ARTnews's Morning Links newsletter reports on multiple art-world developments. A new report from Puck and ARTDAI analyzes auction data for the first half of 2025, revealing that buyers are actively pursuing works by historically significant artists, with lower-value works seeing robust bidding but high-value purchases declining. Separately, Artnet News's Eileen Kinsella investigates why Canaletto's "Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" (circa 1730) sold for £31.9 million ($43.9 million) at Christie's, smashing the artist's auction record, with dealer Nicholas Hall citing its provenance, composition, and scale as key factors. The newsletter also notes an essay by Steven Pie in ArtReview critiquing the idea that identity politics has diminished contemporary art, responding to Dean Kissick's earlier Harper's Magazine piece.
This matters because the ARTDAI report provides crucial data on current market trends, indicating a shift toward undervalued historical works and private sales, which challenges narratives of declining art interest. The Canaletto sale highlights the enduring appeal of Old Masters and the power of provenance and rarity in driving record prices. Meanwhile, the ongoing debate over identity politics in art, sparked by Kissick and countered by Pie, reflects a broader cultural struggle over the role of social identity in artistic creation and criticism, with implications for how contemporary art is valued and discussed.