The obvious upside of fractionalized art ownership is that it allows investors to gain exposure to high-value artworks that would otherwise be financially out of reach. Observer Labs
There are several different ways to invest in art. A collector might buy a painting with the expectation that it will increase in value and then sell it once that increase materializes. Beyond that, there are also high-end art funds, including Artemundi, Anthea and Luxembourg, which are pooled investment vehicles that cater to high-net-worth individuals who are essentially buying into a collection. Newer companies such as Rally, Masterworks and Yieldstreet are geared toward less wealthy investors who might buy shares of a single artwork for as little as $20 to $100. Another option that has grown increasingly popular is for two or more people to jointly purchase an expensive artwork, splitting the costs, with the agreement that they will sell the piece once the opportunity for profit has grown.
“Fractional ownership of artworks is not rare on the art market; it actually has been relatively common for quite some time,” Kate Lucas, special counsel at the Manhattan law firm Grossman LLP, told Observer. She regularly works with art collectors, dealers and investors and explained that these types of ownership arrangements “can also arise in situations where multiple family members inherit a partial share of a single artwork. Generally speaking, and unless there’s a contract that says otherwise, when a work is owned by multiple fractional owners, one of those owners can agree to sell or collateralize his or her own share, but not the other co-owners’ shares, without their consent.”
The obvious upside of fractionalized art ownership is that it allows investors to gain exposure to high-value artworks that would otherwise be financially out of reach, often with relatively small minimum investments. Fractional ownership also enables diversification across artists, periods or individual works without tying up large amounts of capital in a single piece. Potentially more important to some is that the model removes many logistical burdens of art collecting: storage, insurance, conservation and sales are typically handled by the investment platform, offering investors interested in art as an asset class rather than as a personal possession an inroad that doesn’t require deep market expertise or dealer relationships.
The downsides of fractional art ownership are largely structural. Investors typically cannot sell their shares at will and instead must wait for a platform-controlled exit or a secondary market that may be thin or nonexistent. Control is also limited, as fractional owners may have little or even no say over when an artwork is sold, how it is exhibited or how it is conserved, all of which can affect value. Valuation may be opaque and based on internal appraisals rather than active market pricing, making it difficult to assess true performance. Legal complexity adds risk, as ownership interests are contractual rather than physical, and disputes can complicate claims.
Fractional ownership arrangements usually run smoothly, but as always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. William Pearlstein, a New York City lawyer who regularly works with clients in the art trade, noted that informal partnerships, generally consisting of two or three collectors or dealers, are “often undocumented or under-documented.” Under state law, these partnerships are known as “tenants in common” and are appealing because of their flexibility. “By contrast, art funds, like other private equity investments, are highly structured and well-documented.” The former arrangements, he said, “can get messy if the partners disagree about when to sell and for how much,” but the prevalence of fractional ownership suggests that such disagreements are relatively rare and that disputes are typically resolved privately with little fuss.
Not always, however. Between 2016 and 2019, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, postwar and contemporary art dealer Inigo Philbrick and his partner Robert Newland defrauded multiple individuals and entities in the New York and international art market by knowingly misrepresenting “the ownership of certain artworks, for example, selling a total of more than 100 percent ownership in an artwork to multiple individuals and entities without their knowledge and by selling artworks and/or using artworks as collateral on loans without the knowledge of co-owners and without disclosing the ownership interests of third parties to buyers and lenders.” The value of the artworks involved totaled $86 million. Newland, a British citizen who was extradited to the U.S., received a 20-month prison sentence, while Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Collectors should be certain that when shares in an artwork are offered for sale by a group of shareholders, every fractional owner has agreed to both the sale and the negotiated price. Auction houses offer items only when they are confident that a good title will pass to a buyer, but because art dealers sometimes form fractional ownership arrangements with investors, it may make sense for prospective buyers considering a gallery purchase to conduct a UCC-1 search to determine whether the owner or consignor of the artwork is a single individual or multiple parties.
Consignors of artworks or other property to galleries typically file these forms with the corporations division of a state’s Secretary of State’s office. The documents identify the owner or owners of consigned objects, allowing them to retrieve the works if a gallery declares bankruptcy and ensuring the pieces cannot be used as gallery assets to repay other creditors. Similarly, when an artwork is loaned by a collector to a gallery for an exhibition, a UCC-1 form clarifies that the piece is at the gallery temporarily and has not been offered for sale, protecting the owner from potential loss.
For consignors who are also fractional owners of artworks, the filing of a UCC-1 form serves an additional purpose. According to Megan Noh, a partner at the law firm Pryor Cashman, it alerts potential buyers of the property, as well as creditors of the other fractional owners, to their interest in the work. “It is saying to the world, ‘Hey, Joe Schmoe can’t pledge this artwork as collateral, because he is not the sole and complete owner of this property—I also own a share of this property.’ Or, similarly, ‘Hey, Christie’s, Joe Schmoe can’t consign this property to you without my permission, because I am a partial-owner along with Joe Schmoe.’”
For buyers, a UCC-1 filing also offers a measure of protection by indicating whether someone has asserted an ownership interest or a lien against the artwork that would prevent a good title from passing to a purchaser. However, a UCC-1 form cannot answer every question a prospective buyer might have. It may list multiple owners but not whether all have consented to a sale or whether one or more have already pledged or sold their shares to another party. It will not reveal if a fractional owner is experiencing financial distress or if a price is suspiciously low. As with any art purchase, buyers must remain diligent, asking questions of the gallery owner about the work’s condition and provenance and researching its quality, importance and price. At higher price points, lawyers are sometimes brought in to review purchase agreements and secure contractual protections such as representations, warranties and indemnification provisions.
As to exactly how often buying a stake in an artwork happens, the data-shy fine art world does its best to obfuscate the number of fractional ownership arrangements, though the total number of people buying fractionalized art is likely relatively small. A 2023 ArtTactic report found that 9 percent of art collectors had purchased fractional art shares, although 61 percent of those surveyed indicated they would likely do so within 12 months. Since then, fractional ownership platforms have expanded their reach as the model attracts new and younger investors who may not be able to afford an entire masterpiece but can splash out a few hundred dollars for a couple of shares.
The architect behind landmark cultural projects at the British Museum and the AlUla Contemporary Arts Museum discusses reimagining museums as evolving, participatory spaces. Kimberly Lloyd, Courtesy of LG—A
Lina Ghotmeh, recognized on this year’s Art Power Index, is changing the global conversation between art, architecture and place. Based in Paris and raised in Beirut, Ghotmeh has emerged as one of the defining voices of a new architectural sensibility rooted in sustainability, memory and cultural dialogue, rather than spectacle. Her recent and forthcoming projects span continents and histories: the British Museum’s sweeping Western Range redesign, the AlUla Contemporary Arts Museum in Saudi Arabia, the Jadids’ Legacy Museum in Uzbekistan and Qatar’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Each project, in her words, sits “at the crossroads of this transformation—where local narratives meet global dialogues.”
Ghotmeh’s approach, which she refers to as an “archaeology of the future,” treats architecture as both excavation and invention, a process of uncovering the social, material and emotional layers of a place before imagining what comes next. This philosophy took shape in her acclaimed Serpentine Pavilion in 2023, a table-like structure that beckoned visitors to sit, share and converse, turning architecture into an act of gathering.
The shifting power dynamics in the art world, from the rise of voices across the Global South to the integration of technology and A.I., are redefining cultural institutions. Ghotmeh envisions museums as “living environments” that immerse audiences in the creative process and connect them to the broader human story art continues to tell. For the architect, buildings are never neutral containers but vessels for dialogue, resilience and renewal. In reimagining how and where art is experienced, Ghotmeh is rethinking culture itself as a space for belonging, continuity and care.
What do you see as the most transformative shift in the art world power dynamics over the past year, and how has it impacted your own work or strategy?
Over the past year, I’ve felt a profound shift in both voices and geography within the art world. We are finally witnessing the rise of influential perspectives from the Global South and other historically underrepresented regions. This expansion of voices is not only reshaping who gets to speak but also how and where art is being shown. It signals a move toward a more plural and inclusive understanding of art as a critical platform—one capable of engaging with the most pressing social, cultural and environmental questions of our time.
This shift deeply informs the type of work I pursue and aligns with a trajectory I’ve been committed to for years. Projects such as designing Qatar’s National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the Jadid Museum in Uzbekistan, and the AlUla Contemporary Arts Museum in Saudi Arabia all sit at the crossroads of this transformation—where local narratives meet global dialogues.
Similarly, reimagining the British Museum as a vessel for a truly global art history offers an opportunity to rethink cultural institutions as spaces of exchange rather than dominance. It’s an invitation to reframe how we tell the story of humanity through art—decentering traditional hierarchies and embracing a more interconnected, equitable cultural landscape.
As the art market and industry continue to evolve, what role do you believe technology, globalization, and changing collector demographics will play in reshaping traditional power structures?
Art not only reflects culture but actively shapes it, serving as both a social force and an economic driver. As collector demographics shift, we’re witnessing new modes of collecting and new ways of constructing cultural narratives—ones that move beyond Western-centric frameworks and embrace more diverse and interconnected perspectives.
Technology, particularly A.I., is playing a transformative role in this process. It enables new kinds of artistic experiences and provides tools for reinterpreting and visualizing data in ways that were previously unimaginable. In our recent work with A.I. artists, for example, we’ve been exploring ways to visualize art histories from the Arab world. This process begins with the crucial task of collecting and structuring data that has long been overlooked or rendered invisible. Through this, knowledge and cultural memory that were once marginalized are reemerging, allowing for a more inclusive understanding of global art histories.
In this sense, technology and globalization are not merely reshaping the market—they’re redistributing cultural power, enabling new voices, narratives and regions to participate in defining the future of art.
Looking ahead, what unrealized opportunity or unmet need in the art ecosystem are you most excited to tackle in the coming year, and what will it take to make that vision a reality?
I’m deeply interested in rethinking how we show art and in reaffirming its central role within society. I believe museums and cultural spaces should evolve into living environments—places that not only exhibit art but also immerse audiences in the creative process itself. Spaces where people can experience how art is made, why it matters, and how it continues to shape our collective consciousness.
Art has accompanied humanity since its very beginnings—it is how we have sought to understand ourselves, substantiate our existence and give meaning to the world around us. Yet many institutions still treat it as something static or distant. The opportunity now lies in transforming museums into dynamic ecosystems of learning, participation and dialogue—bridging artists, communities and new technologies.
Realizing this vision requires rethinking institutional models, fostering collaboration across disciplines and embracing innovation in both curation and architecture. Ultimately, it’s about restoring art’s fundamental purpose: to connect us more deeply to one another and to the shared human story we continue to write.
You grew up in Beirut, a city with a complex history of destruction and rebuilding. How has that background shaped your approach to sustainability, resilience and place-making?
Living in a city where buildings are constantly collapsing and rising again, you understand that architecture is never only physical—it’s social, emotional and deeply tied to survival. Sustainability, for me, comes from that consciousness: to build with care, to use what is available, to adapt rather than erase. In Beirut, you see nature reclaiming ruins, and people reinhabiting them with extraordinary creativity. That taught me that true resilience lies in continuity, in working with the traces and resources already present. Every project I design begins with that same listening to place, so that what emerges feels born from its ground rather than imposed upon it.
You coined the term “archaeology of the future.” How do you balance uncovering historical traces and designing something genuinely new?
“Archaeology of the future” is both a method and an ethic. It means that before drawing, we excavate—not with shovels, but with research and attention. We study a site’s geology, its crafts, its human stories, its past uses. But this act of uncovering is not nostalgic. The goal is to let those traces inspire something that speaks to today and tomorrow. In Stone Garden, the innovative technique of hand-plastered façade carries Beirut’s collective memory, echoing natural forms found in the city and belonging to the ground, yet its vertical form points to regeneration. The building rises as a novel form anchored in its place. In the Bahrain Pavilion for Expo 2025, we drew on traditional boatbuilding to create a light, demountable timber structure, entirely new but rooted in cultural memory. The past is not a model; it’s a fertile ground from which the new can grow.
How does that translate when designing spaces meant to hold art—objects that carry their own histories and spiritual weight?
Designing for art demands humility. These are spaces of encounter, between artworks, viewers and time itself. Architecture must offer silence and presence at once. The space should talk about the place where we are. Building in AlUla, for example, is an invitation to think of the galleries as earthly structures warmly welcoming art, all while framing nature. At the British Museum, we are working within a building dense with history, yet our aim is not to add another layer of authority but to open it up—to allow light, porosity and new readings of the collection.
The architecture becomes a mediator, a frame that encourages reflection rather than spectacle. Some new spaces we are designing restore a lost feeling of openness, of sky, the use of local stone for the finish reminds us about the place we are in. I like to think of architecture as a vessel for dialogue, where both the art and the visitor can breathe, all while allowing us to dream.
Many contemporary buildings feel imposed rather than born of their surroundings. How do you resist that tendency in your own work?
A building is not an exercise of style; it is an extraordinary place that needs to be inhabited. With my team, I begin each project with listening, to the land, the resources, the crafts, the wind, the people. Context is about an environment; it is not a constraint; it’s the material of the work. I try to design buildings that feel as though they could not exist anywhere else if they are meant to stay still in their place. In Normandy, the Hermès Workshops were built with bricks made from the site’s own earth. We worked with local brick makers and revived an artisanal work present for decades in the region. These gestures root the project in its environment. I think architecture should belong to its place as naturally as a tree grows from soil—it should feel inevitable, not imported.
In redesigning major cultural and arts institutions, you are dealing not just with architecture, but with narratives, audience behaviors and institutional purpose. What can you tell us about the experience of collaborating with curators, conservators and communities?
Architecture is the art of collaboration. It begins with an idea—a concept rooted in a place and informed by its history and context. From there, it becomes an act of orchestration: a dialogue among disciplines, a collaborative process in which all voices are heard, allowing the building to embody and integrate diverse perspectives and skills.
In Qatar, we are currently working on several museum and exhibition projects. These are developed in close collaboration with curators, whose experience across different institutions brings depth and richness to the work. The community is also ever-present, through the ways people will use these spaces, the possibilities they create and the processes of making itself. I believe architecture is a means to guide knowledge and empower people through creation.
What do you see as the most under-addressed challenge or challenges in cultural architecture at this moment?
We still design too many cultural buildings as static monuments rather than evolving ecosystems. This risks alienating art and cultural spaces from the public, rendering them inaccessible, even though art is essential to our humanity and part of everyday life.
The future demands openness and flexibility: spaces that can adapt to changing programs, technologies and communities. Another challenge lies in the diplomatic role of cultural spaces: in a world that may grow increasingly divided, museums and cultural institutions can serve as bridges between people, reminding us of our shared humanity while celebrating our differences as a source of richness. They are platforms for critical questions and spaces for meaningful dialogue.
As Bruno Latour reminds us, “We have never been modern,” and this insight urges us to reconsider the artificial separation between culture, nature and technology. Cultural buildings must embody this continuity: becoming living, relational environments that connect human, material and ecological realities.
Moreover, the ecological dimension of cultural spaces is an ever-growing concern. Museums remain among the most resource-intensive building types. We need to rethink how we conserve artworks, how we build, reuse and manage energy, all without compromising the sensorial and human experience of art.
You often operate at the intersection of architecture, national identity and culture with projects like the Osaka Expo 2025 Bahrain Pavilion or the AlUla Contemporary Arts Museum in Saudi Arabia, slated to open in 2027. How do you think about the role of architecture in articulating both place and global aspiration?
Architecture has the power to express identity while remaining open to the world. In Bahrain, the pavilion embodies the island’s maritime heritage—its wooden craftsmanship and its relationship to the sea—yet it also speaks of shared ecological values with Japan. In AlUla, surrounded by desert and archaeology, the Contemporary Art Museum will be a dialogue between landscape and art, history and the future. It suggests that the museum become a series of open pavilions, intertwined and interacting with nature. For me, global aspiration should not mean universality through sameness, but connection through specificity. The more rooted a building is, the more it resonates beyond its borders.
When you imagine the art spaces of the future, what do they look and feel like?
I imagine future cultural spaces like a kitchen—alive with cooks and guests in constant interaction. They thrive outside the box, in lively places where texture, light and life unfold intensely.
These spaces will also extend into immaterial worlds. With the rise of digital platforms, we are invited to experience art in a new, hybrid dimension—one that merges the virtual and the physical. This deepens the need to intertwine both realms, to strengthen the sensoriality of the physical while embracing the possibilities of the digital.
Museums and cultural spaces of the future will be lighter, more open and deeply connected to their environment. I imagine buildings that breathe—filled with natural light, porous thresholds and a tactile sense of material. Spaces that invite people to gather, not only to look. They will reuse what exists, evolve over time and dissolve the boundaries between art, nature and daily life. Above all, they will cultivate presence: places where people feel grounded, inspired and connected to one another through beauty and thought.
David Hockney, The Poet, from The Blue Guitar, 1976-77. Courtesy of Adam Baumgold Gallery
Auction results are usually the only public data available for reading the art market, even though they reflect only the secondary sphere. Art fair sales reports can hint at how the primary market is behaving and what collectors are circling, but even those numbers are unstable, shaped by discounts, negotiations and the many variables that can shift between an invoice being issued and a wire arriving. Artsy, widely regarded as the largest online marketplace for art, recently released its first Buyer Trends Report based on the searches and primary-market transactions on its platform, offering a clearer picture of what collectors were buying in 2025.
“This report reinforces the patterns we identified in Artsy’s Art Market Trends 2025: collectors are becoming more selective, and that discipline is directing demand toward the primary market—especially mid-tier and emerging artists,” Artsy CEO Jeffrey Yin told Observer, noting that works priced under $10,000 are benefiting as buyers look for strong entry points that do not rely on speculation. “Even as the top end recalibrates, the fundamentals remain healthy. People are acquiring art they genuinely want to live with, at price points that feel responsible in today’s market.”
Trend 1: Smaller paintings at smaller prices
Small paintings have dominated recent gallery shows and fairs, particularly on the emerging side. Pocket-sized works encourage a more intimate and emotional relationship with the subject, but they are also easier to live with—lighter to ship, simpler to frame and far less punishing when it comes to storage or relocation. In cities like New York and London, where aggressive real estate markets make long-term leases a luxury, collectors are increasingly opting for art that can move with them.
Artsy’s users in 2025 were actively seeking art on a micro scale, with searches for “micro,” “mini” and “small” rising 40 percent, 47 percent and 49 percent. Forty percent of all purchases on the platform were for small works, and acquisitions tagged as “miniature and small-scale paintings” increased 66 percent year over year.
These numbers may be predictable for an online marketplace, where buyers tend to trust digital transactions for lower price tiers rather than multimillion-dollar blue-chip masterpieces that require in-person due diligence. Still, the pattern aligns with the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, which noted that while the highest-end segment contracted sharply (sales above $10 million fell steeply in both number and total value), works priced below $50,000 accounted for roughly 85 percent of dealer transactions in 2024. Smaller galleries—those with under $250,000 in annual turnover—reported a 17 percent increase in sales. The report also confirmed steady growth in the sub-$5,000 range, mirroring Artprice’s recent data showing a rise in transactions under $10,000. Hiscox’s 2024 Online Art Trade Report found that 60 percent of online buyers purchased works under $5,000, with the fastest-growing bracket under $1,000. At the fair level—from NADA Miami and Untitled Art, which just closed, to Independent New York and Future Fair—small-format works were often among the first to sell out, frequently within VIP day, as both younger and seasoned collectors favored accessible entry points that fit urban apartments.
The design world is echoing the same preference. Artsy identified the rise of “gallery wall” and salon-style décor as a key trend, with interiors favoring densely hung arrangements of small pieces over single statement works. Publications from Elle Decor to The New York Times have likewise pointed to small-format art as the next major wave in collecting—easier to buy, easier to place and uncannily suited to the economic and spatial realities of 2025.
As collectors lean toward more affordable, manageable formats, editions and drawings are also gaining popularity, particularly for those who want to access established and blue-chip names otherwise out of reach. Artsy’s report dedicates a spotlight to David Hockney, who, after a few landmark years of museum shows, saw a spike in demand not only for paintings but also for prints available at more accessible price points. Searches for his name were up 46 percent on Artsy in 2025, making him the third most searched artist on the platform, with strong demand for his more “popular-priced” etchings.
Trend 2: Blue’s growing appeal
In a time of uncertainty and global turmoil, collectors have been turning toward the calming psychological pull of blue. Searches for “blue” on Artsy were up 20 percent year over year, with a particular preference for cobalt, a deep, vivid shade. Searches for “cobalt” rose 131 percent year over year, while purchases tagged “bright and vivid colors” increased 22 percent.
Yves Klein, California (IKB 71), 1961. Sold for €18.4 million ($21.4 million). Christie’s
As water becomes more precious and record-hot summers force us to reckon with its growing scarcity, blue has gained traction for its association with water. Works depicting swimming pools, waves and open seas have seen growing interest, with searches for “ocean,” “sea” and “water” rising by 33 percent, 28 percent and 24 percent, respectively. This trend has been visible at fairs over the past few years and in the auction market—most notably with Yves Klein’s California (IKB 71) (1961), a monumental museum-grade masterpiece that sold for €18.37 million ($21.34 million) at Christie’s Paris in October.
But the blue trend extends well beyond the art world. Pantone’s Spring 2025 palette featured multiple saturated blues, with Strong Blue among its most circulated seasonal shades. Vogue declared cobalt the “new it-color,” as designers Tommy Hilfiger and Loewe leaned into deep blues in their spring/summer 2025 runway shows. Miu Miu, Balenciaga and Ferragamo pushed electric and ultramarine blues in recent campaigns, while beauty and consumer culture followed suit: Glossier and Rare Beauty launched cobalt liners, Dyson released cobalt-violet appliances that became TikTok fixtures and Apple’s deep-blue iPhone finish emerged as the most ordered shade of its cycle.
Trend 3: A return to nature
This widespread desire to disconnect and return to the essence has also fueled a renewed longing for nature—something many rediscovered during the pandemic. This “bucolic escapism,” a contemporary take on the idyll, has taken hold in gallery shows and fair presentations through dreamy landscapes, rolling hillsides, lush gardens and flower compositions, as well as scenes of horses.
Art history offers precedent: renewed fascination with pastoral imagery tends to surface during moments of political fatigue or cultural volatility. In Ancient Rome, pastoral ideals emerged amid expansion, civil war and social anxiety, as poets and painters projected fantasies of rustic simplicity—Virgil’s Arcadia being the archetype. After the turmoil of the Napoleonic era, European painters embraced a neoclassical pastoral vocabulary as an antidote to upheaval and imperial overreach. The pastoral has long served as a stabilizing fiction—a world governed by harmony rather than conflict, by timeless nature rather than chaotic politics. Today’s appetite for harmonious landscapes, garden scenes and atmospheric horizons reflects similar pressures: climate dread, digital overload and geopolitical tension.
Caleb Hahne Quintana, A Flicker in the Ancient Rhythm (detail), 2025. Flashe and drybrush on linen, 74 x 54 in. Courtesy the artist and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photo by Shark Senesac
On Artsy, purchases of works tagged “landscapes and waterscapes” were up 35 percent year over year, “flora” up 44 percent and “earth tones” up 29 percent. Searches for related topics also accelerated: “picnic” rose 208 percent, “outdoors” 80 percent, “nature” 30 percent and “landscapes” 19 percent.
Once again, the trend extends beyond the art world, with organic, nature-inspired shapes, earth tones and natural light dominating collectible design and interiors—fueling continued momentum for the Lalannes—and echoing lifestyle culture more broadly. Biophilic design, from indoor gardens to moss-green upholstery and stone surfaces, has become a recurring feature in architecture and retail, while fashion and wellness brands lean into materials and palettes that promise grounding and retreat in an increasingly unstable, urbanized world. Pinterest’s 2025 summer trend report highlighted a sharp rise in nature-oriented searches tied to the “digital detox” narrative. Airbnb reported a 100 percent increase in searches for countryside stays and a 50 percent rise for national park stays, with Gen Z driving a 26 percent surge in fall travel searches—Vermont ranked as a top foliage destination. TripAdvisor and other booking data indicate that smaller, nature-adjacent cities are outperforming major metropolitan destinations, and the U.S. National Park System logged roughly 332 million visits in 2024, confirming that nature-based travel and outdoor engagement have become defining trends of 2025.
Trend 4: The return of domestic tableus
With the pandemic, for better or worse, people rediscovered the pleasures of staying home, reviving interest in domestic rituals such as cooking and shared meals. Unsurprisingly, the final key trend Artsy identified is the rising popularity of still lifes that depict this comforting domesticity, along with scenes of people eating together. Purchases of works tagged “food” were up 61 percent year over year, while searches for “dinner” and “food” each rose 44 percent, “dining” 38 percent, “meal” 28 percent and “table” 18 percent.
Once again, the trend extends across lifestyle and communication. Etsy reported that searches for “dining ware” and “supper club,” driven by table-setting categories, surged by 1,000 percent. Social platforms are flooded with cooking tutorials, dinner-party events and images of dining—often at home. On TikTok, “dinner parties” content views were up 70 percent year over year and #CookingTok remained one of the most active tags, while on Instagram, posts tagged #tablescape increased over 35 percent. On YouTube, cooking videos saw a 25 percent increase in watch time, and Eventbrite reported a 45 percent rise in cooking-class bookings in 2024-2025. As eating out becomes more expensive and people feel more disconnected and alienated, the rediscovery of cooking and sharing food reflects a contemporary nostalgia as much as a desire to reconnect with the essence—what truly nourishes body and soul.
Now, if we think of art as both symptom and palliative, these buying patterns begin to read as something larger than market behavior. They reveal a broader societal undercurrent—a map of what people are seeking, avoiding or trying to soothe. In this sense, what collectors gravitate toward becomes a quiet proxy for the contemporary condition, a way of understanding not only what is selling but what people feel they need.
The founder of Arts Economics discusses how globalization, new wealth demographics and online sales are reshaping the balance of power in the art world. Paul McCarthy, Courtesy of Arts Economics
Clare McAndrew, featured on this year’s Art Power Index, has done what many thought impossible: she quantified the art market. As the founder of Arts Economics and author of the annual Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report, McAndrew has become the industry’s de facto oracle, translating the art world’s opaque dynamics into data points, patterns and insights. When her report lands each spring, its results ripple across the market—from charting the health of global sales, identifying emerging regions and revealing the settlement behind the numbers.
Over two decades, McAndrew has redefined how the art trade understands itself, applying the rigor of economics to a sector often governed by instinct and perception. Her analyses have shown how concentrated wealth, demographic change and globalization have remodeled the market’s power structures, and how resilience increasingly comes from its peripheries, not its peaks.
