berlin mehdi chouakri gallery temporary pause 1234769671

Berlin’s Galerie Mehdi Chouakri announced a temporary pause from exhibitions after nearly thirty years and around 250 shows. Owner Mehdi Chouakri cited personal reasons and the increasing demands of the traditional primary market model. The gallery will continue to represent its estates and living artists through collaborations, and may mount a new exhibition as soon as fall 2025. The pause follows a difficult year for galleries globally, with several high-profile closures and retrenchments.

Where to go this weekend?

Wohin am Wochenende?

Major international exhibitions and events are launching this week, headlined by a massive Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the first of its scale in the U.S. since the 1970s. In Milan, Cao Fei debuts a research-heavy project at Fondazione Prada exploring the intersection of high-tech agriculture and tradition, while Berlin’s Georg Kolbe Museum recovers the legacy of British constructivist Marlow Moss. Additionally, the inaugural Art Cologne Palma Mallorca art festival opens in Spain, attempting to stimulate the market during a challenging economic period.

after 35 years in business galerie francesca pia becomes latest dealership to fold amid market downturn 1234758348

Galerie Francesca Pia, a fixture of the Swiss art scene for 35 years, has announced it will close its doors at the end of October. Founded in Bern in 1990 before moving to Zurich's prestigious Löwenbräukunst-Areal district, the gallery will conclude its operations following a final exhibition with American artist Wade Guyton. The closure marks the end of a significant tenure for a dealership that was a regular participant at Art Basel for over two decades.

strategic pause trend 2739853

A growing number of art fairs and galleries are publicly announcing a 'strategic pause'—a hiatus from their regular exhibition schedules to reassess their models. This week, Vienna's Spark Art Fair invoked the phrase to take a year off, following Berlin dealer Mehdi Chouakri's decision to suspend his gallery's exhibition program after 30 years. Last July, ADAA's Art Show coined the term when it announced a year-long break to reimagine the New York fair, and Taipei Dangdai in Taiwan followed suit days later. In December, an unprecedented number of galleries skipped Art Basel Miami Beach. The trend reflects a broader shift in the art world's willingness to openly acknowledge the need for rest and reinvention.