for its 17th edition, running through May 17. The fair features 76 booths with a more spacious, warehouse-like layout, and a noticeably older, glossier crowd compared to previous years. Exhibitors include Los Angeles-based ATLA and Diane Rosenstein galleries, as well as international participants like Bogotá's SGR Gallery, showcasing solo presentations by artists such as Yoshikazu Tanaka, Kuniko Kinoto, and Johan Samboní. The fair has also announced partnerships with Sotheby's for its 20th-century edition and with the nonprofit Henry Street Settlement, signaling a tension between upscale ambitions and local community ties.

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article news schedule May 14, 2026 visibility 17 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

Manhattan's Neue Galerie to Merge With Met Museum

Cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder's Neue Galerie, a private museum on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue known for its collection of Austrian and German art, will merge with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The merger takes effect in 2028, with the Neue Galerie retaining its physical space and staff. The announcement was made by The Met on May 14. The museum's star attraction is Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" (1907), and it also holds works by Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, and others. Lauder co-founded the Neue Galerie with dealer Serge Sabarsky in 2001. As part of the merger, Lauder and his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer will donate 13 additional paintings from their personal collection and make an undisclosed endowment gift.

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candle obituary schedule May 13, 2026 visibility 16 link 23 artists, 6 galleries

Remembering Bruno Bischofberger, Manuela Hoelterhoff, and Steven Durland

This week's In Memoriam column from Hyperallergic honors seven figures from the art world who recently passed away, including Swiss collector and dealer Bruno Bischofberger (1940–2026), Pulitzer-winning arts critic Manuela Hoelterhoff (1949–2026), and artist-editor Steven Durland (1951–2026). Other notable losses include British painter Ray Burgoyne, iconographer Christina Dochwat, German gallerist Jenny Falckenberg, realist painter Ward Nichols, and MoMA preparator Pamela A. Popeson. Each entry provides a brief biography and highlights their contributions to visual art, criticism, and cultural organizing.

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