This past year was a pivotal one for the global art economy, marked by softening sales at the top end, a surge of activity in the sub-$50,000 segment and a generational shift driven by Gen Z and women collectors. New technologies, direct-to-artist sales and global diversification are transforming the market’s infrastructure, she reports, while also questioning how the boundaries of art are defined as luxury goods and collectibles enter the fold. McAndrew has emerged as an economist who helps markets evolve by revealing how confidence, perception and access shape value in ways that pure data cannot.
What do you see as the most transformative shift in the art world power dynamics over the past year, and how has it impacted your own work or strategy?
Sales in the art market for many years have been driven by an intense focus on a very small number of artists at the high end, which has escalated their prices, while creating higher barriers to entry for new artists and a winner-take-all type market scenario, where the works of the most famous artists are demanded the most, while emerging artists and the galleries and businesses that support them find it harder to generate sales and build careers. Alongside this, as most of what the mainstream media reports on is the multi-million dollar sums paid for this very small number of artists’ works, new buyers are led to believe that the art market is out of their reach, and that you can only get a quality work of art if you have a budget of over $1 million or so, when in fact there are so many other less publicized artists and works available at much lower prices.
These really high-priced sales were critical in driving the recovery of the market from the pandemic, particularly sales of ultra-contemporary and contemporary art, which outperformed other segments by a significant margin. However, a significant shift over the last year is that these are the two areas that have now slowed down the most. The segment of artworks sold for over $10 million has softened both in terms of volumes and value, and some of the bigger businesses have come under more pressure than some of the smaller ones. While this might not radically transform the market’s power dynamics overnight, it has at least shifted the focus away from that very narrow high end and the tiny share of artists it supports. Although some of the recent narrative around the market has been negative—focusing on a lack of eight- and nine-digit sales—there have actually been a growing number of transactions taking place, albeit at lower price levels, which is a positive development.
As the art market and industry continue to evolve, what role do you believe technology, globalization and changing collector demographics will play in reshaping traditional power structures?
My latest report on global collecting highlights the increasingly significant presence of female artists in the market and the growing influence of women as collectors, facilitated in part by shifts in the distribution and growth of wealth. Our research also uncovered the growing dominance of young Gen Z collectors, who were the most active across many of the fine art and collectibles segments. As wealth shifts towards these segments (including large vertical and horizontal transfers of inherited wealth), their preferences will become more dominant and how they want to buy and engage with the market will have a greater impact.
In terms of globalization, one of the key factors supporting the current size and ongoing development of the market is its increasingly global infrastructure, with sales of art literally all around the world and the emergence of a number of new art markets developing over the last 20 years in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and other regions. The global distribution of the art market has altered substantially.
From the 1960s, when Paris lost its central position in the art market, the U.S. dominated sales alongside the U.K., with London and New York accounting for at least three-quarters of the market during the 1980s and 1990s. One of the biggest changes came around 2004/2005 when China emerged as a global player, and with a huge boom in sales there while the rest of the world was suffering in the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), making it (temporarily) the biggest market in the world in 2011 (albeit by a small margin). This was made all the more remarkable by the fact that until the death of Mao in 1976, it had been illegal to even own or exchange works of art in China. This injection of sales and the much more global nature of the art market have really protected its aggregate value from downside risks and helped it bounce back much quicker from crises and recessions.
In the market recession in the early 1990s, when it was so solely dominated by the U.S and Europe, it took almost 15 years for the market to get back on its feet, but post-GFC and post-Covid, the bounce back has been much quicker as sales are diversified across so many different regions and segments.
Looking ahead, what unrealized opportunity or unmet need in the art ecosystem are you most excited to tackle in the coming year, and what will it take to make that vision a reality?
There are so many interesting questions to look into about where the market is going, but from a methodological point of view, for my research, one of them I’m trying to focus on going forward relates to defining the boundaries of the market.
I have concentrated most of my research on the traditional art businesses (auction houses and dealers), but there are now a lot more agents involved in the market—artists are selling more directly, with disintermediation enabled through social media and online selling, collectors selling directly to each other, plus other platforms and agents outside of galleries and auction houses. How we account for and measure these sales will become increasingly important in understanding the activity in the sector as a whole, especially when we’re trying to assess its economic and social impact.
There are also continuing changes in what’s being sold in the “art” market, with an expanding range of collectibles and luxury products being sold by dealers and at auction houses, or even within “art”—new digital mediums and channels for accessing these works. The traditional mediums still dominate by value for now, but that could change in the future, and how we measure and expand those boundaries will be a continuing focus for my research in collaboration with academics and experts in the art market over the next few years.
What inspired you to want to bring greater transparency and reliability to a field often described as opaque, mysterious or relationship-driven?
When I first started out, my earliest reports focused on artists, looking at ways they could build better careers (or even just earn a viable income) and how government policies might help or hold them back. I uncovered early in this research that one of the best ways for them to succeed financially was to have a healthy and active market for their work, so my research pivoted to the art trade.
It became clear from working with dealers and auction houses that when they were approaching governments asking for help or changes in regulations to boost the trade, the first questions they would get asked were things like how big is the market, and how many people does it employ. There was a glaring lack of any of this objective industry benchmarking data to answer those questions, which inspired me to try to fill those gaps.
While there is some good, large-scale public data on auctions and exhibitions, many of the transactions in the market are private, so we have to use a very mixed methodological approach, relying heavily on surveys, sentiment testing and other qualitative research methods (alongside quantitative analysis) to build a better picture of the market.
I have increasingly embraced the importance of more qualitative methods and subjective expertise, which is quite different than when I came out of academia and believed that quants, data and econometric modelling could solve most of the market’s problems.All of the metrics and analytical tools that have been developed in the last decade or two in the art market are very useful, as is the increasing amount of data available, but their practical applications in guiding specific decisions have real limits, especially for collectors. There is still nothing really to replace the much more subjective advice you might get from an artist or dealer or advisor to guide the choice of one work over another, so expertise and relationships are still important.
After years of analyzing cycles of boom, correction and resilience, what have you learned about how confidence and optimism—or lack thereof—shape the art market differently than traditional financial markets?
Confidence is critical in the art market, and it relates to one of its most important features—that it is essentially supply-driven. Even if there is really strong demand around, there will only ever be a limited number of total works available on the market at any particular point in time, for all deceased artists, but for living artists too, where there are limits on how much they can really “make to order” in the short run. Rather than being driven by the costs of production or the availability of inputs, art prices are driven by their scarcity value—the factor that increases their relative price based on their low or fixed supply. And because of this scarcity in the market, prices for certain works can catapult up to really high levels when they come onto the market, as buyers try to grasp the really limited opportunities to acquire them.
Things like commodities are traded virtually every second, but in the art market, it’s much slower, and many works have a long market cycle. It can be 20 to 40 years before a work appears again, and some never do. The fact that opportunities to purchase certain works are so limited adds to the scarcity value, and works that are fresh to market or have been kept in private collections for years, for example, can spark a frenzy of interest and generate huge prices when they come up for sale. Increased supply (works coming up for sale) can have a positive, upward effect on prices (and the value of aggregated sales), which is obviously very different from other asset markets where increases in supply drive prices downward.
What this means is that vendor confidence and optimism about the market is key—how potential sellers view the state of the market and whether or not they should put works up for sale really often determines what happens as much as or more than prevailing demand.
On the secondary art market, supply is often generated by some exogenous event (like one of the famous “d’s”—divorce, disaster, death or debt), but where there’s a choice on the timing of the sale, it will often be down to perceptions of the strength of the market. The market can literally talk itself in and out of cycles to some extent.
The top end of the art market is increasingly polarised, with a very small number of artists capturing a large share of value. What risks does this concentration pose for the long-term resilience of the broader market?
This has been an ongoing issue in the market with an intense focus on a very small number of artists at the high end, which has driven up their prices, while creating higher barriers to entry for new artists and a winner-take-all type market scenario. One way to reduce risk and search and validation costs for those buyers unfamiliar with the market is to only purchase well-recognized works or those by really famous artists.
By doing that, you’re basically relying on the established preferences of previously successful buyers who have already bought that artist’s work, reducing their risks and insecurities about relying on your own taste in making the right choice. Collectively, these risk-reducing techniques tend to reinforce the “superstar phenomenon” in the art market, whereby the works of the most famous artists (living or dead) are demanded the most and achieve by far the highest prices in the market, while emerging artists face ever higher hurdles in gaining entry. This isn’t new, and it’s not only in the art market.
In the 1980s, American economist Sherwin Rosen pioneered the study of the economics of superstars and believed that some superstar artists or ‘masters’ reached their position justly because they were more talented, but the differences in their talent versus those less successful were much less than the differences in success. He also felt that some were, in fact, no more talented than their less-recognized peers, but their greater success was driven by the need of consumers for common tastes and culture or to “consume as others are consuming.” The problem associated with the superstar ethos in the art market is not just that it drives up prices, but also that it can deprive other artists of the opportunity to work by concentrating demand.
Alongside this, a lot of the media focus on art is just on the multi-million dollar sums paid for a very small number of artists, so a lot of new buyers can think that the art market is out of their reach, and that you can only get a quality work of art if you have a budget of over $1 million or so, when in fact there’s a huge range of prices and great works available at much lower levels.
I have been looking, in my research, on collecting at the parallel issue in the infrastructure of wealth. In the art market, like other luxury goods, discretionary purchasing power is enabled by greater wealth, and that in turn empowers growth in sales. Over the last couple of years, more wealth has been concentrated in the top 1 percent of society and greater wealth inequality is often linked to stronger purchasing in luxury markets across regions and over time. A higher concentration of wealth in the top percentiles has been a key factor driving strong sales and rising prices at the top of the art market in the past.
While this is most obviously linked to more purchasing by the wealthiest in society, who are more active in luxury markets, inequality can also shift demand in lower wealth tiers. In some cases, more unequal societies can create heightened status competition and anxiety as people become more sensitive to their position in the social and economic hierarchy. This can lead to greater ‘conspicuous consumption’ among those in lower-wealth tiers too, as people try to keep up, or bridge the gap, by imitating the lux spending habits of the wealthy. While this can boost sales in the lower end of art and other luxury markets, it has a range of potentially negative complications, not least being more consumer borrowing and debt accumulation.
As inequality becomes more pronounced, it can also lead to giving up, rather than keeping up, if the perception of upward mobility seems less hopeful or just less attractive. In the extreme, increases in inequality could endanger the market’s potential for long-term development. If consumers in wealth tiers below the very top engage less—or never even start collecting—the market could narrow further and value concentrate more at the top, and this is a segment that recent years have shown to be highly susceptible to wider risks and growth limitations.
On a positive note, while the aggregate figures show that the market has declined by value for two years, the most positive developments have been the growth of sales at the lower and more affordable ends of the market, with the number of artworks sold for prices in the sub-$50,000 expanding, and evidence of success by both dealers and auction houses in reaching new buyers, giving the market a broader and more diversified base for sales. This doesn’t really get focused on, though, in the press, which tends to only look at the big figures, which are so skewed by the tiny, narrow high end.
With the rise of digital channels, new collectible categories and luxury products entering the ‘art’ market—and younger collectors looking beyond traditional fine art, do you have plans to adapt your research and reporting frameworks to capture these newer forms of value and transaction?
Yes, I’m going to be starting new research on the secondary collectibles market that I’m hoping to publish in 2026. It’s a huge market and there’s strong evidence of an expansion in interest in this area over the last few years, especially with young collectors. In my recent research on HNW collectors, about 60 percent of their spending by value over the last year was on fine art, and 40 percent was on collectibles. For Gen Z collectors, just over half of the average spend was collectibles, and their levels were more than five times any other generation group on things like collectible luxury handbags and sneakers.
While some of the diversification in spending might be a reaction to the uncertain environment we’ve been in, it’s also part of a longer-term shift in what people buy, but also how they access the market. Within the art market, we’ve seen a big advance in digital sales following the pandemic, with e-commerce increasing from 9 percent of total sales by value in 2019 to 25 percent in 2020. Although this did settle back a little, the change seems to be more permanent, with a share of 18 percent last year, below the peak, but still double the share of 2019 or any year prior to that. It’s interesting as this is coming alongside greater art fair attendance and gallery exhibition visits compared to prior to the pandemic, so while collectors still want to visit exhibitions and see works in person, when targeting a specific work to purchase, they have become increasingly comfortable with doing so online.
Online channels are key entry points to the market for new buyers too. They have been consistently identified as the main source of new buyers for auction houses, and almost half of the sales dealers made online in 2024 were to new buyers. The expansion of the volume of transactions over the last few years has been facilitated by greater reach through e-commerce, despite the fact that the highest-value sales remained offline.
Outside the traditional art market, there are also more sales taking place directly with artists, on artist-based platforms and between other private agents. Dealers are still the most used channels for buying art in the surveys we conducted on HNW collectors, but there was a big gain in direct sales with artists, with over a third having bought directly from the online, through social media or through a visit to their studios.
Dynamo Phyllis Kao led Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, which scored a $178.5 million result with strong participation from Asia. Julian Cassady Photography / Ali
After a challenging 2024—marked by a 25 percent contraction in the auction market—both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are closing 2025 with a clear rebound, according to newly released year-end results. Sotheby’s reported projected consolidated sales of $7 billion for 2025, a 17 percent increase over 2024. Christie’s, on a similar upward trajectory, expects to finish the year with $6.2 billion in global sales, up nearly 7 percent from last year’s $5.8 billion and broadly in line with its 2023 total. Following a slow start dampened by subdued May auctions, both houses regained momentum after the summer as the market strengthened, culminating in a multibillion-dollar fall season across London and New York.
While the blockbuster results of November’s marquee sales may not be sufficient on their own to signal a full recovery—concentrated as they are at the very top of the market—the broader picture reflected in these year-end numbers offers more substantial grounds for optimism. This year’s gains were driven not only by fine-art trophies but also by the continued rise of luxury collectibles and design—categories that are proving especially effective at attracting new buyers, often younger and from emerging markets, and ultimately broadening the base of the market overall.
Sotheby’s record year, led by trophies and luxury
Sotheby’s recorded a 26 percent year-over-year increase in auction sales to $5.7 billion, with a sharp acceleration in the second half of the year, which brought in 59 percent more than the same period in 2024. Private sales contributed an additional $1.2 billion, slightly below the prior year but still substantial.
Fine art sales generated $4.3 billion in revenue for the auction house in 2025, marking a 15 percent increase from the previous year’s downturn. The rebound was fueled by the exceptional quality of consignments secured for the fall season, including record-breaking masterpieces such as the $236.4 million Gustav Klimt—the most expensive work ever sold by Sotheby’s—and the $54.7 million Frida Kahlo, which set a new record for a work by a female artist.
November’s inaugural sales at the Breuer delivered the year’s biggest revenue surge, with six white-glove auctions totaling $1.173 billion in just a few days. Single-owner collections played a decisive role, including the $527.5 million Lauder collection in New York and the $137 million Karpidas collection earlier in London—high-profile consignments that helped lift market sentiment at a critical moment. “Our strong performance in the second half of the year demonstrates clear momentum in our markets, driven by more high-quality, major collections meeting Sotheby’s record levels of buyer demand,” confirmed Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart.
At the same time, Sotheby’s “Another World” strategy—transforming its major regional headquarters from Hong Kong to Paris and now the iconic Breuer building into cross-category boutique destinations—is beginning to deliver tangible results. The luxury sector is becoming increasingly central to the business, generating $2.7 billion in revenue, up 22 percent year-over-year and surpassing $2 billion for the fourth straight year.
Luxury is also emerging as a primary driver of market expansion, capable of attracting younger collectors while opening doors to new and rising markets. This was underscored by Sotheby’s successful $133 million Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi, whose cross-category luxury offerings drew collectors from 35 countries. Of those bidding, 28 percent were new to Sotheby’s and nearly one-third were under the age of 40.
The $10.1 million sale of Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin in Paris this summer focused attention on both the rising value and estate-planning complexities of luxury collectibles. Sotheby’s also reported a record year for watches, with a $42.8 million white-glove December auction in New York immediately following Collectors’ Week. That sale was led by the record-breaking complete four-piece set of the Patek Philippe Star Caliber 2000, which sold for $11.9 million.
Jewelry maintained strong momentum in Abu Dhabi and globally, with sales up approximately 18 percent. Meanwhile, RM Sotheby’s automotive division exceeded $1 billion in revenue for the first time, propelled by multiple records—including a 1994 McLaren F1 (chassis 014), the most expensive McLaren ever sold at public auction, and the highest-priced new Ferrari ever to hit the auction block during Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week.
Sports collectibles continue to attract bidders, but the standout among today’s collectibles may be dinosaurs, as demonstrated by the juvenile Ceratosaurus that soared to $30.5 million at Sotheby’s—more than seven times its low estimate.
The Design category also continues to gain traction and importance, with 65 percent growth over last year. It closed with a $50.2 million auction earlier this month—the highest total ever for the category—led by Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar, which reached a record-setting $31.4 million.
Taken together, these categories are central not only to sustaining the market but to reshaping Sotheby’s identity—from a traditional auction house catering primarily to connoisseurs into a broader luxury-experience destination capable of attracting bidders across multiple price tiers. This represents a key strategy in today’s market. By expanding participation and transaction volume, Sotheby’s can continue to drive revenue growth even as the ability to consistently secure multimillion-dollar fine-art masterpieces—this season included—remains neither guaranteed nor sufficient on its own to support headline results year after year.
Adrien Meyer sells the top lot of The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G Ross Weis, Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) for $62,160,000. Christie’s
At Christie’s, the right pricing strategy met sustained bidding
Christie’s also reported what CEO Bonnie Brennan described as a “healthy and successful year,” with total auction revenue rising 8 percent to $4.7 billion. Combined with $1.5 billion in private sales—representing approximately 24 percent of the total—this brought the auction house’s global sales for 2025 to $6.2 billion, a 7 percent increase from the previous year.
One of the clearest indicators of how sustained bidding aligns with pricing strategy on the auction-house side is sell-through and sold-by-lot performance—an obsession of Christie’s global director Alex Rotter, as he recently revealed in an interview with ARTnews. Christie’s reported a sell-through rate of 88 percent and a hammer-to-low estimate index of 113 percent, both notably higher than in 2024.
The MEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) also expanded its share of Christie’s global total, rising from 32 percent in 2024 to 36 percent in 2025, with $1.435 billion in sales. Asia-Pacific, by contrast, declined for the second consecutive year, generating $686 million—5 percent less than the year before—and now accounts for 23 percent of Christie’s global business. Sales for Asian Art and World Art were also down 6 percent this year.
The 20th and 21st century category remains Christie’s core revenue driver, generating $2.859 billion in 2025, a 6 percent increase from the previous year. However, the Classics and Old Masters segments posted even stronger growth, generating $285 million and $182 million, with increases of 15 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Leading the Old Master category was Canaletto’s Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, which sold in July in London for a record-setting £31.9 million ($43.9 million).
Meanwhile, the importance of the Luxury and Automotive markets continues to rise. Luxury sales reached $795 million, up 17 percent from 2024, while automotive sales through Gooding Christie’s totaled $234 million—an increase of 14 percent and the highest-grossing year in the company’s history.
Crucially, luxury is proving to be Christie’s most effective tool for attracting new and younger buyers. It accounted for 38 percent of new bidders in 2025, outperforming even the 20th and 21st century category, which contributed 33 percent. Asia-Pacific buyers in particular were highly engaged, with regional president Rahul Kadakia noting that they contributed 37 percent of global Luxury auction spend. This underscores the strong potential of Eastern markets—especially Southeast Asia—when engaged through categories aligned with their growing and increasingly affluent populations.
Christie’s also saw increased engagement from the Indian diaspora and broader participation across the Asia-Pacific region, which remains one of the strongest growth opportunities alongside rising spending power in the Middle East, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
For Christie’s—as for all the major auction houses—sustaining revenue growth hinges on expanding the market: both by tapping rising geographies and by attracting new generations of collectors capable of growing with the brand.
The demographic shifts are promising. In 2025, 46 percent of new bidders and buyers were millennials or younger, up roughly 5 percent from the previous year. The female client base also grew by about 10 percent. These trends align with wealth management forecasts and the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting, which found that high-net-worth women outspent their male peers by an average of 46 percent on art and antiques in 2024. Women were also more likely than men to collect digital works, pieces by unknown artists, and emerging talent—pointing to both rising influence and evolving preferences that are reshaping the market.
All of this is unfolding in the context of the so-called “Great Wealth Transfer,” as economists forecast trillions of dollars passing from older generations to younger ones, boosting disposable income and discretionary spending among buyers already demonstrating a strong interest in collecting. Women are projected to inherit a substantial share of this wealth—some estimates suggest up to 70 percent—and by 2030, they are expected to control trillions in investable assets, a dramatic rise compared to previous decades.
Equally critical to attracting new buyers is the diversification of offerings across price points and categories, paired with technology designed to reach a generation that lives and buys online. In 2025, 63 percent of Christie’s new buyers made their first purchase online, where the average price (excluding wine) rose 14 percent year-on-year to $22,700.
Christie’s plans to continue investing in tech through 2026, including its collaboration with Dubbl on the Christie’s Select app for Apple Vision Pro, which offers immersive, spatial auction previews, and the ongoing Art+Tech Summits.
But attracting new buyers is only half the equation. Retention and long-term engagement—especially with younger collectors—are equally important. New buyers acquired in 2024 returned in 2025 and increased their total spend by 54 percent, with 22 percent purchasing in a different category from their original acquisition. These figures point to encouraging momentum not just for Christie’s but for the broader art and collectibles market, suggesting that even amid recalibration, a more diverse audience is emerging—one ready to support the market’s next chapter, even as tastes and trends continue, as always, to evolve.
On November 20, Sotheby’s generated a combined total of $304.6 million between the Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection, Exquisite Corps and Modern Evening sales. Julian Cassady Photography / Ali
Of the $1.6 billion of art expected to change hands during this year’s November sales, $1.1 billion was secured by Sotheby’s when the evening sales concluded on the 20th. When tallied with the Day sales the following afternoon, the auction house’s fall marquee week sales had generated a total of $1.173 billion—the second-highest total ever after the $1.33 billion achieved in November 2021 at the height of the contemporary and ultracontemporary markets.
Following the success of the Leonard A. Lauder sale, which delivered a $527.5 million Evening total and a clean 100 percent sold rate for the $3.8 million Day sale offering (est. $3.2 million), Sotheby’s completed a full white-glove, three-sale marathon. It opened with The Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection Evening Auction, which totaled $109.5 million, followed by the $98.1 million Exquisite Corpus sale and a $97 million Modern Evening auction. Driving many of the lots was strong participation from Asia, which accounted for 30 percent of total bidding, a reminder that Asian collectors respond enthusiastically when true quality comes to market.
Most importantly, if 2021 belonged to the contemporary and ultracontemporary frenzy, these marquee sales showed a clear pivot. Buyers turned toward art-historical touchstones by the most established names in Modern art or toward figures long overlooked and now undergoing reassessment. Across the November sales, Sotheby’s sold $843 million of Modern works, the highest total ever for the category in a single season. Prestigious provenance and strong storytelling were key in this inaugural auction round at the Breuer building for Sotheby’s, with single-owner collections accounting for 72.5 percent of the week’s total ($828,244,220 of $1.173 billion). And in the contemporary segment, it was the artists with the strongest institutional foundations who rose to the top.
“After years of uneven seasons, this week’s results demonstrate that the often quoted cliche of the three D’s (death, debt and divorce) powering the art market has never been truer,” Mari-Claudia Jimenéz, partner and co-head of Withers Art & Advisory, confirmed. For the industry’s seasoned expert, the abundance of fresh-to-market, extraordinary-quality estate properties inspired buyers to return with gusto to chase the best-in-class works with impeccable histories.
Sotheby’s evening marathon on November 20 began with the collection of Chicago’s Cindy and Jay Pritzker, who are best known for founding the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979. The sale immediately set the tone of the night, generating $109.5 million across just 13 works against a pre-sale estimate of $73.5 million to $88.5 million.
Leading the auction was Vincent van Gogh’s Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a radiant still life from the artist’s Paris period in which a stack of yellow-bound books becomes a portrait of his voracious intellect and humanist curiosity. Boasting an extensive exhibition history, the canvas was pursued for at least seven minutes by five bidders and sold for a record-setting $62.7 million, well above its estimate of around $40 million and setting a new benchmark for any still life by the artist.
Deep bidding also accompanied the sale of Wassily Kandinsky’s musical watercolor “Ins violett” (Into Violet) from the height of his Bauhaus period, listed as No. 188 in his handlist. Sought by five bidders in a spirited exchange, it more than doubled its high estimate, fetching $2,368,000 (est. $700,000-$1,000,000).
Other Modern masterworks in the Pritzker collection prompted intense competition. Camille Pissarro’s Bords de l’Oise à Pontoise, dating to the beginning of the artist’s second sojourn in Pontoise in 1872, was pursued by four bidders and achieved $2.5 million against its $1.2-1.8 million estimate. Félix Vallotton’s poetic domestic scene, Femme couchée dormant (Le Sommeil), triggered an animated battle between six collectors on the phones and in the room, pushing it above its $1.8-2.5 million estimate to sell for $2.8 million. The canvas had been acquired by the Pritzkers from Wildenstein & Co., New York, in 1985 and remained with them ever since, as did most lots in the sale.
Lot 10, the Cubist Nature morte by Fernand Léger, also sparked back-and-forth bidding from five contenders, driving the work to $2,214,000, nearly double its $800,000-$1.2 million estimate. This was followed by a $9,200,000 result for Max Beckmann’s classics-inspired canvas, sought by five bidders, and Joan Miró’s uncanny sculptural reinterpretation La Mère Ubu, which achieved $5,052,000 after a battle between four bidders, landing near the midpoint of its $4-6 million estimate. The bronze had been acquired by the couple in 1980 from legendary dealer Pierre Matisse in New York.
Another highlight, Henri Matisse’s Léda et le cygne, sold for $10.4 million, meeting its high estimate with fees. One of the very few architectural pieces by the artist—the majority of which are in public spaces or museums—and the first of its kind to appear at auction, the unique work was commissioned in 1943 by Argentine diplomat Marcelo Fernández. Last exhibited publicly during the 1984-85 Matisse exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, it was acquired the following year by the Pritzkers from Feingarten Galleries in Los Angeles. But Paul Gauguin’s La Maison du Pen du, gardeuse de vache from his Nabis period failed to find enough bidders to meet its $6-8 million estimate, selling instead at its reserve for $4,930,000.
