The Nahmad family sold a Francis Bacon painting titled *Pope* (1958) for $15 million at the VIP opening of Art Basel. The work, which had been purchased by Helly Nahmad gallery for $6.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2019, was the second-highest known price at the fair, trailing only a $40 million Louise Bourgeois *Spider* sold by Hauser & Wirth.
Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, born 100 years ago on May 22, 1925, is celebrated in a centenary retrospective at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan. Known for his kinetic sculptures—clattering, motorized assemblages of cogs, wheels, and found objects—Tinguely emerged from Dada influences in Basel and Paris to become a leading figure of kinetic art. His work satirizes technological reliance and explores themes of mortality, often incorporating animal skulls and planned explosions. Major retrospectives at the Stedelijk Museum (2016) and Pirelli HangarBicocca (2024) have revived interest in his oeuvre.
Artnet News' Wet Paint gossip column presents a selective summer guide for the art world, highlighting key exhibitions and social hotspots. In Manhattan, the Upper East Side offers the Park Avenue Armory's Diane Arbus photo exhibition, the Met's John Singer Sargent show, and the newly opened Frick with its Westmoreland café. Downtown, Bar Oliver in Two Bridges has become an art world haunt, co-created by Olmo and Cy Schnabel. The column also previews themed group shows: "Hope is a dangerous thing" at P.P.O.W. and "CAKE" at Olympia Gallery, featuring edible artworks. Exclusive news reveals the engagement of Lucas Zwirner to Charlotte Lindemann, merging two powerful art-dealing families. Additionally, Sky High Farm in Germantown, New York, is launching a new biennial with works by Anne Imhof, Rudolf Stingel, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
The largest-ever exhibition of Diane Arbus's work, titled "Constellation," opens today at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Featuring over 450 prints—many previously unpublished—the immersive show debuted at LUMA Arles in 2023 and arrives in the U.S. with its original labyrinthine format. Curated by Matthieu Humery, the exhibition presents Arbus's iconic photographs of marginalized figures, celebrities, and everyday people without chronological or narrative order, emphasizing her equalizing gaze. The prints come from the collection of Maja Hoffmann, who acquired the complete set of printer's proofs from Neil Selkirk, the only person authorized by the Diane Arbus Estate to print from her negatives.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London is in a last-minute push to raise £50 million ($60 million) to acquire Joshua Reynolds's 1776 portrait of Omai, a Polynesian visitor to Britain, before a temporary export ban expires on March 10. Despite raising roughly £25 million through a grassroots campaign involving public donations, a £2.5 million grant from the Art Fund, and £10 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the NPG remains short of its goal and is reportedly in secret talks with the Getty Museum to jointly purchase the painting.
A Paris court seized 135 allegedly stolen paintings from Paris-based art authenticators ArtAnalysis in January, which had been holding the works for collector Mozes Frisch. The pieces are part of a 1,778-work collection supposedly by heavyweight Russian modernists. Palestinian businessman Uthman Khatib and his son Prince Castro Ben Leon claim the works were stolen from them by Frisch in 2019, and are suing in Germany for return of the works or $323 million. ArtAnalysis owner Laurette Thomas, Frisch, and collector Olivia Amar are countersuing Khatib for return of the Paris-held works plus $30.5 million in damages. The Khatibs' law firm Dentons hired Doerr Dallas Valuations to appraise the 135 disputed works, which assigned a $208 million valuation but included a caveat, likely related to the fact that many works were listed on the Art Loss Register in 2014 during an investigation into disgraced Israeli art dealer Itzhak Zarug, who was suspected of dealing fakes.
Artist Brad Kahlhamer prepares for his first solo exhibition with Venus Over Manhattan at 39 Great Jones Street, featuring energetic paintings on bedsheets that blend Plains Indian winter counts, pop-cultural graphics, and Manhattan's post-punk scene. The article follows Kahlhamer through the week leading up to the show, including his visit to TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory, where his work "American Horse" was displayed in the gallery's booth, and his reflections on the installation process and the portable bedsheet medium inspired by Indigenous traditions.