Frida Kahlo’s $54.7 million record
The evening continued with a section entirely dedicated to Surrealism, as the movement continues to gain momentum, further ignited by the major Surrealist show that has just opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and as its unsettling aesthetic resonates uncannily with the chaos, sentiments and desire to exorcise it that define our time. In only one night, Sotheby’s placed more than $123 million of Surrealist works, the highest total for Surrealist art ever sold in one evening at Sotheby’s.
Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) from 1940 achieved $54.7 million with fees, becoming the most expensive work by a female artist. Sotheby’s
The dedicated single-owner sale Exquisite Corpus offered works from one of the most distinguished private Surrealist collections, accumulated over four decades, yet kept rigorously unnamed in keeping with the movement’s aura of mystery. Nonetheless, given that many of the lots appeared in the Guggenheim’s 1999 exhibition “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes,” which celebrated the collections of Daniel Filipacchi and record producer Nesuhi Ertegun—who together assembled the most important grouping of Surrealist art in private hands—we can reasonably speculate that the consignor is most likely the Ertegun estate, especially once noticing that several works list in their provenance that they were acquired from the Parisian dealer Daniel Filipacchi, ruling him out as the consignor. Artnews reached the same conclusion, reporting that the 1940 Kahlo was consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, who built the collection with her late husband Nesuhi Ertegun. The session closed with a white-glove result of $98.1 million, with 67 percent of works selling above their high estimates.
The undisputed star of the collection was Frida Kahlo’s masterpiece of mystery and spirituality, El sueño (La cama), which ignited spirited international bidding before hammering at $47 million, or $54.7 million with fees, to Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby’s senior vice president and head of the Latin American art department. The result not only set a new record for the artist but also for any woman artist at auction, surpassing the previous $44.4 million benchmark set by Georgia O’Keeffe in 2014. The mystical canvas had been purchased by the consignor at Sotheby’s in 1980 for $51,000 and remained in the collection since then, marking a return of roughly 107,000 percent.
Depicting a skeleton floating above the artist as she lies in her bed—herself suspended midair as a fragile terrestrial vessel—Kahlo visualizes what art historian Whitney Chadwick describes as the “Mexican belief in the indivisible unity of life and death.” Considered a key work in Kahlo’s career, where she reached the height of her symbolic and psychological resonance, the canvas boasts a major exhibition history, having appeared in “Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti” (1982-83) at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Haus am Waldsee in Hamburg, Kunstverein Hannover, Kulturhuset Stockholm, New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City. It also featured prominently in the Guggenheim’s 1999 show “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes,” and in the Tate’s landmark Kahlo survey in 2005, which later traveled to the Walker Art Center and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007-08.
We will see this masterpiece again soon in a slate of upcoming exhibitions, including “Frida y Diego: The Last Dream” at MoMA in New York (March 22-September 7, 2026), “Frida: The Making of an Icon” at Tate Modern in London (June 25, 2026-January 3, 2027), “Frida Kahlo—The Painter” at Fondation Beyeler in Basel (January 31-May 17, 2027), and “The Autonomous Gaze” at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art and BOZAR Brussels (December 2026–July 2028).
Another standout of the evening, Salvador Dalí’s jewel-like Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages, captivated several bidders with its hallucinatory power, reaching $4,198,000 (est. $2-3 million) on the phone with an Asian bidder. With a distinguished exhibition history—from the Hayward Gallery’s Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1978), to Centre Pompidou’s “Salvador Dalí: rétrospective, 1920-1980 (1979-80),” to the Guggenheim’s “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes (1999)”—the work was acquired from Daniel Filipacchi in Paris in 1977 and remained with the consignor ever since, meaning they were also responsible for these museum loans.
The market for Paul Delvaux also remains strong, with his haunting Composition reaching the high end of its estimate and selling for $3.8 million (est. $2.5-3.5 million).
Female Surrealists remain a bright spot. First exhibited in 1953 as part of her solo show at Alexander Iolas in 1958 and formerly in the collection of William N Copley, Dorothea Tanning’s otherworldly Interior with Sudden Joy sold for $3.2 million (est. $2-3 million), setting a new record for the artist. Her previous record, Endgame (1944), achieved $2.3 million at Christie’s last May.
Dorothea Tanning’s otherworldly Interior with Sudden Joy sold for $3.2 million (est. $2-3 million), setting a new record for the artist. Sotheby’s
Highly coveted among collectors are the extremely rare paintings on masonite by Remedios Varo. Created shortly after Varo fled war-torn Europe, marking a pivotal shift in the artist’s storied practice, her Sans titre from 1943 approached the million mark after fees, landing at $952,500 (est. $500,000-700,000). Her current record, Revelación, was set last May at Christie’s at $6.22 million, surpassing her earlier $6.19 million record for Armonía (Autorretrato Sugerente) in 2020. Reflecting the growing curatorial effort to decentralize Surrealism beyond Paris, the recent major survey celebrating the movement’s centenary dedicates its final room to a compelling dialogue between Varo and Leonora Carrington.
Another striking leap came for the French artist, illustrator and long-underrecognized Surrealist insider Valentine Hugo, whose Le Crapaud de Maldoror climbed to $825,555 after seven bidders pushed it far beyond its $150,000-200,000 estimate. And for those who enjoy the footnotes of Surrealist intrigue, the piece dates from the period when Hugo was also romantically entangled with André Breton.
New attention to Surrealist influences in Latin American modernism also propelled Óscar Domínguez’s La Machine à écrire, which more than doubled its high estimate and sold for $3.7 million (est. $1-1.5 million). More broadly, as institutions work to broaden the canon, overlooked figures outside Surrealism’s Parisian core are gaining the long-overdue recognition they deserve.
One of them is Austrian-Mexican artist Wolfgang Paalen, a member of Abstraction-Création from 1934 to 1935, who joined the Surrealist movement after relocating to Mexico in 1935 and remained a significant figure until 1942. His revelatory, surreal landscape, Fata Alaska, set a new auction record for the artist at $1,016,000 (est. $350,000-450,000).
Another double record arrived courtesy of Hans Bellmer, who broke his auction record twice in one night. First, his uncanny gouache Main et Bras achieved $508,000 (est. $100,000-200,000). Then, a rare and intensely erotic oil on canvas—a medium he rarely used, being far better known for his photographs of dolls—nearly reached the million-dollar mark, fetching a record-setting $942,000 (est. $300,000-400,000). “The starting-point of desire, with respect to the intensity of its images, is not in a perceptible whole but in the detail,” Bellmer wrote in his anatomy of image. “The essential point to retain from the monstrous dictionary of analogies/antagonisms which constitute the dictionary of the image is that a given detail, such as a leg, is perceptible, accessible to memory and available, in short, is real.” It is a reflection that perfectly encapsulates the tension between fascination and horror, erotism and violence that animates all his seductive yet unsettling work.
A $97 million Modern Evening
The evening concluded with the core offering of the Modern Evening auction, which across its 29 lots generated $97 million, surpassing the pre-sale estimate of $71.1-101.9 million. One of the evening’s most anticipated lots, René Magritte’s Le Jockey Perdu, led the sale, achieving $12.3 million after fees. The exquisite gouache encapsulates Magritte’s signature play with visual paradoxes, maintaining the sense of spatial disorientation and uncanniness—alongside the sly playfulness—that runs through his entire oeuvre. First conceived as a papier collé in 1926, the motif was quickly followed by an oil of the same title, which headlined the artist’s first one-man exhibition in 1927 at Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels. Evidently fascinated by the theme, Magritte returned to the image of the lost jockey in multiple gouaches and oils throughout his career. The work came from the collection of the late real estate magnate Matthew Bucksbaum and his wife Carolyn, whose group of works in the sale brought a combined total of $25.2 million.
Despite the nearly three-hour marathon, the Modern session opened energetically with Joan Miró’s oil-on-burlap panel, Personnages et oiseau devant le soleil, also from the Bucksbaum Collection. It prompted a dynamic bidding battle between seven contenders, rapidly pushing it far beyond its $400,000-600,000 estimate to land at $2,368,000. The couple had acquired the work in 1998, when it last appeared at Sotheby’s, consigned by Perls Galleries.
Other top results of the evening included Georgia O’Keeffe’s Large Dark Red Leaves on White, which landed at $7.9 million, just shy of its high estimate. Jean Dubuffet’s Restaurant Rougeit II sat comfortably within its range, selling for $7.5 million. Degas’s pastel of three ballerinas, Trois danseuses, was chased by five bidders and fetched $5.8 million.
René Magritte’s Le Jockey Perdu led the Modern Evening sale, achieving $12.3 million after fees. Sotheby’s
A Modern sale would be incomplete without Monet. One of his famed Impressionistic views, capturing the shifting light around Rouen Cathedral, more than doubled its low estimate, selling for $7.4 million after a lengthy bidding war among six bidders in different geographies. The painting was practically fresh to auction, having remained in the Schlumberger collection for over 60 years, and appeared at auction for the first time last night.
Another artist who inspired strong interest was Childe Hassam, one of the leading American Impressionists and a central figure in what became known as the “Ten,” the group that broke from the Society of American Artists to champion a more progressive, modern approach at the turn of the 20th century. His Newport, October Sundown from 1901 was fiercely pursued by four bidders, achieving $2,002,000 above a $1.8 million high estimate. The painting came from the Sam and Marilyn Fox Collection, two prominent patrons and civic leaders from the St. Louis region, whose group generated a total of $2.7 million, exceeding its high estimate of $2.4 million.
As MoMA finally pays overdue tribute to the work of Cuban artist Wifredo Lam with a show that opened earlier this month, his Ídolo (Oyá/Divinité de l’air et de la mort) drew strong attention in the room, selling for $7.4 million and marking the second-highest auction price ever achieved for the artist. The renewed institutional spotlight clearly reinforced market confidence, positioning the canvas as another highlight of the evening and Lam as a name we will likely see rise further at auction in the coming seasons.
While the Modern section closed with white gloves, several lots still fell below their low estimates. Arthur Garfield Dove’s Rose and Locust Stump, backed by a guarantee and irrevocable bids, sold for $681,000, nearly half its low estimate, despite its extensive exhibition history. Andrew Wyeth’s dark landscape, East Waldoboro, also sold below expectations at $3,588,000 (est. $4-6 million). Jacques Lipchitz’s sculpture Baigneuse assise went for half its low estimate at $381,000, despite its prestigious provenance from the Geri Brawerman Collection, which generated a total of $16.7 million during the night.
Sotheby’s continued with its day sales on November 21, which delivered an additional aggregated total above $51 million, between the $46,404,999 of the Modern Day Sale and the $4,912,868 for the Exquisite Corpus Day session. Sotheby’s Contemporary day sale, held a few days earlier, generated $111.4 million, the highest total ever for a Day sale at Sotheby’s. The white-glove offering for the Lauder day session brought the total for the Lauder collection to $531.3 million.
Ultimately, Sotheby’s was the clear winner this round, generating a solid and unequivocally successful $1.173 billion with its Evening and Day sales. Meanwhile, Christie’s fall marquee sales totaled $965 million, while Phillips brought in $92,139,589 across its various sessions. In total, across all three auction houses, the November marquee sales have generated more than $2.2 billion, a number that suggests the market has rediscovered some of its energy. Miami, however, will be the real litmus test of the season, because what we saw in action and at auction this week was only the very top of the market.
Phillips’s New York Evening Sale closed at $67.3 million—a 24 percent increase from last November. Photo: Jean Bourbon
The auction results of the past few years have confirmed it: dinosaurs are on trend. And not just as prehistoric relics or tools of scientific inquiry, but as symbols of timelessness and taste. More and more, fossil skeletons are being treated as investments—something that is, in some cases, more emotionally and symbolically resonant than contemporary art with which it might share the auction block. Is it the return of Jurassic Park? Or perhaps simply that most of us are captivated by dinosaurs in childhood? In any case, as nostalgia increasingly drives purchasing decisions across collectibles markets, dinos are unquestionably riding the wave.
Phillips has been strategically attuned to this shift—likely thanks to a younger cohort of specialists in its ranks. Instead of competing head-to-head with Sotheby’s and Christie’s single-owner sale narratives, the house has leaned into a different storytelling and marketing strategy, enhancing the symbolic power of artworks not through tales of glamorous collectors but by connecting the works to deep time.
Last night, CERA—a juvenile Triceratops skeleton dated to 66 million years ago and the first of its species ever to appear at auction—fetched $5,377,000 in the Out of This World auction (a specially curated section of the house’s November Modern & Contemporary sales). While that figure may seem modest when measured against the marquee masterpieces of the season, spirited bidding pushed it far beyond its $2,500,000-3,500,000 estimate and confirmed demand for this type of collectible. It also brought Phillips an audience that may never have engaged with the auction house otherwise; representatives confirmed that the skeleton sold to a private American collector new to the house, though global interest had poured in ahead of the sale from both private buyers and international institutions.
According to Miety Heiden, Phillips’ chairman for private sales, the result is a powerful testament to collectors’ evolving tastes. “More than ever, we’re seeing a desire for works that spark curiosity and transcend traditional categories. People are looking for objects that bring wonder and dialogue into a collection,” she said. “This result underscores the appetite for rare and extraordinary pieces that challenge convention and expand the boundaries of what collecting can be.”
At this year’s Frieze Masters—the only segment of the global brand typically reserved for million-dollar modernist and Old Masters works—two of the opening day’s first sales were paleontological. David Aaron placed a Triceratops head from the Late Cretaceous (circa 68 million years ago) within the first hour, followed later by a complete saber-toothed Nimravidae skeleton from the Oligocene (circa 33.7-23.8 million years ago), which sold for a strong six-figure sum. And no one has forgotten the Stegosaurus Apex, which shattered records at Sotheby’s in July 2024, hammering at $44.6 million—more than seven times its $4-6 million estimate—to billionaire Ken Griffin.
Phillips’s Evening Sale on November 19 achieved $67,307,850 across 33 lots, with a robust 94 percent sold by lot (only two passed) and 97 percent sold by value. It was a strong result, particularly considering the momentum already shown by Sotheby’s and Christie’s earlier in the week.
Leaving behind the cutting-edge but highly speculative ultra-contemporary works that once dominated its auction offerings, the evening’s turnout—up 24 percent from last November—was driven by a pairing of institutionally recognized blue-chip artists of the past century with recent market consolidations, presented for the first time alongside natural history highlights under the Out of This World label. The top lot was the highly anticipated Francis BaconStudy for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967), which sold for $16,015,000—neatly within its $13-18 million estimate. Just after came Joan Mitchell’s monumental Untitled (1957-1958), a densely gestural canopy of color from her New York years, which brought in $14,290,000.
Another high-profile lot, Jackson Pollock’s dynamic 1947 work on paper, sold for $3,486,000—just below its high estimate. Mark Tansey’s Revelever (2012) sparked a competitive seven-minute bidding war that carried it to $4,645,000 against its $2,500,000-3,500,000 estimate. The hypnotic, conceptually loaded composition creates an optical push-pull that immerses viewers in a moment of driving toward a mountainous horizon, almost tasting the crisp air in its ultramarine haze.
Meanwhile, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Exercise (1984), a loosely composed, surreal tangle of hallucination and paint, achieved $3,852,000 after a $3-4 million estimate. Another Basquiat from 1982 followed close behind, selling for $1,225,500. Camille Pissarro’s late Impressionist Le pré et la maison d’Éragny, femme jardinant, printemps (1901) surpassed its high estimate, closing at $1,900,000. Max Ernst’s Dans les rues d’Athènes (1960) doubled its expectations with a $1,534,000 result, riding the continued momentum for Surrealism. Rising Colombian artist Olga de Amaral also saw strong results. Her luminous golden textile Alquimia 62 (1987) soared to $748,200, well above its $300,000-500,000 estimate. A few lots later, a red composition from the same series met its estimate midpoint, hammering at $516,000.
Firelei Báez set a new auction record—if only briefly. Her Daughter of Revolutions brought in $645,000 over a $300,000-500,000 estimate before being surpassed by a $1,111,250 result at Christie’s later that evening.
Women artists once again delivered some of the evening’s most compelling results. Amid growing recognition for Alma Thomas, her Untitled collage from 1968—a blueprint for her signature mosaic-like abstractions—sold for $477,300 over a $250,000-350,000 estimate. Ruth Asawa’s Untitled (S.230, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form) opened the sale with a burst of energy, doubling its $400,000-600,000 estimate to achieve $1,006,200 as her MoMA retrospective opened. Others performed well too: a Martha Jungwirth fetched $516,000 (estimate $200,000-300,000), and Lucy Bull’s Light Rain (2019) exceeded its high estimate at $490,200.
One of the night’s more surprising passed lots was a vivid 2022 abstraction by record-setting enfant prodige Jadé Fadojutimi, whose $800,000-1,200,000 estimate may have been too ambitious. Also unsold, despite its uniqueness and luxuriousness, was The Thunderbolt, the longest gold nugget ever discovered. Weighing 3,565 grams and measuring 50 centimeters, the 114.6-troy-ounce gold formation was estimated at $1.25-1.5 million but failed to find a buyer. Dug up by accident at Hogan’s Find in Western Australia, the rare natural formation was revealed by sheer chance.
According to Robert Manley, Phillips’s chairman for modern and contemporary art, the success of the evening was due in part to the house’s new priority bidding system, which helped secure early commitments and interest on most lots. That contributed to 91 percent of works selling within or above estimate. “The enthusiasm was made especially clear by the fact that we had 27 times the number of early selling bids for this sale as we had last November, partly a result of our introduction of Priority Bidding,” he told Observer. The results, he said, confirmed not only the enduring draw of blue-chip artists but also the market’s resilience and ongoing global demand. “With strong participation from collectors worldwide and competitive bidding across Impressionist, Postwar, Contemporary and Natural History offerings, tonight’s outcome reaffirms confidence in the long-term strength of this market.”
The collection of Robert F. Weis and Patricia G. Ross Weis has an estimate in excess of $180 million. Christie’s
The November marquee sales in New York are among the most anticipated events on the global art calendar and the final litmus test of the market’s health after the London and Paris fairs and auctions. Leading the $1.6 billion New York auction week this November is a concentration of high-end, big-name collections, as single-owner sales have become an increasingly important tool for auction houses to secure major consignments and build momentum around a notable name and provenance. “A well-known individual definitely drives interest,” Elizabeth Siegel, vice president and head of private and iconic collections at Christie’s, told Observer.
Over the past decade these types of sales have accounted for 15.6 percent of total value, according to ArtTactic, reaching a peak of 31.3 percent in 2022 with the Paul G. Allen Collection. In the first 10 months of 2025 they continued to outperform with white gloves and records, reaching 18.5 percent of global auction value. In the final week of November in New York alone, single-owner sales are estimated at $706.8 million of total auction value. “A single-owner sale totally elevates prices. It gives them a real boost,” Lisa Dennison, chairman of Sotheby’s Americas, confirmed.
As New York’s fall auctions approach, here is a breakdown of the most anticipated collections set to appear as single-owner sales or within the marquee offerings, along with the top lots that have made headlines in the months leading up to this pivotal week for the art market.
The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at Sotheby’s
Gustav Klimt, Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), 1914-16. Estimate in excess of $150 million. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
The $400 million Leonard A. Lauder: Collector sale on November 18 is one of the most anticipated auctions of the season, with Sotheby’s presenting a 24-lot evening sale at its new Breuer Building headquarters. Following Lauder’s passing last June, both Christie’s and Sotheby’s reportedly competed to secure what is considered one of the year’s most important consignments. Sotheby’s ultimately won the mandate, securing 55 masterworks from one of America’s great collectors and philanthropists, longtime Whitney patron Leonard A. Lauder, which will be split between the dedicated evening sale and a day session the following morning.
The undisputed star of the sale is Gustav Klimt’s Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer, estimated in excess of $150 million and poised to surpass the artist’s current auction record of $108.8 million (£85.3 million), also set at Sotheby’s with Dame mit Fächer (Lady with Fan) in London in 2023. Executed between 1914 and 1916, the portrait is among Klimt’s most refined full-length depictions, portraying the young Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of two of his greatest patrons. It epitomizes Vienna’s Golden Age, a moment when youth, beauty, color and ornamental splendor merged into a vision of pure elegance, while also revealing the influence of fin-de-siècle exoticism. The composition’s flattened perspective and sinuous lines echo Japonaiserie and Chinoiserie, visible in the Asian-inspired motifs floating around Lederer’s Poiret-style gown, a nod to Klimt’s fascination with Chinese and Japanese art and textiles. Confiscated by the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz in 1939 and restituted to the Lederer heirs in 1946, the painting was later acquired from the family by Serge Sabarsky, an early advocate of German and Austrian modernism in the United States, before entering Lauder’s collection in the mid-1980s.
Other exceptional Klimts in the sale are Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) (1908), an exquisite example of the artist’s floral-period landscapes with an estimate in excess of $80 million, and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee) (1916), a depiction of an undisturbed lakeside idyll that reveals Klimt’s growing affinity with Van Gogh’s expressive brushwork, estimated in excess of $70 million. The number and high-quality works by artists from the Vienna Secession in the collection can be attributed to Leonard A. Lauder’s connection with his brother Ronald S. Lauder, one of the most notable collectors of the movement and co-founder and president of the Neue Galerie in New York. Both were sons of Estée and Joseph Lauder, founders of The Estée Lauder Companies.
Additional highlights include an emotionally charged, psychologically complex Edvard Munch, Sankthansnatt (Johannisnacht) (Midsummer Night) (1901-03), estimated at $20 million, six bronzes by Henri Matisse expected to realize a combined $30 million and an immaculate graphite grid by Agnes Martin, The Garden, exemplifying her mastery of geometric precision and meditative restraint.
The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis at Christie’s
Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe), 1958. Estimate on request, in the region of $50 million.
Over more than 50 years, Patricia G. Ross Weis and Robert F. Weis assembled a collection that reflected not only the evolution of 20th-century art between Paris and New York but also the life journey they shared. The 18-lot single-owner Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis sale on November 17 is expected to generate between $92.35 million and $136.7 million, accounting for more than half of the collection’s total estimated value of $180 million, which includes another 80 works that will be distributed across additional auctions and categories.
The top lot is a vibrant yellow-and-orange Mark Rothko painted in 1958, the same year the artist completed his monumental murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan’s Seagram Building. Acquired by the couple from PaceWildenstein in 1995, the work boasts an extensive exhibition history, including its inclusion in the important AbEx show the Beyeler Foundation staged in 1989. Estimated at around $50 million and backed by a third-party guarantee, the canvas stands as one of Rothko’s most powerful expressions of American abstraction, its layered chromatic fields pulsing with contained, tormented energy and sublime atmospheric depth.
Another star lot in the collection is Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red and Blue (estimate: $20-30 million), signed and dated “PM 39-41.” This rare-to-auction painting belongs to the artist’s transatlantic period, as Mondrian began it in Europe and completed it in New York between 1939 and 1941. Its distinguished exhibition history includes “Mondrian: Nature to Abstraction” at the Tate in 1997. The work exemplifies Mondrian’s rigorous balance of line, color and luminous white ground, an essential yet conceptually intricate dialogue at the heart of his practice.
Other anticipated works include an early Fauvist landscape by Georges Braque, Henri Matisse’s lyrical Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre) from his Nice period (estimate: $15-25 million), and Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture (Marie-Thérèse), a portrait of his muse estimated in the region of $40 million. Another exemplary work, one that justifies the sale title “A Tale Between Two Cities,” is the bold gestural abyssal composition Pierre Soulages painted in Peinture 161 x 200 cm, 14 novembre 1958, offered at $5-7 million, which resonates with the essential black marks on a white ground in Franz Kline’s Placidia from 1961 (estimate: $10-15 million).
Robert F. Weis made his fortune as chairman of Weis Markets Inc., a family-run food company founded in 1912 in rural Pennsylvania, where the couple lived. A lifelong learner and avid reader, he developed a deep appreciation for art. Patricia Weis, born in New York City, shared his passion for art, architecture and design, an interest first sparked by an uncle in the fashion industry. She began collecting after meeting Lucie Rie and Hans Coper on a trip to London. Together, the pair became prominent philanthropists supporting educational, cultural, civic and medical institutions: Patricia served on the boards of Bard College and Franklin & Marshall College, while Robert was a Sterling Fellow at Yale University and sat on its Committee on Buildings and Grounds. They also championed Jewish causes and supported the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Metropolitan Opera.
The Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection at Sotheby’s
A $40 million Vincent van Gogh, Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes), leads this Sotheby’s sale. Photo: Michael Tropea | Courtesy of Sotheby’s
The other major consignment Sotheby’s has secured for November is the Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection, which is expected to generate a total in excess of $120 million. Known for founding the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979—often called the “Nobel of architecture”—the Chicago-based couple extended their devotion to creative excellence beyond the built environment, assembling a collection that reflects the breadth and rigor of their cultural philanthropy.
Headlining the November 20 Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection sale, which immediately precedes Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction at 7:30 p.m., is Vincent van Gogh’s Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a radiant still life from the artist’s Paris period in which a stack of yellow-bound books becomes a portrait of his voracious intellect. Estimated at $40 million, the painting was acquired by the Pritzkers in 1994 through Richard L. Feigen & Co. and boasts an extensive literature and exhibition history spanning major institutions across Europe and the United States, including the show “Van Gogh à Paris” at the Musée d’Orsay (1988), “Vincent van Gogh Paintings” at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam (1990), and “Vincent van Gogh and the Modern Movement, 1890-1914” at Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (1990-91). The work last appeared publicly in “Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South” at the Art Institute of Chicago (2001-02), “The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2010), and “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms” at the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). The preparatory painting for this canvas is held in the Van Gogh Museum’s permanent collection.
Comparing the present work to Piles of French Novels in the Van Gogh Museum, scholars have described it as particularly revealing of the artist’s stylistic transition. If the earlier study, flatter in tone and more monochromatic, reflects his fascination with Japanese prints through its block-like composition and restrained palette, the painting in the Pritzker Collection reintroduces depth and vitality through rhythmic dashes and loose strokes of the Neo-Impressionist style Van Gogh adopted in his final Paris months.
Among the other highlights of the sale are Henri Matisse’s sensuous triptych Léda et le cygne (1944-46), estimated at $7-10 million, and Paul Gauguin’s La Maison de Pen du, gardeuse de vache (1889), painted during his Pont-Aven period and carrying a $6-8 million estimate. Additional highlights include Max Beckmann’s Der Wels (Catfish) ($5-7 million), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Hallesches Tor, Berlin (1913, $3-5 million), a large-scale outdoor sculpture by Joan Miró ($4-6 million), and a lyrical Camille Pissarro landscape from his second Pontoise period ($1.2-1.8 million).
The breadth of the Pritzker holdings will extend beyond the November sale, with further lots offered next month in Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts, Sculpture and Works of Art, Chinese Works of Art, and Design auctions. Together, the ensemble is expected to bring tens of millions of dollars across multiple sales.
The Elaine Wynn Collection at Christie’s
Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #40 (1971). Estimate: $15-25 million. Christie’s
Christie’s also secured the remarkable collection of Elaine Wynn, the late philanthropist and “Queen of Las Vegas,” who passed away this April. Celebrated for her discerning eye and the remarkable assemblage she built both alongside and independently of her former husband, casino magnate Steve Wynn, her estate is estimated at over $75 million. Nine of the top works will be featured in the 20th Century Evening Sale on November 17, two in the 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19, with the remainder to follow in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale.
The highlights from her collection span centuries and movements yet share the same standard of excellence that defined Wynn’s collecting ethos. On the Modern side, the top lot is Richard Diebenkorn’s transcendent Ocean Park #40, which will be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale with an estimate of $15-25 million. The work returns to the rostrum just as Gagosian announces its representation of the Diebenkorn estate and inaugurates a dedicated exhibition at its Upper East Side gallery. Wynn acquired the painting at Sotheby’s in 2021, when it achieved a then-record $27.3 million. Diebenkorn’s auction record now stands at $46.4 million, set by his 1965 Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad at Christie’s New York in November 2023, placing the current estimate well within range yet poised to surpass it amid renewed market attention following Gagosian’s endorsement. Before its last sale, Ocean Park #40 was featured in the traveling museum exhibition dedicated to the series at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Orange County Museum of Art (2011-2012), as well as Acquavella Galleries’ 2018 show pairing Diebenkorn’s California scenes with those of Wayne Thiebaud.
Other top lots include J.M.W. Turner’s poetic Ehrenbreitstein (estimate: $12-18 million) and a refined Parisian scene by Georges Seurat. On the postwar side, headline works are Lucian Freud’s late self-portrait (estimate: $15-25 million) and Joan Mitchell’s sunflower-hued explosion of color and gesture (estimate: $12-18 million).
Also presented as part of Christie’s 44-lot 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19, the Edlis|Neeson Collection is described by the auction house as a rare example of a carefully curated ensemble of postwar icons that together trace the evolution of modern and contemporary art. Austrian-born American collector and philanthropist Stefan Edlis and his life partner Gael Neeson began assembling their collection in the 1970s, gradually filling their landmark apartment on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile with works that James Rondeau, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, once called “one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary art in existence.” In 2015, the couple donated 44 works to the Art Institute, a gift the museum described as transformative. Born in Vienna in 1925, Stefan Edlis fled Nazi-occupied Austria for the U.S. in 1941 and later founded Apollo Plastics Corporation. In 1974, he met Gael Neeson, and together they began a lifelong pursuit of art collecting, mentored by Chicago collector Gerald Elliot. Their first major acquisition, Piet Mondrian’s Large Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow (1977), marked the beginning of a collection that evolved toward Pop, Conceptual and contemporary art, featuring icons like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, as well as a later generation similarly engaged with Pop and mass culture, including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Ugo Rondinone.
One of the top lots is Ed Ruscha’s How Do You Do?, coming to auction amid strong market momentum for the artist following MoMA’s major retrospective last year. Part of Ruscha’s coveted mountain series, this laconic phrase floats diagonally rather than horizontally, suspended over a meticulously rendered alpine landscape, each ridge and summit bathed in deep blue light. Acquired directly from Gagosian in 2004 and shown that same year in the Aspen Art Museum’s Ed Ruscha: Mountain Paintings, the work makes its auction debut with an estimate of $5-7 million, secured by a third-party guarantee.
Another highlight is Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper (Yellow) (1986), acquired from Gagosian in 2002 and now estimated at $6-8 million, also backed by a guarantee from Christie’s. The auction house describes it as the culmination of Warhol’s career, a meditation on the dualities of mass media and mortality. Created just a month before his death and first exhibited in Milan’s Palazzo delle Stelline, directly across from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, the series was Warhol’s way of “making Leonardo exciting again.” The work reflects his lifelong fascination with the iconography of images, their power, repetition and eventual loss of aura through mass reproduction. As more than 3,000 visitors attended the Milan show, The Last Supper came to embody Warhol’s own final self-reflection, a farewell from the artist who became as famous and as mythic as the masters he reinterpreted.
Also featured in the sale are Warhol’s Skull (estimate: $800,000-1.2 million), which will open the Evening Sale, and his Oxidation Painting (Diptych) (1978), acquired from Skarstedt Gallery in 2017 (estimate: $900,000-1.2 million, guaranteed). Other highlights include a Diego Giacometti bronze table (estimate: $3-5 million), Richard Prince’s Double Nurse (estimate: $3-5 million), and Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball (Courbet Sleep) (estimate: $600,000-800,000), acquired from Gagosian in 2015. The sale also includes works by Cindy Sherman, George Condo, Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann, alongside two Giacometti library tables.
Perhaps the most provocative work from the collection, although not for sale, is Maurizio Cattelan’s Him (2001), which will be viewable by request during the November pre-sale exhibition, a haunting reminder of the collection’s daring and thought-provoking spirit.
The Max N. Berry Collections at Christie’s
Alberto Giacometti, Buste d’homme (Diego), conceived in 1959/cast in 1960-1961. Bronze with brown patina, height: 15.3/4 in. (40 cm.), estimate $5-8 million. Courtesy of Christie’s
Debuting in the 20th Century Evening Sale this November, the collection of connoisseur Max Berry brings to auction one of the season’s most wide-ranging and valuable encyclopedic consignments. Spanning more than 30 categories, the collection, which is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars across several years of sales, reflects Berry’s lifetime of passionate and discerning collecting, driven more by curiosity than by market fashion.
Among the top lots hitting the rostrum during the November marquee evening sale is Calder’s Acrobats (1929), a seminal wire sculpture estimated at $5-7 million. Composed of two delicately balanced figures mounted on a wooden base, the piece dates to the artist’s pivotal Paris years when he began transforming his toy-maker’s ingenuity into formal sculptural language. Acrobats is directly linked to Calder’s famed Cirque Calder (1926-31), the hand-built miniature circus that anticipated his lifelong fascination with movement and performance. Its appearance at auction coincides with the Whitney Museum’s centennial tribute “High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100.”
Also included in the sale is Berry’s Alexander Calder Untitled (1938), a rare yellow hanging mobile estimated at $1.5-2 million. Evoking the artist’s childlike sense of wonder, the sculpture’s continuous motion, no matter how still the air, epitomizes Calder’s mastery of balance, rhythm and levity. Completing the lineup of modern masters from the collection are Giacometti’s Buste d’homme (Diego), a bronze portrait of the artist’s brother, cast and signed 2/6 with an estimate of $5-8 million, and his still life Nature morte (1938), estimated at $1.5-2 million, a testament to the artist’s existential and essential synthesis of form and psychological depth.
Additional works from Berry’s collection, including Judaica, American art and Chinese art, will be offered in stages through 2027, underscoring both the scope and scholarly depth of a lifetime spent collecting with intellect, passion and humanity. As Berry told Observer in a recent interview, his ultimate wish is that the works are enjoyed, whether by private collectors or in institutions. “It will be wonderful if a museum acquires some of them and makes them public, where they can sit alongside other objects of a similar nature to tell the story of their artistry and their times.”
The Schlumberger Collection at Sotheby’s
Claude Monet, Vue de Rouen depuis la côte Sainte-Catherine, 1892. Sotheby’s
Similarly eclectic is the Schlumberger Collection, which Sotheby’s secured for this season. It debuted in Paris during their Surrealism and Its Legacy auction, with additional lots now scheduled to appear in New York during the Modern Evening Auction on November 20 and Modern Day Auction on November 21. Further works will be in the Important Design, Fine Jewelry and Fine Books & Manuscripts sales held between November and December 2025. This singular ensemble, bridging centuries of art and design and reflecting the legacy of one of Europe’s great industrial and cultural dynasties, was founded by brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, whose pioneering work in geophysics revolutionized the energy industry. The family also became renowned for its refined patronage of the arts. That legacy continued through Marcel’s daughter, Anne Schlumberger, whose discerning eye was shaped by her lifelong engagement with Surrealism, architecture and design.
Among the works coming from the collection is Claude Monet’s Vue de Rouen, a luminous and atmospheric canvas painted at the dawn of his famed cathedral series and set to be one of the top lots in Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction. Fresh to the block with an estimate of $3,000,000-4,000,000, this iconic Monet embodies a pure luminous atmosphere as the artist focuses on the transitory phenomenology of light and color, reaching a level of abstraction close to raw sensorial perception before any codification or formalization. The other highlight of the collection is François-Xavier Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar (1976), a pièce unique and the first and only example the artist created in copper, serving as the prototype for his later bronze editions.
Property from the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art at Christie’s
Claude Monet, Nymphéas. Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 29 in. (92 x 73.6 cm.). Christie’s
For more than three decades, the works resided in Kawamura’s purpose-built museum near Tokyo, where they brought international visitors face-to-face with the great masters of modern art. Following its closure in March 2025, the institution announced plans to divest around 280 works through auctions and private sales, aiming to raise at least ¥10 billion (approximately $68 million).
Leading Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale from the museum’s collection is Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (1907), one of the artist’s most dazzling depictions of his Giverny waterlily pond, estimated at $40-60 million. Acquired in 1970 from the Estate of Albert J. Dreitzer through Sotheby’s, the painting has been a cornerstone of Kawamura’s galleries ever since, its vertical composition capturing the pond’s luminous surface in an almost abstract symphony of reflection and light.
Other highlights include Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Jeune femme arrangeant des fleurs (estimate: $8-12 million), Marc Chagall’s Le Rêve de Paris (estimate: $4-6 million) and Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau bleu (estimate: $3-5 million), which will also be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale.
Salon Art + Design’s 14th edition runs through Monday, November 10, 2025. Miguel McSongwe/BFA.com
Beautifully curated and seamlessly uniting art and design, Salon Art + Design 2025 unfolded once again within the grand setting of the Park Avenue Armory, offering a natural elegance few fairs achieve. It’s an event that never feels forced or overly eclectic; here, 50 global exhibitors assembled a calibrated and elegant mix celebrating craftsmanship at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. The fair maintains the thrill of discovery, offering rare and exquisite objects that require no connoisseur’s credentials to appreciate—especially when the Upper East Side crowd begins shipping champagne. As former director now Chairwoman Jill Bokor told Observer “The atmosphere of the Park Avenue Armory is perfect for an event like Salon, because it, in itself, is a curated work of design.”
At opening night on November 6, that atmosphere—along with the fair’s hallmark elegance—was palpable in every corner, from the Art Deco treasures at Bernard Goldberg Fine Art radiating the charm of the Belle Époque across continents (several of which sold by the opening night) to the ancient South Arabian and Byzantine pieces at Ariadne, which extended the fair’s reach far beyond the 20th Century into the timeless spirituality of the ancient world.
Although design and furniture have been among the collectible categories most affected by Trump’s tariffs—some of which are set to rise to 50 percent in January 2026—dealers at Salon are still presenting an impressive array of modern and contemporary design from across geographies. Several gallerists admitted that their participation was possible only because their pieces had already been imported, noting that the U.S. market is likely to feel the full impact of the new duties in the coming months. Under the executive order signed by Trump on September 29, a 25 percent tariff applies to wood imports and derivative products—including upholstered furniture and kitchen cabinets—effective starting October 14. Imports of softwood timber and lumber face a 10 percent rate, while upholstered wooden products incur a 25 percent duty. Kitchen cabinets and their components are likewise taxed at 25 percent per order, with rates set to climb in January 2026 to 30 percent for upholstered furniture and 50 percent for cabinetry and related parts. This comes at a moment of remarkable strength for the market for collectible design and decorative arts: according to ArtTactic, the category grew 20.4 percent in 2025 to reach $172 million, up from $143 million the previous year.
Salon Art + Design showcases the pinnacle of design, presenting the world’s finest vintage, modern and contemporary pieces alongside blue-chip 20th-century artworks. Miguel McSongwe/BFA.com
In one of the first rows, Converso Modern’s booth paired Alexander Calder’s vibrant tapestries—crafted in Guatemala and Nicaragua—with a tribute to Pennsylvania’s New Hope Modern Craft Movement, the 1960s community that bridged traditional craftsmanship with modern design. Highlights included sculptural metal and carved wood pieces by Phillip Lloyd Powell and Paul Evans, shown alongside the elemental modernism of George Nakashima.
Awarded this year’s Best Booth, the London-based Crosta Smith Gallery presented a moody, cinematic homage to 1930s Art Deco—refined, atmospheric and irresistibly elegant. Marking the centenary of the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the defining event of the Art Deco era, the gallery presented a selection of impeccably preserved works in wood, lacquer and galuchat celebrating a century of decorative mastery. Each piece reflected the sophistication of the 1920s and 1930s, including exquisite creations by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Katsu Hamanaka and Clément Rousseau. Particularly striking was a pair of lacquer panels by Hamanaka depicting Adam and Eve dancing in nature with quintessential Deco elegance—the sinuous lines and subtle symbolism balanced by the sensual tension of intertwined snakes. Equally rare was Ruhlmann’s méridienne in amboyna burl wood, gilt bronze and silk bourrette upholstery—a unique variant of the Marozeau model commissioned by the Borderie family, epitomizing his sculptural refinement. Founded in 2018 by Marine Edith Crosta and Daniel Smith after collecting Art Deco while furnishing their home in the south of France, the gallery is now participating in all leading design fairs, including PAD London.
Crosta Smith Gallery at Salon Art + Design 2025. Crosta Smith Gallery
Nearby, Downtown-based Bossa Furniture continued to serve as a bridge between the U.S. and Brazil, showcasing the warmth of modernist Brazilian design through an intergenerational dialogue between Joaquim Tenreiro—one of the founders of modern Brazilian design—and contemporary designer Lucas Recchia, accented with a vintage stool by Lina Bo Bardi. Returning for their second year at the fair and fresh from Design Miami/Paris, Bossa sold a unique chaise by Joaquim Tenreiro during the preview, priced at $90,000, along with two pieces by Recchia.
Many exhibitors adopted a curatorial approach that seamlessly integrated art and design, blurring distinctions between collectible furniture, fine art and historical masterpieces. At Incollect, a captivating juxtaposition paired modernist and contemporary design with an Anish Kapoor reflective sculpture and playful Picasso ceramics, creating a lively dialogue between modern icons.
Elsewhere, Galerie Gabriel skillfully paired modern design with works by Sam Falls, while several booths leaned fully into fine art. Opera Gallery, with its global presence, offered an interior-friendly selection of blue-chip names designed to appeal to Salon’s broad audience. Standouts included a striking George Condo drawing priced around $100,000, a sensuous Picasso work on paper and sculptures by Manolo Valdés—among them a wooden reinterpretation of his Menina series inspired by Velázquez. Another highlight was Carlos Cruz-Diez’s optically mesmerizing Physichromie Panam 112, shown alongside pieces by Juan Genovés, Thomas Dillon, Keith Haring, Cho Sung-Hee, Jae Ko and André Lanskoy.
The 60-year-old Galerie Gmurzynska, specializing in 20th-century modern and contemporary classics, impressed with a monumental Louise Nevelson work, City Series (1974), spanning an entire wall and exemplifying her mature phase of assemblage sculpture. The booth also included three mixed-media collages by Nevelson, a rare early wood panel by Robert Indiana from his Coenties Slip period and Yves Klein’s F 48 (1961), a luminous piece from his Monochrome und Feuer exhibition. A rare surviving box construction by Dan Basen from the 1960s New York avant-garde rounded out the presentation. “We love taking part in Salon Art + Design. The blend of art, design and jewelry is truly exceptional, a great experience. The opening was extremely well attended, and we have sold one work so far,” said gallery director Isabelle Bscher, who represents the third generation of the Swiss-born Gmurzynska family at Salon Art + Design 2025.
New York-based Onishi Gallery, known for championing contemporary Japanese art and design, presented “Clay, Iron, and Fire: The Bizen and Setouchi Heritage,” a striking tribute to Japan’s enduring craft traditions. The exhibition celebrated the intertwined legacies of Bizen ceramics—born 900 years ago from the region’s iron-rich clay and revered by tea masters for their organic textures—and Osafune swordmaking, famed for its refined curvature, subtle grain and balance. With works ranging from a $2,900 sword to ceramic masterpieces priced between $30,000 and $50,000, the booth embodied Japan’s devotion to transforming natural materials into lasting beauty, infused with the timeless aesthetics of wabi-sabi and ichi-go ichi-e.
Similarly devoted to the Japanese spirit of craftsmanship, the minimalist, clean booth of Ippodo Gallery explored the meeting point between Eastern sensibility and Western material practice, featuring Ymer & Malta’s pioneering resin light sculptures (Paris), Akira Hara’s intricate Murrine glass works (Venice) and Andoche Praudel’s tactile ceramics (Loubignac). Examining materiality as a universal language, their works dissolved the boundary between art and function, finding beauty in tactile intelligence. By the close of opening day at 9 p.m., the gallery had sold more than $60,000 worth of art. “The preview event drew a large number of enthusiastic visitors, and it’s clear that the fair has grown and evolved since last year,” Churou Wang, the gallery’s associate director, told Observer. “We’re looking forward to seeing how the coming days unfold.”
Ippodo Gallery. Courtesy Ippodo Gallery
On the contemporary design front, London’s Gallery FUMI stood out with a presentation celebrating its new representation of San Francisco-based artist and designer Jesse Schlesinger, coinciding with his first-ever design exhibition, Pacific, at the gallery’s London flagship. Ahead of a dedicated presentation at FOG Design + Art in San Francisco, FUMI showcased Schlesinger’s sculptural furniture—works merging nature, philosophy and material consciousness. A second-generation carpenter deeply rooted in the Bay Area, Schlesinger crafts with locally salvaged wood, blending ceramics, bronze, glass and wood into meditations on texture, surface and function.
London’s Charles Burnand Gallery, which specializes in collectible design and lighting, presented a captivating booth that reflected the growing shift in taste toward design rooted in organic sensitivity and material depth. Its curated presentation, “Liminal Monuments: The Edge of Becoming,” unfolded as an elegant choreography of designers across geographies, exploring form in a state of becoming—continuous growth, evolution and transformation. Every object in the booth felt interconnected and evocative of natural structures, from plant life to geology, offering a contemporary design language that draws inspiration from nature to rediscover the soul of materials and humanity’s relationship with them.
Particularly outstanding among the booth’s luminous creations was Midnight Tulip by Ian Milnes—a meditation on the transience of beauty, capturing a fleeting moment suspended between bloom and disintegration. Inspired by the 16th-century phenomenon of “broken tulips” and crafted from sycamore, walnut, cherry and resin, its marquetry petals appeared to drift outward in slow motion, their blackened, watercolor-like surfaces evoking both bloom and decay—embodying a space where fragility and radiance coexist. Equally striking were the organically graceful, cocoon-like wire-crochet lamps by Korean designer Kyeok Kim, floating in the corner like luminous cellular formations that connected the micro- and macrocosmos through shared patterns and order. Handcrafted from fine metal mesh, these sculptural lights existed in a liminal space—both soft and metallic, airy yet architectural—expressing fragility and endurance in perfect balance.
Alexander the Great as Apollo, 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D, presented by Phoenix Ancient Art. Gilded bronze, obsidian and gypsum alabaster eyes. Photo: Elisa Carollo
And as always, Salon Art + Design offered museum-quality treasures at the top tier of the market. A standout among them was Alexander the Great, presented by Phoenix Ancient Art—a gilded bronze Roman sculpture from the 1st Century with obsidian and alabaster eyes that radiated the aura of a rediscovered world. Believed to be one of only two known portraits of Alexander—the other housed in Herculaneum—the work was a rare masterpiece of ancient craftsmanship.
Todd Merrill Studio’s booth also bridged designers across geographies, uniting leading artists from North America, Europe and South Korea, reaffirming the gallery’s reputation for material innovation and sculptural form. Highlights included Amsterdam-based Maarten Vrolijk’s Sakura Pendant Lighting—a luminous evolution of his Sakura Vessels—and German artist Markus Haase’s new bronze and onyx works, including a monumental chandelier and reimagined Circlet series pieces that merged sculpture and illumination through exceptional craftsmanship.
While some of the biggest names in collectible design—Carpenters Workshop, Friedman Benda, Salon 94 and Nilufar—were absent this year, likely due to the proximity of the Paris and Miami fairs, their absence was hardly felt. Instead, Salon Art + Design 2025 unfolded with a rare sense of cohesion and restraint, offering a stage where eras and disciplines engaged in a fluid dialogue that held at its center a timeless sense of beauty born from the convergence of material awareness, craftsmanship and innovation—qualities that defined the fair’s most striking functional yet evocative objects.
Todd Merrill Studio at Salon Art + Design 2025. Miguel McSongwe/BFA.com
The October evening sales brought the London auction houses their highest totals in years. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Sales aren’t just buoyant at Frieze this week—London’s auction houses also saw their strongest results in years, signaling renewed confidence at the top of the market. Kicking off the action, Christie’s 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale on October 15 achieved a robust £106,925,400 ($142,852,000), marking the auction house’s best Frieze Week evening sale in more than seven years. The total was up 30 percent from last year, with 92 percent sold by lot and 90 percent sold by value. Katharine Arnold and Keith Gill, vice-chairmen of 20th/21st century art, Christie’s Europe, reported entering the week with confidence and “carefully priced material,” noting a “spirited and well-attended” public viewing at King Street. “We are proud to have realized such a solid outcome during Frieze Week, a moment that highlights the energy and cultural vitality of London’s art scene,” they told press.
Leading the sale was Peter Doig’s monumental Ski Jacket (1994), which sold for £14,270,000 ($19,064,720) against a £6,000,000-8,000,000 estimate after more than 13 minutes of fierce bidding between six contenders. Carrying a third-party guarantee, the painting had been acquired in 1994 by Danish collector Ole Faarup, and 100 percent of the proceeds will now go to his foundation. This unusual arrangement also helped Christie’s secure two additional Doigs, despite the artist having become a rare presence at auction.
With an extensive exhibition history, Doig’s Country Rock (1998-1999) nearly hit seven figures in sterling—though it comfortably did so in dollars—achieving £9,210,000 ($12,304,560). A third, more abstract and heavily textured work, also acquired by Faarup in 1994, sold a few lots later just shy of its high estimate at £635,000. The strong results coincided with the opening of Doig’s new show at the Serpentine in London, further fueling demand.
Christie’s evening opened with a standout result for Domenico Gnoli, whose hyperrealistic painting fetched £977,000, doubling its low estimate. Immediately after, a more impressionistic landscape by René Magritte landed at £762,990—well above expectations—reinforcing both continued momentum for the artist and the broader strength of surrealism. Later in the sale, Magritte’s drawing La veillée (The Vigil) exceeded its £500,000 high estimate, selling for £812,800.
The 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale at Christie’s resulted in several new artist records. Photo: Guy Bell | Courtesy of Christie’s
Picasso, as usual, delivered dependable results, with several works selling above or within estimate, including the £2,002,000 oil and ink on panel Chevalier, pages et moine. The modern and impressionist offerings also performed within expectations, largely due to the quality of the material: a Marc Chagall painting fetched £2,246,000, while a lyrical bucolic scene by Nabis painter Maurice Denis sold for £1,697,000. Meanwhile, a horizontal abstract work by Hurvin Anderson exceeded expectations, fetching £3,222,000.
The sale also set several new world auction records, underscoring the ongoing momentum for women artists and long-overlooked names being rediscovered. Paula Rego’s Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” (1995) soared to £3,466,000 ($4.63 million), setting a new landmark record for the artist. Suzanne Valadon’s Deux nus ou Le bain (1923) followed with a £1,016,000 ($1.36 million) record. Contemporary sculptor Annie Morris’s Bronze Stack 9, Copper Blue (2015) achieved £482,600 ($644,754), while Danish artist Esben Weile Kjær set his first auction record with Aske and Johan upside down kissing in Power Play at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND (2020), which sold for £25,400 ($33,934).
Among the few unsold works of the night were Yoshitomo Nara’s drawing Haze Days, which failed to find a buyer at its ambitious £6.5-8.5 million estimate, and a gray monochrome by Gerhard Richter—even with the artist opening a major survey at the Fondation Louis Vuitton during Paris Art Week. A black Blinky Palermo also went unsold, while a colorful but slightly less iconic Nicholas Party work, Tree Trunks, was withdrawn ahead of the sale.
Notably, Christie’s reported that 56 percent of buyers in the evening sale came from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with only 28 percent from the Americas and 16 percent from the Asia-Pacific region. This confirms revived demand in the regional market, as also evidenced earlier in the day by the heavy attendance at Frieze.
A £17.6M Bacon headlined at Sotheby’s
Led by a £17.6 million Francis Bacon, Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction closed at $63.5 million. While the total was less than half of Christie’s the night before, the comparison needs context: this was Sotheby’s third major London evening sale since March—whereas it was Christie’s first of the season. Sotheby’s has already staged two major white-glove sales this year—the £101 million Karpidas collection auction in September and the £84 million Summer Evening Sale—meaning that with last night’s results, the house has now sold £233 million worth of modern and contemporary art in London since March. Moreover, the £63.5 million total marked the highest October evening sale result since 2023, up 25 percent from the previous year.
Since March, Sotheby’s has sold £240 million worth of Modern and Contemporary art in London. Courtesy Sotheby’s
“Frieze is always a special time for London, with so many collectors in town whose presence we always feel in our sales,” Ottilie Windsor, co-head of contemporary art, Sotheby’s London, told Observer. “It was great to have them with us tonight and to see so much live action in the room, helping sustain the strong momentum we’ve built over the past few seasons here.”
The Francis Bacon result came after 20 minutes of suspense and fierce bidding across multiple phone specialists and a bidder in the room, pushing the final price to nearly double its £6-9 million estimate. In U.S. dollars, the hammer plus fees rose to $17.6 million. For comparison, the last notable Bacon—Portrait of Man with Glasses II—sold at Christie’s in March for £6,635,000 ($8.4 million), and that work was almost a third smaller. Another, smaller Bacon, closer in scale to Christie’s example, sold here for £5,774,000 ($7.3 million). Bacon’s record still stands at $142.4 million, set at Christie’s New York in 2013 with his triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud.
The sale opened strong, with solid results for several younger contemporary artists who have recently drawn both market and institutional attention. At lot one, a painting by Ser Serpas landed at £27,940 ($35,700)—just under estimate but still enough to set a new auction record for the artist. The California-born painter, who studied in Switzerland and gained early recognition there, was recently included in a MoMA PS1 exhibition and held a solo show at Kunsthalle Basel during the June fairs.