Artist Ilana Savdie, known for her electrically colorful and biomorphic paintings, presents a new series titled "Glottal Stop" at White Cube in New York. The exhibition explores themes of camouflage, animal mimicry, and the physical toll of global discord, featuring works that use pigmented beeswax, oil, and acrylic to create nearly sentient surfaces. Savdie draws from horror films, Baroque painting, and anatomy books, incorporating suspended painted latex sheets into an immersive, maze-like installation.
Art Basel's Unlimited sector opened on Monday at the Messeplatz in Basel, featuring 70 large-scale projects selected from 93 galleries. Curated by Giovanni Carmine, the showcase includes works such as Agnes Denes' wheat field installation, Mario Ceroli's peace-themed flags, Christo's wrapped Volkswagen Beetle (priced at $4 million), and pieces by Lutz Bacher, Alex Da Corte, and Anna Uddenberg. VIP collectors and museum directors, including Paul Ettlinger and Chris Dercon, were among the first attendees, with galleries using early social media posts to signal status and generate buzz.
Pilar Corrias is expanding her London gallery with a new 5,000-square-foot flagship space at 49-51 Conduit Street in Mayfair, featuring 16-foot ceilings and street-level access. The gallery, now 15 years old, has grown from representing 4 to 35 artists, including top-selling names like Christina Quarles. Corrias decided to open the new space after a four-year search, citing its rare size and industrial character as a contrast to her existing Savile Row location, which she will retain. The first exhibition in the new gallery will showcase new paintings by Christina Quarles.
The tenth edition of Photo London opened at Somerset House, marking a decade of growth for the UK's largest photography fair. The fair, running through May 18, has become a key event for the photography market, which has shown resilience despite broader art market declines. While global auction sales for photography dropped 5.6% in 2024 to $59 million, this was far less severe than the 27% overall art market decline, and sales volumes remained near record highs. New director Sophie Parker and cofounder Michael Benson highlighted growing interest from young collectors, though challenges remain as established galleries face an aging collector base and market uncertainty.
The Pioneer Works Village Fete, held on May 6 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, raised $1.4 million for the nonprofit arts institution. The event featured speeches by Austin Hearst (filmmaker and grandson of the media baron, whose wife Gabriela Hearst was lead sponsor) and founder Dustin Yellin, who also celebrated his 50th birthday. Attendees included Claire Danes, Darren Aronofsky, Fred Wilson, Maggie Rogers, and Moses Sumney, with a performance by David Byrne. The benefit auction included works by Derrick Adams and Nate Lewis, and party favors were provided by Gotham, a cannabis company.
At TEFAF 2025 in New York, held at the Park Avenue Armory, a panel titled "Thrill of the Chase" brought together three cultural tastemakers: gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, designer Adam Charlap Hyman, and curator Alexandra Cunningham Cameron. Moderated by Artnet's William Van Meter, the discussion explored what makes an object irresistible—whether beauty, rarity, mystery, or narrative—and how these figures curate their lives and work across art, design, and interiors.
This roundup covers multiple developments across the Asian art world. Notable events include the death of Korean artist Suki Seokyeong Kang at age 47; Robin Peckham leaving his role as co-director of Taipei Dangdai; Lucy Liu becoming a partner at Rachel Uffner Gallery, which will rebrand as Uffner and Liu; STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery presenting the first Southeast Asian solo show for Cuban artist Wifredo Lam; Art Week Tokyo returning with Adam Szymczyk curating its AWT Focus platform; Japanese painter Yu Nishimura joining David Zwirner; and the Rijksmuseum inviting Fiona Tan to curate a major exhibition. Other highlights include the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Tate Liverpool's planned 2027 reopening with a Chila Kumari Singh Burman retrospective, a Louvre-Doraemon collaboration, Boo Ji-hyun's permanent installation in Japan, Christie's Hong Kong Spring Asian Art Week sales totaling HK$567.6 million, and Sotheby's postponing a controversial Hong Kong auction of Buddhist relic-linked jewels. Hyundai Artlab named Jiaying Sim and Elvia Wilk as its 2025 Artlab Editorial Fellows.