Two of the hottest rising names in recent auctions—driven largely by Asian demand and limited primary-market availability—followed. An abstract by Emma McIntyre, now a Zwirner favorite, sold for £50,800 ($65,000), and Yu Nishimura achieved the same price. Both works carried estimates of £40,000-60,000, reflecting the tight competition at this level.
In between, a 2009 painting by Hernan Bas acquired from Perrotin sold just above its low estimate, likely to its guarantor, at £254,000 ($323,000). Momentum continued for Lucy Bull, whose kaleidoscopic abstraction from 2021—originally acquired from Paris gallery High Art—more than doubled its top estimate of £500,000 ($635,000), landing at £1,260,000 ($1.6 million) after being chased by five bidders, most from Asia.
Overall, the auction confirmed the ongoing strength of the market for women artists, all of whom sold above estimate. Sotheby’s also posted strong results for Paula Rego: her pastel on paper Snow White Playing with her Father’s Trophies sold within estimate for £900,000 (about $1.15 million), while Jenny Saville’s charcoal study exceeded its high estimate, selling for £533,000 (around $675,000).
Among other notable six-figure results, a monumental El Anatsui sold just shy of its high estimate at £1,999,000 (about $2.53 million). Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (The Arm) from 1982—a pivotal year in the artist’s rise—landed squarely within estimate at £5,530,000 (approximately $7 million). Andy Warhol’s Four Pink Marilyn (Reversal) followed, selling within estimate for £4,326,000 (about $5.5 million).
The masters also held firm. Both of Auguste Rodin’s monumental sculptures from his seminal series The Burghers of Calais sold within estimate to a collector in the room: Jean de Fiennes, vêtu, Grand Modèle achieved £762,000 ($1 million), while Pierre de Wiessant, vita, Grand Modèle, vêtu sold for £889,000 ($1.2 million).
The market for Lucio Fontana also showed signs of recovery—at least for major works. His rare blue 14-slashed Concetto spaziale, Attese sold just above estimate at £2.8 million (about $3.7 million) following a fierce bidding war among four potential buyers. The deep blue of the canvas was inspired by Yves Klein’s IKB pigment—but Klein’s own Untitled Fire Colour Painting (FC 28), which appeared one lot earlier, surprisingly went unsold after failing to meet its £1.8-2 million estimate ($2.3-2.5 million), despite both an irrevocable bid and a guarantee.
Other unsold works of the night included paintings by Frank Auerbach and Daniel Richter. Still, Sotheby’s achieved a healthy 89 percent sell-through rate by lot.
On October 17, Sotheby’s also staged a single-owner sale of 17 iPad drawings by David Hockney from his celebrated series The Arrival of Spring. The results were remarkable: the group doubled its high estimate to reach £6.2 million ($8.3 million), achieving a white-glove sale and setting a new auction record for the artist. With this result, Sotheby’s London has now brought in £240 million (approximately $304 million) since March. Notably, American buyers accounted for 40 percent of the purchasers in the Hockney sale, underscoring the continued global demand for blue-chip British artists.
A £2,374,000 Basquiat tops Phillips’ London Evening Sale
On October 16 at 5 p.m., Phillips hosted its London Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale, achieving a total of £10,332,200 ($13,884,410) across 22 lots. The auction was more modest—and less successful—than the others, posting a 32 percent drop compared to last year after four lots failed to sell and four others were withdrawn before the start. The evening was led by a new auction record for Emma McIntyre: Seven types of ambiguity (2021) sold for £167,700 ($225,355) from a modest £50,000-70,000 estimate, edging past her previous record of $201,600 set in May 2025 at Phillips Hong Kong. The second-highest lot of the night was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Pestus) (1982), which comfortably met its pre-sale estimate at £2,374,000 ($3,190,181).
An energetic moment from Phillips’s London Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale. Courtesy Phillips
Once again, contemporary women artists confirmed their momentum at Phillips, reaching a high point after Emma McIntyre’s record-setting result when Flora Yukhnovich’s My Body knows Un-Heard of Songs (2017) fetched £1,276,000 ($1,714,689) against a £900,000-1,500,000 estimate.
Opening the sale was a purple-and-pink abstraction by Martha Jungwirth—now a familiar presence across Thaddaeus Ropac’s fair booths—which exceeded expectations at £180,600. A few lots later, an early work by Sasha Gordon sold just shy of its high estimate at £116,100. Demand for Gordon has been reignited by her blockbuster solo debut at Zwirner in New York, which made her the youngest artist represented by the mega-gallery. Painted in 2019 during her studies, Drive Through marks a transitional moment in her shift toward the more discursive, cartoon-inflected style that catapulted her into the global spotlight.
Later in the sale, Noah Davis’s Mitrice Richardson (2012) found a buyer within estimate at £451,500 ($606,726), while Derek Fordjour’s Regatta Pattern Study (2020) fetched £528,900 ($710,736), surpassing its high estimate of £500,000. Other notable results included Sean Scully’s Wall of Light Summer Night 5.10 (2010), which achieved £967,500 ($1,300,127) against a £600,000-800,000 estimate, and Robert Rauschenberg’s Gospel Yodel (Salvage Series), which sold for £709,500 ($953,426), more than doubling its £350,000-550,000 estimate. A 2012 sculpture by Bernar Venet fetched £516,000 ($693,401) from a £250,000-350,000 estimate, reflecting the artist’s rising demand—particularly in Asia.
Not everything landed. A Warhol-inspired Banksy portrait of Kate Moss, estimated at £700,000-1,000,000, failed to find a buyer, while a cacophonic abstract work by Sigmar Polke from 1983-84 also went unsold, likely due to its overly ambitious £600,000-800,000 estimate relative to current market demand for the artist.
For Olivia Thornton, Phillips’s head of modern and contemporary art, Europe, the overall positive auction reflected “the vibrancy of contemporary collecting” and reaffirmed London’s enduring magnetism: “London remains the cultural crossroads of the global art market.”
ATHR is a leading contemporary art gallery co-founded by Mohammed Hafiz and Hamza Serafi with locations in Riyadh, Jeddah and AlUla. Courtesy ATHR gallery
It took Art Basel announcing a new edition in Doha, Qatar, and Sotheby’s recently previewing its first auction in Abu Dhabi at the St. Regis Saadiyat Island for the art world to start paying closer attention to the Gulf art scene and its potential. But while the U.A.E.’s art ecosystem—which includes Dubai’s gallery network and institutional hubs like Sharjah—has long been discussed, far less has been reported about the expanding art scene in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Last February, in the UNESCO-protected historical city of Diriyah, just outside the capital Riyadh, Sotheby’s held its first-ever auction in Saudi Arabia. The cross-category sale featured works by Fernando Botero and Refik Anadol alongside jewels, watches, rare cars, handbags and iconic sports memorabilia, totaling $17.28 million. This was not Sotheby’s first incursion into the Kingdom. The auction house had already staged several charity sales, backed Saudi Arabia’s first Contemporary Art Biennale in 2022, supported last year’s inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, and partnered with the Diriyah Biennale Foundation on the public program for its 2024 edition. Since 2020, the land-art biennial Desert X, conceived in California, has staged a Saudi edition in AlUla, with the next installment scheduled for January 2026—timed so visitors traveling to Art Basel Doha can continue on to Saudi Arabia.
Still, little is known about the day-to-day infrastructure behind these initiatives or the players shaping Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene. Observer recently spoke with Mohammed Hafiz, cofounder with Hamza Serafi of ATHR, the Kingdom’s leading contemporary art gallery, to learn more about the current state of the art scene and its evolution, particularly under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030. Since its launch in 2016, the strategic framework has opened the Kingdom to the world and positioned culture as a central force of transformation.
ATHR opened in 2009—well before Vision 2030 created the space to give art and culture a proper boost as the country transitions from an oil-centric economy to a global hub—and now has locations in Riyadh, Jeddah and AlUla. “We started the gallery at a time when the local art scene—and the broader cultural movement around it—was still quite slow,” says Mohammed Hafiz, noting that Saudi Arabia in the 1940s and 1950s had a vibrant artistic movement, with some of the country’s pioneering modernists emerging during that time. In 1958, the Ministry of Knowledge (then the education authority) inaugurated Saudi Arabia’s first formal art exhibition, a symbolic milestone that brought fine art into national consciousness. “For various reasons, that momentum faded over the decades, but when we opened, we wanted to help reignite that energy.”
Mohammed Hafiz, co-founder of ATHR. Photo: Scott Morrish
ATHR’s beginnings were intertwined with “Edge of Arabia,” a traveling exhibition of Saudi contemporary artists that launched in London and toured across Europe and the Middle East. The project became one of the key catalysts for bringing international attention to Saudi contemporary art. The 2008 London exhibition alone drew more than 13,000 visitors before traveling to Venice during the Biennale the following year, and later to Berlin, Istanbul and Dubai.
Afterward, somewhere in 2013, Hafiz expanded the gallery’s work and launched a social initiative called 21,39. “The goal was to produce one major curated exhibition each year and build a whole week of programming around it—panels, talks and events that would bring together local curators, museum directors, collectors, patrons and artists, local and international,” Hafiz explains. The initiative had both private and public components, led by Her Royal Highness Princess Jawaher and a group of patrons, with Hafiz serving as vice chair throughout its run. “It became another important building block in the evolution of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art ecosystem.”
Vision 2030 marked a watershed moment: under its framework, the Kingdom elevated “culture and arts” as vital pillars of national transformation—no longer ornaments, but key drivers of tourism, soft power, identity and economic growth. “The leadership and the government recognized the importance of culture and the creative industries, not just as forms of expression but as engines of national development,” Hafiz says. As part of that shift, the Ministry of Culture was finally established as a standalone entity—previously it had been folded into the Ministry of Media.
As part of Vision 2030, the Ministry of Culture developed its own strategy, set priorities, and built a network of specialized commissions: the Art Commission, the Culinary Commission, the Museum Commission and others—sixteen in total—each focused on a distinct cultural sector. “This has given us as operators in the art scene many opportunities,” says Hafiz. “It has allowed us to support our artists more effectively, to exhibit their work to a broader local audience, and to engage with an entire new generation of collectors increasingly engaging with contemporary art in Saudi Arabia.”
The Ministry of Culture has become a pivotal force, spearheading initiatives like the Biennale, the Desert X exhibitions, and other major commissions that have transformed the Kingdom’s artistic landscape. These large-scale projects have given artists the chance to realize some of their most ambitious visions and have positioned them at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s rapidly evolving cultural scene, as Hafiz notes.
Curated by Rania Majinyan, the group show “Afterschool” is on view at ATHR Gallery AlUla through December 30, 2025Photo: Scott Morrish
This rapid evolution underscores the promising trajectory of the Saudi art scene. At the same time, it highlights how ATHR has long operated less as a conventional gallery and more as a cultural platform—a space dedicated to producing and supporting art and culture within the Kingdom while promoting their international reach. “From the start, it was never just about commercial representation. Our space has always operated more like a cultural hub,” Hafiz asserts. “What truly defines us is how we work with artists and engage with the broader artistic community.”
Today, ATHR spans roughly 4,000 square meters across its original venue in Jeddah, its newly opened Riyadh location (ATHR JAX) and a smaller outpost in AlUla—the first contemporary art gallery in the historic city. It has also expanded to include the ATHR Foundation, which focuses on developing emerging artists and alternative art spaces.
Hafiz was a patron and collector before becoming a gallerist. He describes his deep involvement in fostering Saudi Arabia’s art scene as a natural convergence of influences. Though his family wasn’t directly involved in art, they were active in creative industries—fashion retail on one side and publishing on the other. “There was always this dual engagement: the creativity of fashion and the amplification of voices that comes with journalism,” he reflects. “When I encountered art, I realized it merged both worlds—it had the storytelling power of journalism and the expressive creativity of fashion. It was a language that transcended cultures and touched people in a unique way.”
Hafiz began collecting art around 2007, after selling his family business. Soon after, he felt compelled to invest in his country’s cultural potential. “Suddenly, I had the time and resources to explore something new. I thought, why not give this a try—why not build something that could help artists and create a cultural movement? That’s how it all began.”
Cultivating an emerging art scene
ATHR’s diversified ventures now include AKTHR, an art services agency that supports Saudi Arabia’s broader art industry. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience, the team advises and assists a growing community of individuals eager to engage with art and begin collecting.
During the inaugural edition of the Islamic Biennale, ATHR hosted a major rooftop dinner to open their exhibition, welcoming around 2,000 guests—85 percent of them local. What stood out most was the sheer number of young attendees. “The collector base isn’t huge yet, but there’s definitely an appetite—an eagerness to experience, to see, to explore,” Hafiz confirms. “It’s incredibly refreshing to witness.”
During the inaugural edition of the Islamic Biennale, ATHR staged a landmark rooftop dinner that drew nearly 2,000 guests—an impressive 85 percent of whom were local. Courtesy ATHR
ATHR is also investing directly in education and collector development through initiatives like Young Art Collectors. “Through it, we organize talks with established collectors, guide new ones and take them on trips to art fairs and studios,” he explains. “It’s really about helping them develop their knowledge—understanding why they might want to collect, what their vision is and how to engage meaningfully with art.”
One of the country’s most significant recent developments has been in education. Just last week, the Minister of Culture announced a major investment in a new arts and cultural university set to open in Riyadh within the next two or three years. The university is already forming partnerships and affiliations with international institutions across art, music, theater and other creative disciplines.
Hafiz notes that while art programs have previously existed within Saudi universities, there has never been a dedicated art university in the country. “This will be the first institution fully devoted to the creative industries, and that’s a significant milestone.” Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture has also launched a generous scholarship program for Saudis who wish to study art abroad. Once accepted into a pre-approved university, students receive full tuition and living expenses for both undergraduate and postgraduate studies. “It’s a major and truly inspiring initiative.”
At the same time, Hafiz remains focused on cultivating dialogue. “One of our key objectives is building connections and bridges between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world,” he says. ATHR supports that mission through its residency program, which invites curators, institutional representatives and museum directors to spend time in Saudi Arabia for exploration and study trips. “It’s about creating genuine exchange, fostering understanding, and building lasting relationships that strengthen the dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the global art community.”
Since its inception in Jeddah in 2009, ATHR Gallery has played a pivotal role in shaping the contemporary Saudi art scene. Photo: Scott Morrish
Championing a new wave of Saudi talent
Saudi Arabia today can also claim a new generation of emerging artists, many of whom ATHR is actively promoting on the international stage. In terms of themes defining contemporary Saudi art, Hafiz points to two recurring subjects: religion and society. “Religion remains an integral part of our identity, so artists often reflect on it—sometimes by commenting on the past and its challenges, and sometimes by envisioning the future and its possibilities,” he explains. “Then, there’s the social dimension, especially around women’s rights. Many female artists are exploring questions related to gender, representation and the transformations we’re experiencing today.” Notably, much of this work carries an optimistic tone—acknowledging progress, engaging thoughtfully with the country’s ongoing social shifts and reflecting a shared hope for the kind of future that Vision 2030 is shaping.
From there, the conversation naturally turned to censorship and artistic freedom, as the country continues to face international criticism over its suppression of free speech—including death sentences—and the systemic exploitation of migrant laborers. Some critics argue that the official promotion of art functions as a “cultural façade” strategy: amplifying an image of openness and modernization while maintaining tight control over which narratives are permitted.
Hafiz acknowledges that censorship is a complex issue, noting that what may be considered sensitive or unacceptable in the West may not be in Saudi Arabia—and vice versa. “Every society has its own parameters,” and what is deemed permissible or taboo is shaped by local religious, social and cultural frameworks, which often differ from Western norms. “What I find encouraging is that Saudi artists have become very mature and intelligent in how they approach complex subjects,” Hafiz adds, pointing to the growing use of symbolic, metaphorical, and conceptual strategies. By embracing ambiguity, layering and coded imagery, Saudi artists invite multiple interpretations while making their work more resilient to censorship. “They know how to address issues creatively—how to make a point, leave room for interpretation, and allow the audience to engage with the work—while still remaining respectful of local culture and values.”
ATHR will soon bring Saudi artists to the forefront of the international scene, with booths at both Frieze London and Art Basel Paris this October. Each presentation will focus on Saudi female artists and challenge lingering stereotypes about the Kingdom—especially those tied to female oppression—while highlighting its evolution and future ambitions.
ATHR, in fact, does not treat art fairs as purely commercial platforms but as arenas for dialogue, exchange and shifting perspectives, as Hafiz clarifies. “Of course, when sales happen, that’s great—we love that—but the real goal is to create a long-lasting impact. We’re here for the long haul,” he says. “We don’t want to appear for two or three years and then disappear. We want to build trust, connection, and respect—staying consistent with our values and strategy, returning every year and building on what we’ve started. So far, that approach has worked well for us.”
At the same time, Hafiz points to a growing international appetite for Saudi artists. “We’ve always had international collectors acquiring works from us and following our artists,” he says, noting that while Saudi artists may not yet be fully mainstream, many have begun gaining global visibility.
A work in Zahrah Alghamdi’s solo show “Between Memory and Matter” at ATHR’s Riyadh Gallery. Photo: AzizJan
This recognition extends well beyond ATHR’s roster. “If you look across the scene, you’ll find Saudi artists represented by major international galleries—Maha Malluh with Krinzinger Gallery, Mohammed AlFaraj with Athr and CAMEL, Ahmed Mater with Galleria Continua, Arwa Al Neami with Sabrina Amrani in Madrid and Dana Awartani with Lisson Gallery. These artists are already positioned within international gallery rosters that don’t look at geography as a limitation, and that’s a really encouraging sign for the future.” Hafiz also mentions names such as Mohammed Al-Sanea, Dana Awartani, and Manal Al-Dowayan, all of whom have exhibited in museums abroad and are widely collected internationally.
At Frieze London, the gallery is presenting a two-artist booth featuring Daniah Alsaleh and Basmah Felemban, both exploring Saudi Arabia’s natural and cultural landscapes as sites in flux—continuously reshaped by the movement of people, ecologies and stories. Drawing on her research in the ancient Nabataean city of AlUla, Alsaleh incorporates mineral fragments to build a layered chronology and geology, weaving natural and human histories through material and memory. While Alsaleh looks to the past and the country’s heritage, Felemban looks forward—reimagining the landscape as an informational system. Her futuristic approach envisions new terrains and proposes multimedia, multidisciplinary ways of navigating the environment through fragments of language and data.
The following week, at Paris’s Grand Palais, ATHR will return to Art Basel with a three-artist, female-led presentation featuring Sarah Abu Abdallah, Hayfa Algwaiz and Lulua Alyahya. Through distinct styles—ranging from suspended, symbolic compositions to conceptual reflections—these artists explore how images can mirror and translate the complex, layered experiences of Saudi women today. Approaching these perspectives from sociopolitical, anthropological, and emotional angles, their work challenges stereotypes and prejudices while offering international audiences a rare glimpse into Saudi Arabia’s evolving contemporary art landscape—studio-based, globally networked and deeply rooted in local nuance and culture.
Lulua Alyahya, Untitled, 2025. Courtesy ATHR
Challenges and opportunities
Despite its many promising elements, Saudi Arabia’s art ecosystem remains in a formative stage and continues to face several key challenges. One of the most pressing is the limited number of galleries operating at ATHR’s level, as well as the lack of other spaces capable of supporting both emerging artistic talent and an expanding audience for contemporary art.
Still, Hafiz notes that the traditional concept of a gallery is itself under scrutiny. “Artists today can sell directly through online platforms—straight from their studios, through Artsy, or other direct-to-collector channels,” he explains. “In that kind of environment, the traditional role of the gallery—as a representative who works closely with artists to develop their careers, secure institutional participation, and place works in collections—becomes harder to sustain.” A few new galleries have opened in recent years, which Hafiz sees as a positive development, but he emphasizes that the collector base still needs time and effort to mature.
At the same time, Hafiz sees plenty of opportunity. Because Saudi Arabia’s art scene is still taking shape, there is room to experiment with new models—approaches that don’t rely on inherited frameworks. “We’re living in a time when every concept of museum or gallery is in question,” he says. “When you have a legacy, it’s very difficult and challenging to change the way you’ve been doing things. But when you build something new with a contemporary concept and a forward-looking strategy, you’re not held back by that weight—and that gives Saudi Arabia so much potential.”
It may take time to build, but once the foundation is solid, momentum can accelerate quickly—especially in a region where Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar are all deeply invested in the arts. Each serves as a major patron, moving in concert to elevate and strengthen the regional art scene and help position it as a new global hub. Hafiz describes Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Saudi Arabia as complementary forces. “We’re all supporting each other and working together to build a complete ecosystem. It’s like Europe or the U.S.—you have art fairs and museums spread across different cities. That diversity is healthy. The more activity there is, the better for everyone.”
You Ask, We Answer, an installation by Sarah Abu Abdallah at ATHR Jeddah in 2024. Courtesy ATHR
Pokémon cards are part of a broader franchise universe that extends the brand’s economic footprint into several different categories of consumption. Photo by Behrouz MEHRI / AFP) (Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images
The question came to me during a recent trip to Japan when, wandering through Tokyo, I listened to a rap by the artist Takashi Murakami. Just the day before—on a Monday, with galleries closed—at an artist’s suggestion, I had visited Nakano Broadway, a mecca for manga and anime lovers, or simply for the nostalgic. There, I encountered a market frenzy I wasn’t fully aware of. While browsing vintage stores for Chanel and Louis Vuitton bags in Shibuya, I saw whole shops dedicated exclusively to Pokémon cards and figurines. Inside, the buyers weren’t kids but people my age and older, actively collecting memorabilia that tethered them to their childhoods—objects that have also acquired undeniable economic and investment value.
I was born in the 1990s. Pokémon, Digimon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Dragon Ball and countless other anime and manga didn’t just fill my childhood television programming—in Italy’s Berlusconi era, private channels like Canale 5 and Italia 1 devoted vast blocks of airtime to imported Japanese anime—but introduced me to a world of trading cards, toys, video games and every sort of gadget that could build entire imaginative and narrative universes around us. These worlds shaped not only my and my peers’ play but, I’m convinced, our imaginations and even our personalities.
In Nakano, as on previous trips to Japan, I found myself searching for that one Pokémon or Digimon figure I was missing, compelled to buy it. What drove all this was not only nostalgia but also the enduring effects of that world-building and branding—an entire cultural and narrative ecosystem sticky enough to hold our attention long after childhood.
Around the same time, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Krystal Hur highlighting how Pokémon cards have become a “hot investment,” reportedly reaching a roughly 3,821 percent cumulative return since 2004, according to an index by analytics firm Card Ladder tracking trading-card values through August. That figure eclipses even the S&P 500’s 483 percent rise over the same period or Meta Platforms’ 1,844 percent climb since going public in 2012.
The craze for the monster trading cards, first launched in 1996, apparently intensified during the pandemic after influencer Logan Paul revealed in 2022 that he had acquired a near-perfect-grade Pikachu Illustrator card worth $5.3 million, setting a Guinness World Record for the priciest Pokémon card ever sold in a private deal. Even if the exact figure is difficult to verify, the public market has its own headline records: In March 2022, Heritage Auctions sold a 1999 First Edition Holographic Charizard (PSA 10)—the iconic chase card—for $420,000. Another sold earlier this year for $175,000.
Hur’s article also featured a handful of “success stories” of thirty-somethings who now “diversify their investments” through Pokémon cards, like a 27-year-old account manager in Ohio who funded his fiancée’s 3.5-carat diamond engagement ring and part of their wedding by selling the collection he had begun in the 1990s. (How many times have I wished my mother hadn’t thrown mine away?) Yet one collector openly admitted that his buying was based less on financial calculus and more on sentiment: “A lot of us are chasing pieces of our childhood,” said Matthew Griffin.
Influencer Logan Paul revealed in 2022 that he had acquired a near-perfect Pikachu Illustrator card for $5.3 million, setting a Guinness World Record for the priciest Pokémon card ever sold in a private deal. Source: Web | The Pokémon Company / PSA
Skeptics argue that the Pokémon card market is inconsistent and irrational because it runs largely on nostalgia and symbolic value. Others counter that it may still be safer than other pandemic-era alternative assets, like baseball cards or sports memorabilia, because fictional characters like Pikachu are timeless in a way no athlete’s career can ever be.
This brings us to a series of striking parallels—and key juxtapositions—between the Pokémon card market, other nostalgia-driven economies and today’s art market. Looking at these could reveal insights the art world can learn from Millennial and Gen X buying behavior as it struggles to attract the next generation of collectors.
Nostalgia-driven numbers
Pokémon is just one of many I.P.s that have surged in popularity among Millennial collectors, where nostalgia cycles have become engines of value creation. In recent conversations with peers across different regions—particularly in the Asia-Pacific and the U.S.—I’ve noticed a shared trend: vintage cameras, vinyl records and even relics like VHS tapes, CDs, and DVDs are becoming increasingly coveted by Millennials and Gen Z. The market for retro consoles (e.g., Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Sega Dreamcast) and the cartridges that accompanied their childhoods is booming. In July 2021, Heritage Auctions sold a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 (1996, N64) for $1.56 million—the first video game to break the million-dollar mark at auction.
A physical object tethered to an analog past now carries both aesthetic and identity value, particularly in today’s hyper-technological age. For those of us who grew up watching the dizzying curve of technological evolution unfold—from cassette to CD, from the first unlimited SMS plans to smartphones—these objects are anchors of memory and existential witnesses. The same appetite drives younger buyers toward comic books, graphic novels, vintage watches and retro fashion. Casio G-Shock, Swatch and Seiko dive watches, once essentially disposable, are now hunted down in places like Nakano Broadway or through online resellers. Fashion brands have capitalized on this by recycling Millennial childhood aesthetics tied to the 1990s—Balenciaga is a clear example. Prices for Jordan retros, Nike Dunks and Adidas Superstars are climbing, powered by ’90s and early 2000s nostalgia, while new sneaker drops sell as much on ‘I wanted these when I was 12’ as on freshness of design, as evidenced by the revivals of Puma classics or Onitsuka Tigers.
A copy of Super Mario 64 sold for $1.56 million at Heritage Auctions on July 11, 2021, shattering the world record for a video game. Courtesy Heritage Auctions
These markets operate on symbolic value, defined above all by sentiment, which is not so different from the symbolic economy that underpins art prices. Yet for these items, nostalgia—when combined with rarity and scarcity, often manufactured through limited editions, blind boxes, or surprise drops—is enough to justify soaring prices, even among Millennials who are more skeptical, more price-sensitive, and less willing to overpay. As Tim Schneider recently pointed out in The Gray Market, the greatest challenge for an art dealer today is persuading skeptical buyers that a work—especially by an artist their own age—is “good enough” to merit the price tag, at a time when everything else in life is also more expensive.
So why is this different? In the case of nostalgia-driven collectibles, memory itself becomes monetized, justifying even six-figure sales when the object is the only tangible key left to unlock it. But the real question is: What forged such powerful sentimental bonds that they hardened into identity and culture, transforming disposable childhood ephemera into adult investments?
Enduring cultural properties
Pokémon cards derive meaning from a broader franchise universe, which anchors each product within a wider narrative and cultural value. Branding has become synonymous with world-building, capable of creating enduring, authentic cultural and emotional resonance—an identitarian connection that goes far beyond simple fandom. This is the power of storytelling, of making a myth that accompanies an object. It’s a factor that the market for Pokémon trading cards shares with other collectible toys, such as LEGO, action figures, or comics tied to franchises like Star Wars or Marvel, among others.
The recent Labubu craze, which rapidly expanded from Hong Kong youth culture to the wider world—with people lining up and even fighting to collect this kawaii monstrous plush—follows the same logic. But it has already begun crossing into the art industry. During its Basel edition in June, Art Basel released a limited-edition Labubu figurine (in its signature “Basel blue”) exclusively at the Art Basel Shop. Only 100 were made, priced at SFr 200. The drop sold out immediately, and on-site whispers of flippers floating $5,000 resale offers surfaced within minutes. The current Labubu auction record is for a human-sized “giant” mint green version, which sold for around $150,552 (¥1.08 million) at a Yongle International auction in Beijing.
A shopper at the Labubu pop-up in June in Shanghai. Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images
All these markets thrive on cults of character built through manufactured mythology, transforming into IP-based storytelling that multiplies value through merchandising. In the art world, by contrast, the focus remains primarily on artist biography and “serious” critical discourse, resistant to pop-cultural world-building and even to branding. “When you buy a Rolex from Rolex, it says Rolex; paintings from Gagosian are signed Koons or Saville,” collector Jeff Magid wrote in an opinion piece for ARTnews, addressing similar questions.
This provocation reveals how the art world continues to fall short in offering status-signaling objects—and, I would add, community belonging and recognizability—that luxury brands and contemporary collectibles have perfected. Pokémon, Labubu, sneakers and vintage collectibles (across tech, fashion and design) are unmistakable lifestyle signals. Combined with scarcity and shared rituals, they build and sustain cultural capital that can be seamlessly converted into economic capital.
Connected communities and lower buy-in barriers
Accessibility matters. Pokémon cards, Labubu and most of the collectibles markets mentioned above have achieved early onboarding because of their relative affordability. Pokémon packs or Labubu blind boxes start at $10-20, a low barrier that draws kids and teens into the narrative and the act of collecting early, setting up a long-tail trajectory to remain engaged and eventually move into higher price points as their disposable income grows. Nostalgia cycles then keep the value alive, ensuring continuity across generations.
Interestingly, in recent days, former auction-house enfant terrible Loïc Gouzer reposted on Instagram his now-iconic promo video for his cross-category curated sale, If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday…, held at Christie’s in May 2014, where he placed Basquiat next to Koons, Hirst, rare cars and sneakers for the first time in what was then a radical act. The auction was revolutionary at the time because it embraced streetwear marketing logic: drop a disruptive trailer, build hype, collapse categories and make collecting feel cool rather than fusty and exclusive.
A still from Christie’s promotional video for the If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday… sale. Christie’s
Coming from a younger generation into the aging world of auctions, Gouzer instinctively understood the need to reinvent storytelling and branding, adopting the cultural language of younger audiences—skate videos, streetwear aesthetics, cross-genre mashups—to reframe how value was perceived. His cross-category auctions also tapped into the logic of nostalgia cycles: pairing high art with luxury toys of a different order—cars, watches, memorabilia—made the auction floor feel like a Millennial collector’s fantasy closet.
Brand dilution and cross-industry myth
Here we can return to the “illumination” sparked by discovering that Murakami had also ventured into rap, among so many other expressions of his style—or better said, of his “branding.” Takashi Murakami is arguably one of the first artists to adopt and fully integrate these dynamics, making pop-cultural world-building a core element of his aesthetics and practice. Through Kaikai Kiki, he blurred the line between fine art and merchandise. By applying his instantly recognizable, fresh, youthful style—populated by kawaii characters rooted in Japanese manga, objects, and even experiences—he pursued a pop-culture logic of world-building while embracing a degree of brand dilution that lowered barriers to entry. In this way, a teenager buying a keychain or plush mascot at ComplexCon could enter the same collector’s universe as a seasoned buyer spending millions at Gagosian or at auction on one of his monumental paintings.
Notably, Murakami didn’t invent this playbook; he absorbed a cultural logic already deeply embedded in Japanese pop culture, as his notion of “Superflat” was designed to articulate. Capsule collections, limited drops, and the collapse of boundaries between “high” and “low” have long defined Japan’s cultural and creative industries. Early streetwear pioneers like A Bathing Ape (BAPE), COMME des GARÇONS and Neighborhood built empires on scarcity and hype. At the same time, manga and anime cultivated devoted fandoms where merchandise was as central as the story itself.
By asserting that contemporary Japanese visual culture had already flattened its hierarchies, Murakami’s “Superflat-ness” offered a theoretical framework that made his fusion of fine art, commerce, and pop culture not only coherent but essential to his practice—never a compromise of artistic integrity. Even his collaborations with Louis Vuitton or Uniqlo weren’t betrayals of art but natural continuations of a Japanese cultural economy where brand, object, and fandom constantly intertwine, creating symbolic universes that buyers can both belong to and collect.
Alongside Murakami, KAWS stands as another powerful model, this time on the American side. His toys and Uniqlo collaborations have already fostered a generation of young collectors who later graduated to six-figure Companion sculptures as their first major art purchases. Daniel Arsham has played a similar game, targeting Millennial collectors with his Pokémon sculptures while building pipelines through more accessible editions and sneaker collaborations.
The series, including the gadget-inspired works, began as a formal collaboration between Daniel Arsham and The Pokémon Company, which partnered to present Relics of Kanto Through Time (2020) at the PARCO Museum Tokyo, where he reimagined Pokémon as archaeological relics unearthed a thousand years in the future. The collaboration continued with A Ripple in Time, a series of exhibitions and installations across Tokyo organized by Nanzuka that paired Arsham’s fictional-archaeology style with Pokémon lore. This phase expanded the project to include bronze sculptures, concept art, animation, and reinterpreted Pokémon cards rendered in Arsham’s signature eroded aesthetic. Most of the Pokémon sculptures were produced in extremely limited editions—99, 500, or fewer units—and distributed through raffles or lottery systems rather than web drops, creating built-in scarcity and positioning the project squarely at the intersection of art markets and collectible fandom economies.
Meanwhile, a museum like MoMA already seems attuned to both the potential and the risk of brand dilution in cross-industry collaborations. The institution recently announced a capsule collection with Mattel featuring seven products inspired by artists and artworks from MoMA’s permanent collection. The figurines range from a Van Gogh Barbie wearing an evening gown printed with Starry Night (1889) to two Little People Collector figures modeled after Monet’s Water Lilies and Salvador Dalí, complete with his unmistakable mustache. The collection also includes an Uno deck featuring details from six MoMA-owned artworks and a Hot Wheels replica inspired by the museum’s Citroën DS 23 Sedan, among other items. Released on November 11, just in time for the holiday season, these art-infused toys will be sold at MoMA’s Design Stores in New York and Japan, as well as on the Design Store’s website and the Mattel Creations site. The partnership also includes Mattel funding MoMA’s Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Family Art Lab, an interactive space for kids and families on the museum’s first floor.
As I argued recently, cross-industry collaborations offer artists crucial gateways while cultivating new audiences. At the same time, platforms like Avant Arte are proving that there is a young, eager audience ready to engage with art—so long as editions feel authentic and accessible, and community remains central to the narrative. According to recent surveys, the global collectibles market has surpassed $496 billion in 2025. If the art world wants to avoid shrinking in both volume and financial weight as it struggles to broaden its buyer base, then making art more “collectible”—at multiple price points and across different stages of life—may be the only sustainable strategy for cultivating lifelong engagement from the next generation of buyers.
The Little People Collector™ x Claude Monet figures were inspired by the artist’s Water Lilies. Photo : Courtesy Mattel and MoMA
True resilience in fine art logistics depends on infrastructure, planning and people working in concert. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Hurricane season is an annual reminder to South Florida that nature sets its own terms. For most people, preparedness means stocking up on batteries and bottled water. In fine art logistics, it means something more: safeguarding irreplaceable cultural treasures against storms that are growing stronger and less predictable, every year. With nearly two decades in this industry, disaster preparedness has transformed from a seasonal ritual into a year-round mandate. In today’s climate—both meteorological and cultural—that evolution is not just welcome. It is essential.
Hurricanes as cultural risk
Miami has long lived with the spectre of hurricanes. But in recent years, the storms that make landfall are not only more frequent; they are more severe, often bringing Category 4 or 5 winds and devastating storm surges. For private collectors, museums and other institutions, this raises urgent questions. How do you protect a Picasso or a site-specific installation against a natural disaster? How do you secure works that were never intended to withstand 150-mile-per-hour winds or days without power?
The answer begins with recognizing that preparedness isn’t about reacting when a storm appears on the radar. It’s about embedding resilience into every layer of planning, from infrastructure to people.
Beyond four walls
At Gander & White’s new bespoke facility in Miami, which opened in August, reinforced storage was built to ensure all contents are protected from extreme weather. But bricks and steel alone are not enough. True preparedness rests on protocols for emergency communication, detailed inventory management and pre-established evacuation or relocation procedures.
The art world is increasingly taking notice. Florida institutions are incorporating storm-resistant engineering into new builds and retrofits. Meanwhile, broader strategies have emerged that stretch beyond Miami to New York and other hubs now facing climate stress. Floods in the Northeast, heatwaves in the West and wildfires in California all underscore that disaster preparedness is no longer a South Florida problem. It is a global art world issue.
People make the plan
Even the strongest infrastructure and most detailed manuals will fall short if the people behind them are unprepared. At Gander & White Miami’s office, we keep what we call “the problem solver table”—a space where the team brings forward challenges and solutions. This practice reflects something central to fine art logistics: training and decision-making under pressure. When storms threaten, there is no room for improvisation. Every action must flow from prior preparation and shared understanding.
Whether it’s relocating select works, updating documentation or confirming storage conditions, these steps not only protect collections but also provide peace of mind to insurers. And in a world where insurability is increasingly fragile, that matters more than ever. After the 2024 California wildfires, some collectors faced cancelled coverage or steep premium hikes, a cautionary tale that resonates well beyond the West Coast.
The value of foresight
One principle stands out in art logistics: proactivity over reactivity. Panicked, last-minute decisions—whether moving too quickly or improvising under stress—rarely end well. Effective preparedness is measured and anchored in foresight.
Consider the difference between scrambling to pack and relocate works 24 hours before landfall versus executing a phased plan developed months in advance. In one case, risks compound: staff fatigue, transport bottlenecks and inadequate packing. In the other, logistics flow with precision, protecting not just the works but also the people tasked with safeguarding them. Preparedness is also about knowing when not to act. Sometimes the safest course is to leave a piece secured on site with a custom-made hurricane bonnet rather than risk damage during hurried transit. Wisdom lies not in doing everything, but in doing the right things at the right time.
A shared responsibility
The conversation about disaster resilience often gets siloed: institutions versus private collectors, galleries versus logistics providers. But the truth is that preparedness is a shared responsibility across the entire art ecosystem. The collector who invests in climate-resistant storage, the curator who maintains detailed condition reports, the logistics team that drills emergency protocols—all play interconnected roles.
As global temperatures rise, the line between “hurricane season” and “disaster season” blurs. Floods, fires and heatwaves increasingly overlap with what once were regional threats. The art world, with its global circulation of works, must adapt accordingly. A painting flown from Miami to San Francisco may encounter vastly different climate risks at each stage of its journey. Resilience, therefore, is not just local but transnational.
Moving forward
As extreme weather becomes ever more extreme, the question for everyone involved in the stewardship of art is simple yet urgent: are we ready? Preparedness can no longer be framed as optional, or even as a competitive advantage. It is our most powerful safeguard, protecting not only material assets but also the cultural memory entrusted to us. Hurricanes, floods and fires will come and go. The true test is whether the art—and the stories it carries—endure.
Preparedness is an art form in itself. And like all art, it demands vision, discipline and collective commitment.
The Armory Show 2025 opened with a VIP preview on September 4 and runs through September 7. Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
American collectors seem to have taken the back-to-school spirit seriously this year, with several dealers reporting a brisk and buoyant first day at the Armory Show. The New York fair—one of the city’s most established and historic—opened yesterday, September 4, at the Javits Center and quickly surpassed expectations across price ranges, leaving dealers cautiously hopeful that this season might mark the start of a healthier moment, at least for the U.S. market.
“People are excited to be ‘back to school’—both dealers and collectors,” New York dealer David Nolan told Observer. By early afternoon, his booth had already sold well to existing clients and some new ones. “Many serious collectors are in from out of town to get in on the fun,” he noted. “Not to be hyperbolic, but things are flying off the wall.” Nolan’s booth was strategically conceived to offer something for everyone—one hundred works on paper spanning 1944 to the present, embracing a range of styles and narratives and, most importantly, different price points.
Reflecting on the market, Nolan added that in his experience, the art world operates in cyclical patterns. “I have seen several waves of change since I opened my gallery, and they are good and necessary.” On the fair floor yesterday, there was no room for gloom and doom—only optimism. “I’m not afraid to be a pessimist, but there’s just no place for it at the moment!”
David Nolan. Photo: Marc Selwyn
Some international professionals at the fair were more critical, lamenting that The Armory Show no longer attracts many of the major galleries that once participated. “The Armory is stuck in the middle,” art market expert and thought leader Magnus Resch told Observer. “It has a strong team and a prime venue, but it’s held back by unfortunate timing, the absence of top galleries and direct competition from Frieze Seoul.”
Optimism and early sales nonetheless offered immediate relief—and hope—to younger dealers, particularly those in the fair’s Present section, dedicated to galleries under ten years old and featuring the largest number of participants in Armory’s history. As director Kyla McMillan told Observer in an interview ahead of the fair, for her first edition, she wanted the event not only to appeal to seasoned collectors and institutional players but also to engage a broader, younger audience. The Armory Show is, after all, one of the longest-running fairs in the U.S. and a cornerstone of New York’s cultural scene—and often, for many New Yorkers, the first or only art fair they attend.
One standout this year in the Present section was the alchemical cosmologies translated into glazed ceramic vessels by Mexican artist Alejandro Garcia Contreras, presented by Swivel Gallery in its Armory debut. Following Contreras’s sold-out debut at NADA New York two years ago and a solo exhibition, his new works once again captivated visitors with their mysterious, symbolic, archetypal language, merging mythological visions with pop culture to grapple with the mysteries of the universe. Four vessels and a ceramic mirror sold within the first hours of the fair, priced between $11,000 and $20,000, with an additional $12,000 vessel placed by evening.
The gallery is also presenting in Platform, the section dedicated to large-scale installations, a new work by Jamaican-born artist Simon Benjamin, Tidalectic No. 1, 2025—a 700-pound iteration of his sand-barrel works, transmuting sediment and shoreline into vessels of memory. The piece exposes a geology and maritime history embedded in colonial pasts, engaged in the present and gesturing toward imagined futures.
Swivel Gallery presenting the work of Alejandro García Contreras. Photo: Cary D Whittier
The solo booth of British abstract artist Jo Dennis, presented by Mexico City- and New York-based gallery JO-HS, also attracted plenty of attention. On opening day, the gallery placed one of Dennis’s sculptures made from used military tent fabrics, where dense layers of intuitive marks and gestures accumulate as a psycho-emotional and poetic record of past memories and new bodily and identitarian awareness. By evening, several of her dynamic paintings were on hold with both existing and new collectors.
Returning to Armory this year, Mrs. Gallery is showing a solo presentation of Molly Bounds’s intimate and psychologically nuanced paintings that place undefined and often archetypal subjects in liminal, contemplative and suspended states that resonate emotionally beyond any individuality. By evening, the gallery had placed at least two works, priced at $7,000 and $4,000, respectively.
Also in Present, DINIM Gallery mounted a solo booth of evocative works by Emily Coan. By evening, the gallery had sold at least five pieces, captivating collectors with their imaginative, magical atmosphere inspired by fairy tales and myths. “There’s a tremendous amount of excitement and buzz,” Robert Dinim told Observer, noting the strong institutional presence with curators from museums across the U.S. and a large number of private collectors and advisors out with multiple clients. For him, the first-day atmosphere suggested the possible beginning of a market shift.
An Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka work presented by Patel Brown. Courtesy of Patel Brown
Toronto-based Patel Brown similarly reported a strong first day in the same section, selling six works from their solo presentation of Canadian-Japanese artist Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, all priced under the $25,000 threshold. Combining tradition and innovation, nature and human creation, Hatanaka works on traditional Japanese washi paper with printmaking and ink, shaping her practice as a way to reattune to the organic rhythms of nature. Her process embraces transformation and the alchemical power of materials to create seemingly abstract compositions that move beyond human-centered perception and expression, while reflecting the fragility of environments and the delicacy of entire ecosystems disrupted by human activity.
Meanwhile, for its inaugural participation in the Armory, Miami-based gallery Andrew Reed featured a solo presentation by Cornelius Tulloch, reporting sales of multiple works in the range of $4,000 to $6,000. Moving within a largely symbolic and allegorical realm, Tulloch explores themes of migration, masquerade and Afro-Indigenous rituals in paintings that evoke both the mystery and vitality of the tropical South Florida and Caribbean landscapes.
Also making its Armory debut, the dynamic Chicago-based Povos Gallery presented a solo booth of Mexican multidisciplinary artist Leopoldo Gout, following his sold-out show at the gallery last year. Gout’s ever-expanding creativity traverses mediums and themes, weaving stories about human nature in relation to the natural world and emphasizing the power of collective imagination. The gallery reported strong interest and promising conversations likely to lead to additional sales in the coming days.
In the Focus section, one of the most anticipated highlights was the solo booth of vibrantly colored ceramics by Miami artist Joel Gaitan, presented by The Pit, which went on to win the $10,000 SAUER Art Prize.
In the main section, Brazilian dealer Nara Roesler saw positive interest in both the Brazilian artists central to her program and international names. By evening, the gallery had placed a linen-and-wool work by Sheila Hicks for $87,000, a print edition by Vik Muniz for $50,000, and works by Marcelo Silveira ($18,000), Manoela Medeiros ($20,000) and Bruno Dunely ($8,000). “We are happy to be back at the Armory with such a strong group of galleries. The mood is still high,” senior director Patrícia Pericas told Observer. “We have been particularly pleased with the increased interest from advisors requesting works by Brazilian artists for their clients.”
Nara Rosler. CHARLES ROUSSEL
In the main section, Marc Straus featured a group presentation of leading names from his roster, with a clear emphasis on the handmade and on legacies of craftsmanship reimagined through contemporary material approaches. The booth included Jeffrey Gibson’s Like a Hammer—the title piece of his landmark touring museum survey that began in 2014—alongside works by Abdulnasser Gharem, Folkert de Jong, Hermann Nitsch, Ozioma Onuzulike, Anne Samat, Antonio Santín, Renée Stout and Marie Watt. “We had a tremendous first day, with five works sold within the first few hours and both new and returning collectors visiting our booth,” Straus told Observer. “I believe our strong sales came from bringing the very best works by each artist and, as always, keeping our prices fair.” First-day sales for the gallery included oils by Antonio Santín.
A range of abstract works dominated James Fuentes’s booth, including pieces by John McAllister and Pat Lipsky, anticipating their fall exhibitions at the gallery. Fuentes had already sold Lipsky’s Winter Landscape (1971) ahead of the fair for $180,000. The artist’s upcoming show and renewed market attention coincide with the release of her book Brightening Glance: Recollections of a New York Painter (University of Iowa Press).
Among the highest-priced sales on opening day, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill placed works by Tracey Emin, Kiki Smith and Rachel Whiteread in the range of $15,000 to $1,000,000, while Sean Kelly sold a painting by Kehinde Wiley for $265,000.
By day’s end, the other major-ticket work at the fair—a $1.2 million Alex Katz anchoring Peter Blum’s booth—remained available. Nonetheless, Blum reported several other sales, including works by Martha Tuttle and Nicholas Galanin, who continues to enjoy a strong institutional presence this year, both in the U.S. and in biennials and museums worldwide.
The fair’s opening day reinforced the resilience of the art market. Photo by Casey Kelbaugh. Courtesy of The Armory Show and CKA.
James Cohan Gallery placed a sculpture by Kennedy Yanko in the first hours for $150,000. Yanko only recently joined the gallery’s roster, following her solo presentation with Cohan at Frieze London and a nearly sold-out double exhibition staged jointly with Salon 94 last September. The gallery reported a number of first-day placements for other in-demand artists on its roster, including two paintings by Naudline Pierre at $25,000 and $12,000, a painting by Mernet Larsen ($12,000), two sculptures by Tuan Andrew Nguyen at $95,000 each (following his solo booth at Frieze New York in May) and two works by Trenton Doyle Hancock ($85,000 and $40,000). On the textile front, the gallery placed two appliqué works by Christopher Myers ($45,000 and $37,000) and a woven piece by Claudia Alarcón & Silät ($25,000).
Returning to the Armory this year—and participating in both the New York and Seoul fairs this week—White Cube sold several works from its solo presentation dedicated to the Croatian artist duo TARWUK, with paintings ranging from $65,000 to $100,000. Coming of age amid the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, the trauma of war and the collapse of familiar social structures, TARWUK’s work carries a bleak, decadent aesthetic that evokes the lost splendor of the region’s golden age while hauntingly resonating with the present—particularly Europe’s fraught role in global geopolitics. The gallery also sold a mixed-media work by Emmi Whitehorse for $150,000, following her first solo with White Cube last September at its Paris space and a surge of interest sparked by her inclusion in the recent Venice Biennale. Additional sales included a painting by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones for $85,000 and a bronze by the always fair-popular Tracey Emin for £60,000, among others.
Also participating in the season’s restart on both sides of the globe—New York and Seoul—was Tang Contemporary, which reported multiple sales, including Ai Weiwei’s sculpture Toilet Paper for $150,000-180,000. Elsewhere, overlooked-talent-scouting gallery Berry Campbell saw strong interest, closing a 1952 painting by Perle Fine on the first day for $125,000, with additional conversations expected to unfold in the coming days.
The Armory Show brings together more than 230 galleries for its 2025 edition. Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Proving that the under $50,000 price range may be the most dynamic and fast-moving in today’s environment, Uffner & Liu sold several works on the first day in the main section. Sales included a piece by Sheree Hovsepian for $28,000, two paintings by Sarah Martin-Nuss for $22,000 and $15,000 and a cabinet and two paintings by Anne Buckwalter for $11,000, $14,000 and $10,000, respectively. By evening, the gallery had crossed that “sweet” threshold, placing a sculpture by Hovsepian for $75,000. L.A. mainstay Vielmetter reported selling most of the works they brought to the fair—ranging from $8,000 to $50,000—by the end of the first day, while Anat Ebgi moved quickly to place works by some of their most promising young talents, many recently presented in their new Tribeca spaces. Sales included pieces by Marisa Adesman ($35,000), Tammi Campbell ($50,000), two paintings by Sigrid Sandström ($32,000 and $25,000), Janet Werner ($28,000), Jemima Murphy ($23,000), Ileana García Magoda ($22,000) and two glazed stoneware works by Olive Diamond ($7,500 each).
Meanwhile, another New York staple, Lyles & King, sold multiple works by Brazilian artist Fernanda Galvão, including a $36,000 diptych and a painting for $24,000. Drawing from science fiction and biology, literature and cinematography, Galvão reflects on the construction and manipulation of fictional landscapes, proposing alternative universes with new rules, spatial dynamics and temporal logic. Though already widely exhibited in Europe and South America, this well-received presentation marked something of a debut for the artist in the U.S.
In her first year as director, Kyla McMillan has focused on curatorial strength, U.S. market leadership and New York’s central role in the global art market. Photo by Casey Kelbaugh. Courtesy of The Armory Show and CKA.
Overall, the mood on Armory’s opening day was positive, offering hope for a stronger season ahead for both U.S. and international dealers and for a recovery of the American art market to a “new normal”—though still far from the pace and levels galleries had grown used to. Yet, as dealer and advisor Henri Neuendorf observed, galleries are simply tired of the steady drip of negative news about the state of the market. “We all know sales have been stronger in years past, but the negativity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he commented. “My sense was that dealers and buyers seem cautiously optimistic and ready to turn the page.”
Art advisor Angelica Semmelbauer echoed Neuendorf’s take, noting the fair featured strong presentations from both galleries and artists—even if some leaned toward the safe side. “What felt especially uplifting was seeing sales happening despite all the uncertainty in the art market, which has been a current topic, and the larger world right now that’s weighing on clients,” Semmelbauer said. “I’m still a big believer that artists will keep creating meaningful work and clients will be there to support their practice and acquire the work, to keep the art ecosystem moving forward in a purposeful way!”
Ultimately, it’s a matter of readjusting expectations, refining strategy and adapting to a new rhythm. As yesterday’s Armory opening showed, the important thing is that American collectors—the fair’s core audience this year—are still buying and supporting the ecosystem as this next cycle begins.
Kiaf SEOUL and Frieze Seoul each opened at the COEX Center with a VIP preview on September 3. Courtesy of Kiaf SEOUL
For those who’ve attended Seoul’s art week since Frieze arrived in 2021, the contrast this year was unmistakable. The chaotic entrance lines at Kiaf SEOUL and the overcrowded aisles of last year’s Frieze are gone. Attendance feels lighter, and the booths more subdued, though major brands like Adidas, BMW, Ruinart and American Express still held prime positions at the entrance—a clear indication that the fair’s popularity is now firmly rooted in Korean society four years after its debut.
At the opening of Frieze Seoul on Wednesday, September 3, the mood was distinctly more muted and contained—a reflection of the art world adjusting to a new chapter in South Korea’s post-boom market. Slightly more lively in the afternoon was the historical Korean fair Kiaf, where collectors remain loyal to longstanding traditions and their local dealers.