This article explores the growing trend of artist-made furniture, which blurs the line between functional design and fine art. It highlights how artists like Salvador Dalí, Isamu Noguchi, Donald Judd, Tracey Emin, and the duo Les Lalanne have created pieces that invite physical interaction—such as sitting or touching—while retaining high art status. Gallerist Massimo de Carlo notes that collectors are drawn to this merging of art and life, and that such works offer both conceptual depth and investment value. The article also notes market disparities, with editions of furniture costing far less than unique works, though some pieces, like a François-Xavier Lalanne rhinoceros desk, have sold for nearly $20 million at auction.
Sotheby's three-part evening sale in New York on Thursday generated $186.1 million across 68 lots, landing near the high end of its $141 million to $204.9 million estimate. The sale included a focused 12-lot offering from the collection of late gallerist Barbara Gladstone, which sold all works without guarantees and totaled $18.5 million, and a 15-work guaranteed sale from dealer Daniella Luxembourg featuring postwar Italian artists, where Lucio Fontana's 'Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio' (1963) achieved $14.5 million and Michelangelo Pistoletto's 'Maria Nuda' (1969) sold for $2.7 million after a five-minute bidding war.
Michael Armitage's solo exhibition "Crucible" at David Zwirner's new Annabelle Selldorf-designed gallery in New York features paintings centered on migration, including the work *Path* (2024), inspired by a 2015 Vice News story about an Eritrean teenager's harrowing journey to Europe. The show also includes *Raft (ii)* (2024), a blurry homage to Théodore Géricault's *Raft of the Medusa*, and new sculptures that resemble wood carvings. The gallery itself, a single-story 18,000-square-foot space, opened after a larger planned venue fell through due to financial headwinds during Covid.
The article examines the resurgence of ceramics as a fine art medium, tracing its history from ancient Chinese and Greek pottery to the record-breaking $36 million sale of a Ming Dynasty chicken cup in 2014. It highlights influential figures like Peter Voulkos, who established ceramics departments at major institutions, and artists such as Ken Price, Ron Nagle, and Betty Woodman. Recent major museum exhibitions—including 'Strange Clay' at London’s Hayward Gallery, 'Funk You Too!' at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, and 'Ceramics in the Expanded Field' at MASS MoCA—showcase a new generation of artists pushing the medium beyond traditional craft.
Spring 2025 in New York City brings a dense calendar of art fairs, headlined by Frieze New York at The Shed (May 7–11) with over 65 galleries from 25 countries, and Independent at Spring Studios (May 8–11) which this year surpasses Frieze in size with 85 exhibitors. Other notable fairs include the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair celebrating its 10th year with a focus on the Caribbean diaspora, the experimental SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and NADA New York featuring 120 galleries and a spotlight on Texas and Mexico. The guide also mentions newer showcases like Esther II and Conductor, offering a comprehensive overview for collectors and art enthusiasts navigating the city's art week.
Two major New York art fairs—NADA New York and Independent—opened this week alongside Frieze and TEFAF, marking a crowded spring fair season. Despite a recent market downturn, both fairs reported strong attendance and early sales. NADA's executive director Heather Hubbs noted high-quality visitors and positive feedback on the new venue, while Independent founder Elizabeth Dee cited a 20% increase in opening-day attendance and robust buying from collectors and institutions. Sales ranged from lower-priced works under $50,000 to six-figure transactions, with galleries like Vielmetter Los Angeles, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, and Fleisher/Ollman Gallery reporting significant sales.
TEFAF New York 2025 opened with 91 exhibitors, featuring a mix of blue-chip and emerging artists. Galleries reported sales including a €250,000 relief by Anne Imhof at Sprüth Magers, a $500,000 Sean Scully painting at Lisson Gallery, and multiple Ruth Asawa works at David Zwirner ranging from $50,000 to $2.8 million. Thaddaeus Ropac sold works by Daniel Richter for €840,000. The fair aims to attract younger buyers while maintaining its prestige, with fewer objects priced above $10 million than in previous years.
New York appraiser and art dealer Glenn Spellman discovered an abstract painting signed "E.H." on the Goodwill thrift store website last fall. Suspecting it might be by Eva Hesse, he enlisted his sister Kara Spellman, director of estates and acquisitions at Hollis Taggart gallery, who confirmed the painting's authenticity by consulting the artist's catalogue raisonné at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's library. The painting, titled *Landscape Forms* (1959), was acquired for $40,000 and will be auctioned at Christie's New York on May 15 with an estimate of $60,000–$80,000. A second Hesse work, *No title* (1964–65), will be offered at Phillips New York the previous day.