This year marks the 4th edition of Frieze Seoul. Courtesy of Frieze and Wecap Studio
Blue-chip gallerists like Larry Gagosian and Emmanuel Perrotin skipped the trip this year, leaving their booths staffed solely by regional teams during the preview—a stark contrast to previous editions, when they flew in with much of their global staff. When gallery owners or lead partners from spaces focused on Korean artists, such as Gladstone and Mennour, did attend, it signaled that international galleries have already recognized the need to tailor their offerings to a local audience attuned to the market’s slower collecting pace and shifting attitude.
While Korean collectors remain engaged with the international art circuit, this has undeniably been a turbulent year for the country. With President Yoon Suk-yeol ousted after attempting to declare martial law and an economy still reeling from the effects of U.S. tariffs, Korean collectors are understandably more cautious in their buying.
This year, Frieze Seoul hosted over 120 galleries. Courtesy of Frieze and Wecap Studio.
Private buyers and institutions remain active, but spending habits have shifted, as Observer gathered from early press preview conversations. The once-rampant appetite for ultra-contemporary works has given way to a more measured approach, focusing on institutional-grade pieces and blue-chip artists. Speaking with resigned pragmatism, dealers noted that this trend extends beyond South Korea, echoing across Asia and the global market.
So what’s the new mantra for galleries? Cultivate your own relationships in the place you show. Those who have spent years building ties in South Korea can still make it work, as can local players. But for newcomers, entering the market now may feel like they’re arriving just as the music stopped.
That was not the case for the dynamic Los Angeles gallery Make Room, which marked its first appearance in Frieze Seoul’s main section with a shared booth alongside Apalazzo and a celebrity-filled dinner party steeped in a witchy atmosphere. Between drinks and bites of Korean fried chicken, K-pop and K-drama stars made appearances that set social media alight—including SUHO from EXO, actor Lomon Park, Tony Hong and members of the girl group Lovelyz.
Make Room hosted a K-pop and K-drama star-filled dinner on Tuesday night. Courtesy Make Room | Photo: Studio Monday Naked
Park Seo-Bo, a foundational figure in postwar Korean abstraction and the father of Dansaekhwa, was one of the names resonating most strongly at Kiaf and Frieze this year, following his recent passing. At Frieze, LG OLED honored his legacy in collaboration with the artist’s foundation, dedicating an entire booth to rarely seen later Écriture paintings from the estate, paired with ultra high-resolution video works that captured the textures in striking detail. The sharp contrast between the digital reinterpretations on screen and the tactile surfaces of the paintings underscored how, in his later years, Seo-Bo was already reflecting on the role of painting in a world saturated by screens and shaped by emerging digital realms that influence perception and aesthetics. As he once described it, standing on a “cliff edge” in the early 2000s, Seo-Bo confronted the question of how painting could evolve as the boundaries between different worlds began to blur.
Dynamic lower tiers and Focus Asia offer opportunities for discovery
Noteworthy results at both Frieze and Kiaf weren’t limited to the highest price points. Lindseed from Shanghai quickly sold out works by Chinese-born, Paris-based visionary Fu Liang at the Focus Asia sector, with prices ranging from $6,500 to $34,000. Similarly, Hong Kong-based gallery Kiang Malingue, which recently opened a space in New York, nearly sold out its solo booth of work by Taiwanese talent Tseng Chien Ying, priced between $15,000 and $25,000—a current sweet spot for collectors.
Returning to Seoul from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s leading contemporary gallery, Galerie Quynh, took a bold step with a solo presentation in the main section, showcasing the layered work of Lien Truong, a Vietnamese-born artist based in North Carolina. Her intricate canvases—exploring the intersection of body, identity and environment through the lens of diasporic trauma and societal pressure—drew early interest from collectors.
Seoul gallery Cylinder made a striking debut in the main section, securing multiple sales, including a work by Jennifer Carvalho ($9,000), three works by Sunwon Chan ($2,500-4,800), two works by Eunsil Lee ($12,000 and $5,000) and two works by Jongwhan Lee ($2,200 and $5,000). Next for the fast-growing gallery is its debut at Frieze London with a solo booth by Rim Park.
Equally successful, the young and dynamic Seoul gallery G Gallery sold six works by Choi Yoonhee on the first day ($2,400-19,000), a work by Moon Isaac for $12,000 and a piece by Cindy Ji Hye Kim for $10,000.
Another first-time exhibitor in Focus Asia was Shanghai- and Beijing-based Hive Contemporary, which showcased emerging names including Yuan Fang, Xia Yu, Zhang Mingxuang and Tan Yongqing, drawing a strong response: by evening, the gallery had sold 18 paintings and one sculpture priced between $20,000 and $100,000.
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno was presented by the Kohesi Initiative at Frieze Seoul Focus Asia. Photo: Elisa Carollo
Despite this year’s reduced footprint—and tucked into a narrow corridor wedged between the main booths—the Focus Asia section at Frieze offered some of the most compelling opportunities for regional discoveries inside the COEX.
Jakarta-based gallery Kohesi Initiatives presented Indonesian filmmaker and multimedia artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, whose work revisits censored narratives from 1960s films to explore liminality and historical erasure, examining the blurred lines between fact and fiction. Rooted in post-colonial and post-dictatorship Indonesia, Kusno’s practice reflects the country’s ongoing unrest and protests, shaped by the long-term consequences of the very issues his work confronts.
Parcel (F3) at Frieze Seoul, Focus Asia. Courtesy of Frieze Seoul
Tokyo-based PARCEL is presenting the multilayered practice of Side Core, a Japanese collective that critiques forced urbanization and restless public development through thoughtful multimedia guerrilla interventions. The works on view confront contradictions in public funding for the Tokyo Olympics and the broader paradoxes of Japan’s rapid urban expansion. Among them, the Rode Work series—launched in 2017 in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture—juxtaposes post-disaster reconstruction landscapes with the repetitive motions of skateboarding, highlighting the enduring bond between land and people. In the film, flashing lights and hazard signs guide drivers to a skate park built on a damaged industrial site, where skaters in high-visibility jerseys grind a half-pipe—subtly revealing how grassroots creativity can emerge from destruction and corruption.
Another standout in the section is PTT Space, presenting the sharp satire of Taiwanese American artist Christine Tien Wang, who explores millennial diaspora anxieties and the recent volatility of the bitcoin bubble through one of the most diffuse yet persistent forms of contemporary ephemera: memes. Her Tiger series addresses diasporic anxiety and societal mobility within Asian communities, while her Bitcoin series critiques the NFT apocalypse and the fleeting nature of digital culture, transforming the disposable aesthetics of memes into what the artist calls “historical paintings,” reflective of our time and its contradictions. Working at the intersection of institutional critique, politics and popular culture, Tien Wang is gaining international recognition, with acquisitions by LACMA and exhibitions at both Night Gallery and Naxos Draxler.
Christine Tien Wang’s “BDSM (Bitcoin Daddies Seek Memes),” presented by PTT Space in Frieze Seoul’s Focus Asia section. Courtesy of PTT Space
Korean and international galleries stake a claim on Kiaf’s first-day buzz
When comparing Kiaf with Frieze, several Korean dealers appeared to place even more emphasis on their presentations, spotlighting the top names in their rosters. On the lower level of the historic Korean fair, Kukje Gallery reported a complete sell-out of Ugo Rondinone’s work (the artist also has a show at Gladstone this week), along with an iconic green Kapoor piece (£550,000-660,000) and a later work by Park Seo-Bo ($250,000-300,000). Known as a leading gallery for Korean art, Johyun Gallery made a strong showing with artists like Lee Bae and Park Seo-Bo, reporting early sales directly from the floor. Blue-chip names also anchored Gana Art’s presentation, which included works by Alex Katz, Chiharu Shiota and Yayoi Kusama.
Seoul-based EM Gallery drew attention with Moonassi, the Korean artist recognized for his black-and-white existential compositions. The gallery sold out pieces priced between $20,000 and $32,000—Moonassi’s works have remained in high demand since his last presentation, often with waiting lists.
The oldest work on view at Kiaf this year was a painting by Palma Il Vecchio, dated 1525-1528, presented by Die Galerie alongside drawings and sculptures by Marino Marini and works on paper and lithographs by Picasso. The historic canvas drew attention on the floor with a price tag of €750,000, standing out amid the fair’s modern and contemporary offerings. Long part of the gallery owner’s personal collection, the masterpiece was originally acquired from a nobleman in Hungary, and now everyone’s wondering whether it will find a new home this edition.
The oldest work on view at Kiaf this year was a Palma Il Vecchio painting from 1525-1528, presented by Die Galerie. Courtesy of Die Galerie
In general, however, a pop aesthetic and lower price points seemed to be the winning formula for maintaining Kiaf’s floral energy on the first day. Gallery Delaive reported early sales of several works by Ayako Rokkaku, priced between €50,000 and €200,000.
Among the standout presentations of new names, Space Willing N Dealing showcased quietly contemplative scenes of human interaction and exchange, all priced between $2,500 and $3,500. Busan-based gallery Nara Cho Busan presented Anomalisa, an exploration of love and entanglement through thread, with works priced at $7,800-12,000. Intimacy and suspended atmospheres—rendered through soft, delicate paint—also defined the work of Japanese painter Shimpei Yoshida, shown by Shibuya-based Hide Gallery. Thanks to very accessible pricing under $1,500, several pieces had sold or were on hold by day’s end.
KORNFELD, participating in its fifth Kiaf, also reported a strong start. Works by Korean artists Wonhae Hwang and Seong Joon Hong found new collectors on day one, totaling €10,000, while a major piece by Etsu Egami sold within the first hour to a new Korean collector for €22,000. “After participating at Kiaf for more than five years, we are very pleased with the successful start of this edition and the positive response from collectors and institutions,” gallery owner Alfred Kornfeld told Observer.
Returning to Kiaf with a strong grasp of the rhythm and habits of Korean collectors, the Milan-based Cassina Project had a particularly promising first day—even with just one confirmed sale. “We had good conversations. From our experience in past years, the following days are usually more intense—clients who show interest often return, and the final days are when deals close,” Irene Cassina told Observer.
Kiaf SEOUL runs through September 7. Courtesy Kiaf SEOUL
Among the additional sales reported by dealers at Kiaf by the start of the second day, Gallery Palzo sold Byeong Hyeon Jeong’s Ambiguous Inclination 25008 for $5,250 and two works by Lee Daecheon—Berg, Wasser (산, 수) for $3,000 and Gardener for $450—along with two paintings by Haru. K, each sold for $675. Galerie PICI placed two works by Dukhee Kim: Gold Desire-Bag for $4,000 and Keep Going (pump) for $2,000. SAN Gallery sold Jenkun Yeh’s Back and Forth I for $2,085 and Huihsuan Hsu’s Chasing a Lush Cave for $1,875. SH Art reported a complete sell-out of works by Backside—a street artist from Fukuoka, Japan, whose true identity remains anonymous—including VIVA, PINEAPPLE, SMILE, VINYL and QUIET, each priced at $17,250.
Frieze and Kiaf SEOUL continue through Sunday, September 7, at the COEX Center.
People remove a new artwork by Banksy, depicting a howling wolf painted on a satellite dish that was placed on a shop roof in Peckham, south London. Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images
The trio of art thieves descended on their target with precision, audacity and insouciance. They wore dark hoodies, masks and gloves. They brought with them everything they would need: a ladder to gain access and tools to dislodge the art from its moorings. And within a minute, they were done, vanishing along with their prize.
It wasn’t exactly the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, but last August’s brazen daylight plunder on Rye Lane in South London netted the thieves an hours-old work by street art legend Banksy, a depiction of a howling wolf rendered on a satellite dish that was part of his London Zoo series. There were dozens of eyewitnesses, and the theft was captured in photographs and video, yet a year later, there has been no sign of the stolen artwork, and no arrests have been made.
Over the decades, as the value of street art has climbed dramatically, works created in the wild by some of the genre’s greats—Banksy, Ron English, Kenny Scharf, Invader and many others—have increasingly come into private hands. When legitimate ownership can be proven, they are sold in galleries and auction houses. Sometimes, as in the case of the stolen Banksy, they disappear into a black market abyss.
Street art gets diverted from its urban habitat in a variety of ways. There’s the perplexing set of circumstances described above in which thieves illegally make off with something of value that has no clear owner and that was created illegally. Then there’s the more common and more legitimate means, which usually involves a building owner deciding to sell a piece of brick wall that has been enriched by a work of art. Either way, the diversion of street art into private hands angers both art lovers and artists.
A Banksy in the wild on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Photo: Jamie Lubetkin
“I am vehemently against it,” Ken Harman, whose Harman Projects galleries in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles feature studio work by prominent street artists, told Observer. “The intention of the artist in these scenarios is that the artwork lives on as part of the public conversation. To remove the art and keep it for private use goes against what the work was made for and why it was made.”
What happens to stolen street art after it is removed from public spaces is sometimes a mystery. Police rarely recover stolen works, at least in part, because it can be unclear whether a crime has been committed, as establishing ownership is not always easy. And because legitimate galleries and auction houses won’t go near stolen stuff, a less lucrative black market may be thieves’ only option to dispose of their loot.
When building owners decide to sell work committed on their property, legitimate galleries and auctions sometimes get involved, but interest in such work has been spotty and prices have not approached those of studio-created work by the same artists. While artists frown on any form of diversion of their public work, it’s theft that really lights their fuses.
“I had my mural at Woodstock stolen, and they literally removed the façade of Fashion Moda in the Bronx with my mural on it,” Ron English, the graffiti art pioneer who is often referred to as the Godfather of Street Art, told Observer. He then quipped, sarcastically, how nice it is that people are so passionate about art before acknowledging that the motive for these thefts is the potential sale value.
“They don’t like or respect art, they want money and are willing to steal a piece of art from all of us to line their pockets. If I wanted a thief to own a piece of my art I would drop it off at their house,” added the loquacious English, whose POPaganda art practice includes street art, fine art, sculpture, toys, film, music and NFTs.
The question of ownership is vexing to law enforcement when street art vanishes and to dealers when they are presented with suspect works by prospective sellers. Peter N. Salib, a law professor at the University of Houston who wrote the seminal 2016 legal paper The Law of Banksy: Who Owns Street Art?, said property owners have the strongest ownership rights when it comes to street art, but the public also has at least a tangential interest. Artists, not so much.
“I don’t have a strong view on whether artists or the public have an interest in street art,” he told Observer. “I’m inclined to think that artists mostly don’t. Both because they’re often putting their art on somebody else’s property, and because by choosing to do so, they have, in a sense, relinquished control. As for the public, I do think the public has an interest in the art existing and being seen.”
For his paper, Salib looked at a pair of cases, including one involving a piece called Slave Labor that was painted by Banksy on the wall of a store in Haringey, London, in 2012. The owner of the building attempted to sell the piece at auction, but residents of Haringey claimed they had an interest in the work and were successful in blocking an initial attempt to sell it. Later, however, the building owner was successful in selling the piece, reportedly for around $730,000.
The purchaser? Ron English, who vowed to whitewash the piece in a statement against removing street art from the wild. He suggested that whitewashing the piece would create a new work of art, a la Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing, which Rauschenberg created by erasing a Willem de Kooning work in 1953. English said he planned to do the whitewashing at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2020, but the show was canceled because of COVID-19. He still has the piece, but its future has not been determined.
Guernsey’s President Arlan Ettinger with the Banksy work he brought to auction for a Brooklyn property owner. Photo courtesy Guernsey’s
In May, a Brooklyn family sought to sell a 7,500-pound piece of concrete wall they removed from a warehouse they owned after Banksy painted a version of his iconic balloon heart on it. They brought it to market via the auction house Guernsey’s, which is known for selling offbeat auction items like doors from the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan.
Guernsey’s president Arlan Ettinger said his staff first set out to verify that the family actually owned the piece. Once ownership was established, the piece was offered with the starting price of $500,000. There were no bids.
“It’s a commanding piece, an attention getter, but it’s more than 7,000 pounds. Where are you going to put that? We got some offers right after the auction, but the family—lovely, working-class people—are holding out for what they believe it’s worth,” Ettinger told Observer.
Brian Swarts, president and director of Tagliatella Galleries, a leading global dealer in the work of street artists, said street art that is removed from the wild legitimately can have significant value, but it does not approach that of a work created for private markets. “There’s been a lot of debate over that over the years,” he explained. “With Banksy and some of the other leading street artists that have a lot of money attached to their work, even if it’s not a signed, numbered, studio-issued piece of artwork, there’s still some value there.”
Like the other gallery representatives, Swarts said he demands proof of ownership and other documentation demonstrating the work’s provenance before he will consider getting involved. “The only time I’ve ever sold works like that is if there’s some sort of documentation of it. Even though it’s unique, it’s not the same as selling a signed original from the studio,” he added.
While there is clearly a black market for work that doesn’t pass the galleries’ smell tests, little is known about it, even by those closest to the street art scene. Alan Ket, who owns Miami’s Museum of Graffiti with co-founder Allison Freidin, said he has not encountered black marketeers, but he noted that stolen and fake street art is sold openly on online markets like eBay. “There is a segment of the population that is unscrupulous and that wants stuff for free and who are OK with theft.”
Banksy’s work is undoubtedly the most frequently diverted; not only is it the most valuable, but it’s also among the most accessible, turning up regularly on streets around the world. One example is the rendering of a boy swinging a hammer that has graced Manhattan’s Upper West Side for years. Another is in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood and depicts a cop with a poodle on a leash. Both are protected by nothing more than plexiglass.
An Invader work in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, Paris. Photo: J. Scott Orr
Invader, the French mosaic master who draws inspiration from early video games, is probably number two on thieves’ hit list. Rather than spray paint, Invader’s work is made of colorful tiles that thieves commonly try to remove in the hope of reassembling them elsewhere.
“Shame on them!” Invader has written of street art thieves. “Street art belongs to the street… Buyers should think twice about what they do; not only are they being duped but they are also depriving other people of enjoying free art on the street.”
Lori Zimmer, author of Art Hiding in New York, Art Hiding in Paris and the recently released I’m Not Your Muse, said the unprecedented increase in value of work by street artists has led to a commodification of a product that was once simply a source of public enjoyment. “The sale of pieces meant for the street to private hands, done by removing, or cutting, or destroying the walls they are painted on, is in some ways pretty gross,” she added, “but feels very on brand for the perversion of late-stage capitalism we are currently living in.”
According to Aleksandra Artamonovskaja, the digital art we make today has a long lineage dating back to the 1950s. Tezos Foundation
As the world becomes increasingly digital and technologically integrated, it is harder than ever to draw clear boundaries between analog and digital experiences. Technology is now deeply woven into how we express, communicate, share and process information and ideas, making it nearly impossible to find contemporary art completely untouched by digital tools or platforms. Artists working in traditional media inevitably engage with the digital realm in some capacity—even if only as a platform for sharing or a source of inspiration for works created in more conventional formats.
For this reason, the term digital art can be confusing. Some interpret it broadly to include any work shaped by technology, while others reserve it for “digital-native” practices created entirely within the digital space.
To explore this evolving landscape, Observer spoke with Aleksandra Artamonovskaja, who has worked in the Web3 art space for nearly a decade and now serves as head of Arts at TriliTech, the team behind the Tezos Art Foundation. Artamonovskaja shared her perspective on the current state of digital art, its market and the broader ways technology and digital platforms are reshaping how art is produced and circulated.
“You have both professionals in the broader creative economy or artists whose works are exhibited in traditional institutions such as museums, falling into this category,” she tells Observer. Still, there are some defining parameters. “To me, digital art is a form that relies fundamentally on digital technology, not just the tools, but the medium itself, as the product or the process. Digital art allows experimentation across various areas, such as lighting, texture, movement and interactivity, that traditional media can’t always convey. It’s not just about using a screen as a canvas, but often reinventing what the idea of a ‘canvas’ even means.”
Tezos began actively engaging with the digital art world in 2021. Artists and collectors on NFT platforms like Hic et Nunc, Objkt, and fx(hash) adopted the blockchain for minting and selling works, quickly making it a hub for digital, generative and experimental art.
Established around the same time, the Tezos Foundation formalized its support for digital art soon after, launching major initiatives between late 2021 and early 2022. Since then, it has evolved into an artist-first hub within the Web3 ecosystem. Through high-profile partnerships with institutions like MoMA and Art Basel, it is positioning itself as a vital conduit for Web3 creativity.
Since Artamonovskaja was appointed head of arts at TriliTech in 2024, she has played a central role in ensuring that the Tezos ecosystem maintains an artist-first framework. Priorities like sustainability, affordability and inclusivity are amplified through programming that raises global awareness of digital art while empowering existing talent with meaningful opportunities for growth.
Sabato Visconti, barbie~world~breakdown, 2024. At the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of its partnership with the Tezos Foundation. Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou. Courtesy of MoMI
“Marketplaces on Tezos like objkt, along with high-profile partnerships with the Museum of the Moving Image, Serpentine, ArtScience Museum and others, help contextualise digital art within broader cultural landscapes,” Artamonovskaja says. She sees contextualization as fundamental to supporting the appreciation and institutionalization of a newly established field like digital art. “Our current programs also encompass a range of activities, including residencies, publications, and exhibitions, nurturing a creative environment that fosters artists’ career trajectories.” One major upcoming initiative she previewed is Tezos’ second participation at Paris Photo, in partnership with Paris-based Artverse gallery, where curator Grida Jang Hyewon will present a group booth featuring work by six artists who originate from, or are deeply shaped by, Asian cultures.
Fostering awareness of these tools and technologies is another key priority. “The Tezos Foundation has supported several educational projects, including WAC Lab, which taught professionals from cultural institutions about Blockchain best practices, as well as artist onboarding programs, such as Newtro, a program focusing on Latin American artists,” Artamonovskaja says. “Through these ongoing initiatives and upcoming projects, it’s no surprise that the Tezos ecosystem serves some of the most respected voices in the digital art space, including bitforms gallery, the Second Guess curatorial collective and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.”
Just as importantly, Tezos has helped connect and map a decades-long history of relationships between artists and digital media, beginning with early net art and extending back to Nam June Paik’s pioneering inquiry into media and technology as a form of expression. As Artamonovskaja explains, the history of digital art runs from the algorithmic plotter works of Manfred Mohr and Vera Molnár, to Alan Rath’s kinetic sculptures fusing electronics with movement, to Paik’s groundbreaking video art, and to the browser-based experiments of 1990s net artists like Cory Arcangel and Olia Lialina. “Each era redefined what it meant to create and experience art in dialogue with new technologies, shifting from producing singular digital images to building works that exist natively within global networks. I’ve always been fascinated by how forward-thinking some of the artists were. Seeing Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway in person, its glowing map of America alive with moving images, makes you reflect on how foretelling his vision was to today’s hyperconnected, media-saturated world.”
The “Paintboxed Tezos World Tour” exhibition at Digital Art Mile, Basel, 2025. Courtesy Tezos Foundation
The Paintboxed Tezos World Tour paid tribute to this long history, spotlighting the heritage of the Quantel Paintbox—the legendary 1980s commercial computer designed for artists and famously used by David Hockney and Keith Haring. “The digital art we make today most certainly belongs to a long lineage dating back to the 1950s, with interactive systems, initiatives such as E.A.T. and tools like the Quantel Paintbox,” Artamonovskaja points out.
In the past year, the Paintboxed Tezos World Tour has appeared at major art events in Miami, Paris and New York, culminating in a pivotal exhibition at the Digital Art Mile in Basel. The Basel presentation was accompanied by a catalogue of works produced by early pioneers such as David Hockney and Kim Mannes-Abbott—among the first to experiment with the tool—alongside a younger generation of artists like Simon Denny, Coldie and Gretchen Andrew. “Recognizing these histories enriches our understanding and positions Web3 art not as a fleeting trend but as a continuation of decades of creative innovation,” Artamonovskaja says.
She recalls first encountering Olia Lialina’s work in person at her presentation during Rhizome’s 7×7 conference in 2017, an experience that left a lasting impression. “What struck me most was not only her early, both critical and playful approach to the browser as a canvas, but also the nuanced commentary on the word ‘technology,’” she recalls, noting how the artist was vocal in her criticism of how the term had been overused to the point of losing specificity. “This reminded me how in the 1990s, ‘technology’ in an art context often meant something tangible, visible and experimental. In contrast, today it’s so embedded in our lives that we rarely stop to question it, and by doing so, in a way, we lose our power. The work and reflections of early net art artists often underscore the importance of maintaining that spirit of inquiry.”
Creative freedom and new audiences
For Artamonovskaja, the digital realm opens vast possibilities: dynamic experimentation, global reach and direct control. Over the past decade, she notes, social media has reshaped the artist’s role—shifting it away from reliance on galleries and institutions toward a more direct relationship with audiences. “Some artists have become their own marketers, community builders and storytellers, shaping not only how their work is seen but also how it’s valued,” she says. “This shift didn’t just change the market side of art; it influenced the medium itself. Many artists, including those working in traditional media, have begun creating works either conceived for the screen or engaging with it from a conceptual or critical perspective, responding to its formats, visual rhythms and narratives, while reflecting on how these elements shape our ways of seeing and experiencing art.”
The rise of blockchain and NFTs has taken this further by adding new layers of transaction and interactivity. “Within the Tezos ecosystem, for example, sales platforms like objkt.com have nurtured their own curatorial voices and collector bases,” she explains. “At the same time, through our ongoing initiatives like Tezos Foundation-supported open calls, residency programs and partnerships with leaders such as Art Basel and Musée d’Orsay, we’ve created new success structures for artists.” Fully harnessing this potential means embracing both creative and structural possibilities—whether by experimenting with digital-native forms, exploring interactive or generative elements, or engaging with blockchain-native ecosystems to connect with communities and shape how their work is experienced, owned and valued.
Rodell Warner, World Is Turning, 2024. At the Museum of the Moving Image, New York, as part of its partnership with the Tezos Foundation. Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou. Courtesy of MoMI
The importance of context in curating digital art
Context, Artamonovskaja stresses, is just as important for digital art as for any other medium when it comes to establishing value and recognition. Digital art curation—including art on the blockchain—has evolved rapidly over the past several years, she notes. Having worked in the digital art space for nearly a decade, longer than many of her contemporaries, she has witnessed these shifts firsthand. “It may not seem like a significant amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but in the Web3 world, everything is accelerated,” she observes. “The COVID-19 pandemic forced the traditional art world to embrace virtual environments en masse. In blockchain and digitally-native art, these technological advancements that reshape how the audience interacts and experiences the work happen every few months.”
For this reason, curating digital art already extends far beyond simply displaying work—it is about building trust and transparency with both artists and viewers. “Given the size of the digital art market and its novelty, the curator’s role is often also that of an art dealer helping artists position their work, connecting them with the right collectors and helping them navigate the commercial and technical aspects of selling digital art in a rapidly evolving environment,” she clarifies.