Pace Gallery and Judin Gallery have opened a shared exhibition space in a converted 1950s gas station in Berlin's Schöneberg neighborhood, just ahead of Gallery Weekend Berlin. The venue, known as Die Tankstelle, was previously a museum dedicated to German artist George Grosz. Pace rents half the space from Judin founder Juerg Judin, with both galleries sharing operational costs. For the inaugural shows, Judin is exhibiting works on paper by Tom of Finland downstairs, while Pace shows works by Jean Dubuffet, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Robert Nava upstairs. The galleries will alternate exhibitions, each mounting about three per year.
Seven works on paper by Egon Schiele have been restituted to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer killed at Dachau concentration camp in 1941 after being forced to surrender his art collection to the Nazis. Six of these pieces will be auctioned at Christie’s New York in November 2024, with three watercolor portraits—including *Stehende Frau (Dirne)* (1912), *Selbstbildnis* (1910), and *Ich liebe Gegensätze* (1912)—headlining the 20th Century Evening Sale on November 9, and three more offered in the Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale on November 11. Estimates range from $150,000 to $2.5 million per work, and proceeds will be split among Grünbaum’s heirs, who plan to fund a scholarship program for young musicians.
Dan Flavin, the renowned Minimalist artist known for his fluorescent light installations, created two artworks dedicated to his golden retriever Airily, who was a champion show dog. The works, titled "untitled (to my dear bitch, Airily)" (1981) and "untitled (to my dear bitch, Airily) 2" (1984), are discussed in the context of Flavin's practice of dedicating pieces to people and pets. The second work, held by Kunstmuseum Basel, was displayed at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in 2008 and at Dia Bridgehampton in 1985.
A new group exhibition titled "Merci! John Giorno" has opened at Almine Rech Paris, celebrating the life and career of the late American artist John Giorno (1936–2019). Presented in collaboration with Giorno Poetry Systems, the show features Giorno's own works alongside pieces made for or inspired by him, including his iconic interactive work "Dial-A-Poem" (1968–ongoing) and his "Poem Paintings" begun in 1989. The exhibition also marks the tenth anniversary of the seminal show "Ugo Rondinone: I ♥ John Giorno" at the Palais de Tokyo in 2015. Running through June 7, 2025, it is complemented by other collaborations set in Parisian museums and regional venues throughout the year, including a revival of "Dial-A-Poem" in French at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
Morgan Stanley and Artnet have released an Intelligence Report analyzing the explosive growth of the ultra-contemporary art market—defined as work by artists born after 1974. Auction sales in this category surged 305% from 2019 to 2021, reaching $742.2 million last year, driven by strong demand in the U.S. and China. The report breaks down sales by region, price band, and leading artists, highlighting how galleries, fairs, museums, and collectors are capitalizing on this trend.
Ruth Asawa's first retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1973 featured a communal "dough-in" where children made art from baker's clay, a practice that drew skepticism from some onlookers. Now in 2025, SFMOMA presents a larger retrospective of Asawa's work, showcasing her wire sculptures, drawings, and playful, community-oriented art. The exhibition, organized by SFMOMA's Janet Bishop and MoMA's Cara Manes, will travel to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and the Fondation Beyeler.
The Centre Pompidou in Paris has opened "Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance 1950–2000," a landmark exhibition featuring 350 works by 150 largely underrecognized Black artists active in postwar Paris. The show includes paintings, sculptures, films, photographs, and archival materials, highlighting artists such as Georges Coran, Ed Clark, Beauford Delaney, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, and Ming Smith, and explores themes of Afro-Atlantic abstraction, Surrealism, anti-colonial activism, and jazz's influence on visual art.
Christie's is offering nine artworks from the collection of Anne and Sid Bass as part of its Spring Marquee Week in May. The works, which include pieces by Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, and Gino Severini, were displayed in the Bass House in Fort Worth, Texas—a Modernist residence designed by architect Paul Rudolph in the early 1970s. The house was built to serve both as a home and a gallery for the couple's renowned art collection.