“In many ways, the Web3 market functions as an accelerated mirror to the traditional art world—compressing the cycles of creation, curation, sales and audience engagement into days or weeks instead of months or years,” she continues, noting that this might not apply to every project but that, over time, it makes the discovery of emerging talent more accessible. “The same dynamics of representation and influence exist, but blockchain-enabled provenance, global marketplaces and always-on communities make the process faster, more transparent and oftentimes more efficient.”
Aleksandra Artamonovskaja with a work by Jenni Pasanen. Courtesy Tezos Foundation
Artamonovskaja acknowledges that whether this acceleration is good or bad for artists and the market is still open to debate, but she sees one undeniable advantage: the ability to engage new audiences.
Challenges in collecting and preserving digital art
In May 2022, the Tezos Foundation unveiled its Permanent Art Collection (PAC), curated by Misan Harriman, as its first official high-profile program dedicated to celebrating and elevating digital art created within its ecosystem. This marked the beginning of an ongoing commitment to showcase and acquire works by diverse, emerging artists.
Artamonovskaja has been collecting digital art and NFTs for years. When asked about her criteria for identifying a significant work worth collecting, she says it often comes down to whether the piece moves her or signals that the artist is bringing a fresh perspective to her areas of interest. “Factors such as strong artistic vision, thoughtful use of technology and meaningful cultural context are also incredibly important,” she explains. “Novelty—both conceptual and visual—plays a significant role.” This is a defining feature on sales platforms like objkt, which frequently highlight advanced interactive pieces ranging from minimalist HTML sketches to fully immersive browser-based games and on-chain data experiments. Other platforms, such as EditArt or InfiniteInk, enable interactive co-creation and dynamic experiences.
“As someone who collects the art they love, I find that the resonance within the wider ecosystem often plays a big role,” Artamonovskaja says. “Given that the market was born under the premise that there are no more gatekeepers and each artist can represent themselves, an artist’s approach to self-representation can be as important as how a gallery typically represents its artists.” Today, a community of artists exists with varied definitions of success, some prioritizing reach and community growth over traditional markers of recognition. “Perhaps this is where comparing art on the blockchain to traditional markets is a fallacy.”
Collecting digital art also raises new questions around preservation and conservation, as these works often depend entirely on the technologies through which they are created, circulated, displayed and stored. Preservation begins with recognizing that it’s not just about maintaining the still or moving image as we see it on a platform or as we right-click save it. “If we care about the work’s association with a blockchain, we need to maintain a relationship between the smart contract and the output,” she explains. “We need to care about whether the work has an archival file, a higher resolution exhibition copy, or just the web copy we see in front of us. We also want to safeguard the metadata and the environments in which the work is intended to reside.”
She notes that ensuring a worthwhile chain of documented provenance for blockchain-registered art requires active collaboration between artists, technologists, archivists and node operators. For a work to remain tied to a chain, archival advocates and conservation specialists may need to preserve not only the piece but also its operational context.
Across blockchains, one of the most significant risks in recent years has been the shutdown of marketplaces. “In such instances, it was either the core team’s efforts or the community that preserved the works, ensuring they remained accessible as intended,” Artamonovskaja points out, emphasizing that this was possible only thanks to open-source access and the benefits of decentralization.
On Tezos, for example, every artwork collected on objkt is stored on IPFS, a decentralized network designed for long-term preservation. The team ensures that each asset is pinned and remains accessible, with safeguards in place so that even if the platform were to go offline, the art would remain secure. “Tezos provides a reliable and future-proof foundation for building digital art collections,” Artamonovskaja emphasizes.
Another advantage of NFTs on Tezos is that its self-amending blockchain and formal on-chain governance make contentious hard forks far less likely than on other chains, reducing the risk of the same NFT appearing on two separate blockchains. “Because protocol upgrades are proposed, voted on and activated within the blockchain itself, NFTs remain recorded on a single chain that all participants continue to use.”
When it comes to conversations about technology, the biggest elephant in the room is the A.I. revolution, which is reshaping nearly every aspect of our lives—and, in turn, how artists approach their work and creative process. Increasingly, artists admit to using A.I. not only to refine work but also to brainstorm or seek feedback. This has sparked ongoing debate about the role of A.I. in the creative process—as a tool, an assistant or even a collaborator.
Asked about the opportunities A.I. presents for the art world and the risks it poses, particularly for digital art, Artamonovskaja is convinced that if it is approached as an instrument, it can help extend an artist’s vision. Its value, she argues, depends on how intentionally it is applied—whether to streamline workflow, unlock new aesthetic possibilities, or enable experiments that would be impossible through traditional means.
“Artists like Dr. Elgammal have even credited A.I. as their creative partner. Ultimately, art is subjective, so the idea of improving it is hard to define,” Artamonovskaja considers. “For some creators, A.I. is integrated on a deeper technical level—artists like Ivona Tau or Mario Klingemann write their own systems, shaping the algorithm as much as they shape the final product. Other artists, such as Trevor Paglen or Kevin Abosch, engage with A.I. from a critical standpoint, using it to question the technology’s politics, biases and social implications.”
At the same time, she warns of potential risks: diluting authorship, amplifying biases embedded in training data or reducing the artist’s role to that of a passive editor rather than an active creator. In 2021, she collaborated with Mike Tyka to release his renowned Portraits of Imaginary People on the blockchain, a project that delved directly into these themes. By training GANs on thousands of Flickr images, Tyka generated faces of people who do not exist, exposing how A.I. systems can reproduce and amplify identity biases. “His approach challenged notions of authenticity and sparked dialogue about technology’s influence on representation and trust,” she notes.
With the arrival of more sophisticated tools in recent years, Artamonovskaja observes that the market is still struggling to understand and value generative artistic practices. “For me, the most compelling A.I. art is not simply about the image produced, but about the relationship between human intention and machine capability, and the conceptual story that emerges from that relationship,” she reflects, emphasizing again that it is not about the medium itself but the critical and creative approach to it—the inquiry into its potential—that transforms a work of art into a tool for better understanding, or even anticipating, the broader sociological, anthropological and political implications of these new technologies in our existence.
Last Spring, Kasmin New York staged “Les Lalanne: Zoophites,” featuring works by the acclaimed French designers drawn entirely from the collection of their eldest daughter, Caroline Hamisky Lalanne. Courtesy of Kasmin
While global auction sales slipped 6.2 percent in the first half of 2025—with post-war and contemporary art down 19.3 percent to $1.22 billion, impressionist and modern sales dropping 7.7 percent and luxury barely budging (down 0.5 percent to $805.9 million)—design, decorative arts and furniture experienced significant momentum. According to ArTactic, the category surged 20.4 percent to reach $172 million in 2025, compared to $143 million the previous year. This growth occurred despite concerns over new tariffs. While fine art remains exempt from tariffs due to a legal loophole, design objects, antiquities and other collectibles are not, yet the market continues to thrive. This sustained growth is driven by a broader collector base and ongoing institutional interest, making it worth a deeper analysis of its various tiers and areas of activity.
Recent numbers from design auctions show strong growth: Sotheby’s design sales in New York this June achieved $37.5 million, followed by Christie’s with $23.6 million and Phillips, which staged just one sale, bringing in $4 million. Altogether, the June auctions saw a 62.3 percent year-on-year increase—proof that, at least for now, the design market is not just holding steady but gaining momentum. In the same period last year, Sotheby’s reported $19.5 million, Christie’s $15.5 million and Phillips $5.1 million across two sales with significantly more inventory.
The first half of 2025 marked a landmark period for design at Sotheby’s, according to chairman and co-worldwide head of 20th Century design, Jodi Pollack. Fueled by strong global demand, record-setting prices and an expanding international collector base, the market saw particular momentum among new and younger buyers, with increased cross-category collecting. Sotheby’s reported a $75 million combined total across New York and Paris this season, among the highest series totals ever for Sotheby’s Design sales worldwide. “These exceptional results reflect the galvanizing strength of the global design market and the discerning collectors who continue to passionately pursue rare pieces of extraordinary quality,” Pollack commented.
The Lalanne obsession continued its upward trajectory, but records were also shattered in unexpected areas: the monumental Danner Memorial Window—designed by Agnes Northrop for Tiffany Studios—achieved a staggering $12.4 million last November, setting a new auction world record for Tiffany glass. Not far behind, Frank Lloyd Wright’s double-pedestal lamp reached $7.5 million after an eleven-minute bidding war this May, marking another record in the category this year.
Tiffany Studios’ Stillman Memorial Window sold for $2,390,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2025. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Another magnificent glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, The Stillman Memorial Window, sold in June at Sotheby’s for $2,390,000 (estimate: $1.5-2.5 million) as part of the sale Masterpieces by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Featuring The Ann and Robert Fromer Collection. The sale generated $6.3 million (estimate: $3.6-$5.6 million) with 96 percent sold by lot and nearly 60 percent of lots selling above their high estimates. Notably, 21 percent of buyers participating in Sotheby’s design sales this June were new to the auction house.
Strong institutional demand is also driving the surge in the market for Tiffany Studios pieces, with museums actively acquiring the studio’s masterworks. In 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part, 10-foot-tall, 7-foot-wide Garden Landscape, while this past May, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced its acquisition of the monumental stained glass window Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window).
Meanwhile, the remarkable market surge for François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne continues unabated, cementing the duo as blue-chip fixtures in the design-art hybrid space. According to Artprice, the average auction price for their works has more than quadrupled since 2015, with major pieces now regularly surpassing six figures. The current auction record belongs to François-Xavier’s 1964 Rhinocrétaire I, which sold for €18.33 million ($19.4 million) at Christie’s Paris in 2023.
Between 2019 and 2024, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sold over 700 works from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their daughters, Dorothée and Marie, through a series of high-profile auctions in Paris and New York, generating a combined total of $330.2 million.
Demand remains strong—just this June, François-Xavier’s Grand Rhinocrétaire II (2003) fetched $16.4 million at Sotheby’s, five times its low estimate and accounting for nearly a quarter of the auction week’s total revenue. Christie’s New York also staged a dedicated sale in October 2023, François-Xavier Lalanne, Sculpteur | Collection Dorothée Lalanne, featuring works from the artist’s daughter and curated by French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus, closing with white gloves and a $59 million total, with at least fourteen lots surpassing six figures.
This October, Di Donna Gallery will present a museum-quality exhibition featuring a groundbreaking dialogue between Magritte’s surreal vision and the whimsical world of the Lalanne couple. The show will highlight their shared surrealist sensibilities and historical connection through gallerist Alexander Iolas in the 1960s. Over fifty works will be on display, including rare pieces from the estates of François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, as well as paintings, works on paper and sculptures by René Magritte. Among the highlights is Magritte’s enigmatic L’ami intime (1958), which fetched $33.66 million at Christie’s London in March. During the last Venice Biennale, Ben Brown presented an extensive exhibition dedicated to the Lalannes, “Planète Lalanne,” featuring more than 150 works by the celebrated French duo.
The François-Xavier Lalanne, Sculpteur | Collection Dorothée Lalanne sale generated nearly $59 million at Christie’s New York in October 2024. Brian W. Ferry, all rights reserved
Phillips’ design specialist Kimberly Sørensen says the market is still strong, but more names are gaining momentum: their June Design auction in New York achieved a 91 percent sell-through rate by lot and 96 percent by value—an exceptional result. This followed their April Design sale in London, which reached 94 percent by lot and 97 percent by value. “These figures underscore the strength of the market and the continued appetite for exceptional design and craftsmanship,” Sørensen commented.
He told Observer that he’s seeing particular interest in female designers: Judy Kensley McKie’s Fish bench led Phillips’ June Design sale in New York, achieving $406,400 and setting a new world auction record for the artist. This, after her Leopard couch already led the top lot at Phillips’ London Design sale in April—further proof of her growing international appeal. Other standout female artists performing well in the recent sale included Line Vautrin and Claude Lalanne, whose works were among the session’s top lots. The American architect and designer George Nakashima also remains a beloved figure with a truly international market, according to Sørensen. “His daughter, Mira Nakashima, now the creative director of Nakashima Studio, is a remarkable designer in her own right and her work not only continues her father’s legacy of craftsmanship, but has also successfully introduced it to a new generation.”
Studio ceramics is another area in which Phillips has seen tremendous success. Phillips’ December New York sale, Moved by Beauty: Works by Lucie Rie from an Important Asian Collection, was a White Glove auction, which followed a dedicated London sale featuring Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. “We’re proud to hold the auction records for Rie and Coper and have previously set benchmarks for Lucie Rie and Doyle Lane,” he said.
Judy Kensley McKie’s Leopard Couch (1983) sold at Phillips’ April Design Sale for £177,800 ($237,736), while her Fish bench set a new record, achieving $406,400. Courtesy of Phillips
Sørensen confirms that design today attracts a broader and more diverse audience than ever. Even looking at their numbers, so far in 2025, 20 percent of Phillips’ design bidders were new to the auction house, which speaks to the category’s growing appeal. The Phillips specialist also points out that they’re seeing an encouraging rise in interest from younger collectors; Millennials and Gen Z now make up 20 percent of the Design bidders. “Many of them are drawn to the sustainability of the secondary market, where Design objects are not only beautiful but also environmentally conscious choices,” he explained. “Social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have played a big role in this shift, making it easier than ever for collectors to discover and connect with designers across periods and geographies.”
Looking ahead to the final few months of 2025, Sørensen and his team are optimistic. “The momentum we’ve seen so far suggests sustained interest, especially as more seasoned and new collectors recognize the value and artistry within the category.”
Despite the swoon in the broader art market, design has continued to hit new highs with world record prices in all of Christie’s top markets, according to Alex Hemingway, Christie’s global head of design. Asked about the most sought-after names, he pointed to Lalanne, Giacometti, Tiffany and Royère, adding that today’s buyers are especially drawn to masterpiece-level works with strong provenance and compelling narratives.
George Nakashima’s Three-door room divider sold at Phillips for $209,550. Courtesy of Phillips
This June, Christie’s Design auction and the single-owner American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins sale brought in a combined total of $23.6 million. Leading the auction was The Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which achieved $4,285,000, soaring past its $2-3 million estimate and becoming the second-highest price ever realized for a window from Tiffany’s studio. Nonetheless, the world record remains The Danner Memorial Window, which sold for $12.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Modern Art evening sale last November. Before this, the studio’s record was $3.4 million for a Pond Lily lamp sold by Christie’s in 2018.
The Goddard Memorial Window, part of the American Avant-Garde sale, brought in $8.1 million, with 81 percent of lots selling at or above their high estimates. Other top-performing lots included two rare Oiseaux sculptures by Alberto Giacometti (sold for $2,954,000 and $2,833,000, respectively) and a pair of rare ‘Pyramides’ andirons (sold for $378,000). Jean-Michel Frank’s Aragon low table sold for $819,000, and his ceiling light brought in $277,200—more than five times its low estimate.
Lalanne led the $15.4 million Design sale. Claude Lalanne’s unique Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux chandelier (2000) fetched $1,865,000, while her L’Enlèvement d’Europe (1990) sold for $1,134,000. Works by François-Xavier Lalanne also performed strongly, with Le Métaphore (Canard-Bateau) (ca. 2002) soaring to $667,800—five times its high estimate—and Rhinocéros Bleu (1981) achieving $327,600, well above its low estimate of $70,000. Animal-inspired design by other design masters drew significant interest as well, with Jean Royère’s Éléphanteau armchairs realizing $743,400. Notably, demand surged for Alberto and Diego Giacometti’s sculptural and lighting designs across Christie’s sales, with aggregate results finishing 147 percent above the combined pre-sale low estimates.
Claude Lalanne’s Unique ‘Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux’ Chandelier (2000) sold for $1,865,000. Christie’s
Vintage design has become a market of its own over the past decade, confirms Alessandra di Castro, a renowned antiques dealer and the fourth generation of her family’s historic business based in Piazza di Spagna. Over time, she has progressively expanded her offering into broader categories to meet the evolving tastes of a more diverse and constantly shifting collector base. Di Castro pointed out that demand is especially strong when it comes to prominent names, particularly among the many foreign buyers who, encouraged by the flat tax, are purchasing homes in Italy. “They furnish them with Italian taste and aesthetics—those are very interesting clients,” she explained, noting how quickly international buyers absorb the beauty around them and want to live surrounded by it, much like travelers during the era of the Grand Tour.
“Even decorative art and design have become a global market—much more conscious and diverse than in the past,” she said, noting how it’s no longer just architects searching for the perfect piece. Auction houses have opened dedicated departments, and people now come with very specific requests—asking, for instance, whether they have or can source a particular piece by Scarpa.
“Personally, I always buy unique pieces, because I view them through my own lens—as a kind of continuity with the periods I’ve always focused on, particularly the 18th and 19th Centuries,” Di Castro explained. “But with my particular approach to research and my eye for unusual objects, I really look at everything.” Still, the expert dealer admits it’s somewhat disheartening that certain categories—like sublime examples of 18th- and 19th-century cabinetmaking—are now valued far less than when she began her career, even though they remain extraordinary works.
The market for big Italian design names like Carlo Scarpa or Ettore Sottsass remains strong, even in the international market. In December 2023, a rare Pennellate glass vase by Scarpa fetched $107,100 at Wright Auction House—starting from just $24,000 after being acquired for $3.99 in a thrift shop. The Italian architect’s latest record was set just this March for a special-order display cabinet that fetched $489,868 at Piasa. The most recent record for Memphis visionary Ettore Sottsass was set in 2018 at Phillips in London, where his iconic undulating mirror sculpture fetched $430,221. Since then, his furniture and ceramics have consistently crossed into mid- to upper-five-figure territory at European post-war and design sales.
Collectible design for new collectors and expanding geographies
According to Jennifer Olshin, partner and founding director at Friedman Benda, the term “collectible design” feels arbitrary—and even reductive—especially now that the categories of art and design increasingly overlap, both in how works are created and how they circulate. “We tend to avoid using the term because it doesn’t reflect how artists and designers think about their work. For them, it’s about creating something that expresses who they are, that pushes beyond what already exists. They don’t frame it as ‘collectible’—it’s just design, in the same way we don’t say ‘collectible art,’ we say art.”
“Ettore Sottsass 1947-1974” at Friedman Benda in 2023. Courtesy Friedman Benda and Ettore Sottsass | Photo: Daniel Kukla
Friedman Benda is a leading gallery at the intersection of contemporary design, craft and art, representing a highly diverse, intergenerational roster of designers and artists from around the world. Many challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines, materials and cultural narratives, often in cross-disciplinary ways. “Our focus is more on the making, the expression, the stories and commentary—the reason the work exists in the first place,” said Olshin. “Every artist on our roster is doing something we haven’t seen before. Together, they form what almost feels like an encyclopedia of what’s happening in design today.”
The gallery opened in New York in 2007 with an inaugural exhibition of legendary Italian designer Ettore Sottsass—his final show before his death. Since then, Friedman Benda has staged numerous exhibitions exploring the many phases of Sottsass’s complex, imaginative career and continues to represent his estate, along with other historically significant names such as Andrea Branzi, Gaetano Pesce, Wendell Castle and Shiro Kuramata. At the same time, the gallery champions emerging and multidisciplinary voices such as Samuel Ross, Misha Kahn, Ebitenyefa Baralaye and Formafantasma. “We’ve built a program that spans three or four generations of designers, artists and architects, many of whom play off each other in fascinating ways,” Olshin noted. “There have even been moments when a collector comes to us as a Sottsass collector and leaves with a work by Misha Kahn—because they sense a shared spirit between the two.”
Misha Kahn’s “Rien à voir” at Friedman Benda, Paris, in June 2025. Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Misha Kahn | Photo: Fabrice Gousset
Olshin sees the early generation of design pioneers like Sottsass as having paved the way for younger talents. “They fought the initial battles and made things possible. Now, younger designers are building on those hard-won foundations and pushing things forward in their own way. After 18 years, we’re starting to see generational connections—designers introducing us to other designers, former students becoming peers, friends becoming collaborators. These evolving communities are really what we try to make the gallery about.”
Design itself is not new, nor is its market, Olshin pointed out. There have always been iconic collectors—especially in the U.S.—who’ve played a key role in shaping the broader design landscape. Many are deeply embedded in museum and institutional ecosystems, supporting exhibitions, publications and emerging practices. “These great patrons are integral to the cultural infrastructure,” she said. “By helping bring design into public view—through shows, dialogue and visibility—they create ripple effects that expand awareness and accessibility, shaping how wider audiences engage with design.”
What has changed more recently, however, is the breadth and diversity of the collector base. Interest in unique design pieces has expanded significantly since the pandemic, particularly among younger generations and across new geographies. “It’s not necessarily a new market, but we’re seeing a broadening of interest,” Olshin observed. “There are more players, more people engaging with what we’re doing—and a younger generation is coming to design in a really exciting way. They’re not drawing the same distinctions that once existed. For them, design isn’t separate from broader cultural conversations around art—it’s all part of the same dialogue.”
This new generation of collectors is looking to define their environments in more personal, meaningful ways. “It’s not just about aesthetics—it might be a single detail or object—but about surrounding themselves with stories and significance,” Olshin clarified. That shift has also changed who the buyers are. They’re no longer from a single social stratum or traditional collecting circles. Architects and interior designers now find themselves in closer dialogue with increasingly international, hands-on clients. “They’re interpreting the ethos of their clients—their values, daily lives, habits and aspirations. It’s about translating those stories on a deeper, more integrated level.”
Installation View: FormaFantasma’s “Formation” at Friedman Benda, New York. Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Formafantasma. Photo: Izzy Leung
If there’s one common thread among today’s collectors, it’s a desire to live with design—intentionally and fully. “They’re not just acquiring objects to display in a corner; they’re integrating design into their daily lives in meaningful ways,” Olshin said. “It’s about creating environments that reflect how they live, think and feel.”
We’re also seeing notable geographic shifts beyond a handful of major centers. “Even in the U.S., we’re seeing collectors engage with cutting-edge work from regions that didn’t have a strong design presence in the past,” she said. “Whereas before they may have traveled to New York to experience it, now they’re building collections in their own communities.” Museums are starting to reflect this expanded interest as well. Some institutions have long been ahead of the curve, while others are now adapting to meet their audiences’ growing appetite for design. “There are curators who have been championing this for years and others who are now taking cues from their patrons, local communities, or academic circles.”
At the same time, the perspective has become truly global in terms of makers and collectors. “We used to talk about the U.S. market versus international markets, but now the gaze is much broader,” Olshin added. “It’s being driven partly by institutional collecting and design initiatives in places like Australia, the Middle East and Asia.”
“Summer By Design 2025” at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris. Photo: Benjamin Baccarani
“The collector base has indeed grown and diversified over the years,” confirmed Cyrelle Herve, director of Carpenters Workshop in Paris, when Observer asked her to speak on the pulse of the market. “We naturally work with contemporary art collectors. We also engage with enthusiasts of vintage design and even more classical pieces. We particularly enjoy seeing our artists’ works interact with other styles, creating a sense of harmony and aesthetic balance.”
Founded in 2006 in a former carpenter’s workshop in London’s Chelsea, the gallery has since expanded globally, with locations in London (Mayfair), Paris (Le Marais), New York and Los Angeles. With a research-driven curatorial approach that remains attuned to both emerging talent and evolving trends in limited-edition functional sculpture and collectible design, the gallery now boasts a prestigious roster of artists, including Maarten Baas, Wendell Castle, Ingrid Donat, Studio Drift, Rick Owens and Antonio de Cotiis, among others.
Since the gallery’s founding, the design-art segment has undergone a remarkable transformation, Hervé reflects. “Just 15 to 20 years ago, it was still considered a niche market. Today, it holds a prominent place on the international art scene, and its market has evolved rapidly.” A visit to Design Miami or Art Basel’s Paris fair makes this shift palpable: the growing hybridization between art and design has fueled fluid collaborations across disciplines, resulting in exclusive, editioned works that blur the line between functional object and collectible sculpture.
According to Hervé, there’s a growing appetite for works that merge craftsmanship with a strong conceptual or material narrative. “Limited-edition design has moved from a niche interest to a core category in contemporary collections,” she said, noting how the gallery has recently seen a broadening audience—from seasoned contemporary art collectors to new generations drawn to tactile materials, storytelling and the individuality of each piece. “The act of collecting is no longer driven solely by function or decoration, but by a desire for meaningful, enduring works with cultural or sculptural depth. Buyers are more informed now—often researching materials, processes and the artist’s intent before purchasing.” At the same time, Carpenters Workshop is seeing increased demand for commissioned and site-specific pieces. Clients today prioritize sustainability, provenance and innovation as much as aesthetics.
Carpenters Workshop Gallery Paris showcases historic and contemporary works united by aesthetic associations. Photo: Benjamin Baccarani
Regarding trends, Hervé has seen a renewed interest in Brutalism and materiality, alongside a consistent appetite for statement pieces by established names such as Ingrid Donat, Vincenzo De Cotiis and Wendell Castle. Organic design is also on the rise, with artists like Najla El Zein and Wonmin Park gaining traction. At the same time, designers blending technology and form—such as Studio Drift and Random International—are increasingly in demand.
Asked about what she hopes to see next, Hervé is clear: “I would like the next trend to focus on narrative and sociopolitical engagement—pieces that address the environment, identity, gender, memory or decolonization.” She confirmed that the market in Paris—and more broadly in France—has grown significantly in recent years. “We work closely with many interior architects, who play a key role in promoting design art.” While the market remains sensitive to political and geopolitical shifts, which can introduce unpredictability, she notes that the market has been consistently dynamic and expansive in the United States, both on the B2B and B2C fronts. Still, she added, the French approach tends to be more measured and reflective. “More broadly, across all our markets, collecting is often guided by an intellectual process—an interest in the history of forms, the artist’s gesture and the meaning embedded in each piece. Our role goes far beyond simply presenting the work; we’re here to accompany, inform and at times, help educate the collector’s eye.”
The market for design is strongest in Europe. Artnet
According to 2024 data from the Artnet Intelligence Report published in March, sales in the decorative-art category—which in their analysis includes both design objects and furniture but also jewelry, watches and other collectibles—dropped nearly 42 percent year on year, netting $3.3 billion, the lowest total in a decade. In terms of geographical distribution, the market for the category at auction is much stronger in Europe ($1.3 billion in sales) and Asia ($1 billion), while North America maintains a third position for decorative art, generating just over $898 million.
The rise of fairs dedicated to Design
Meanwhile, new fairs are focusing on meeting the growing demand for collectible design. While Design Miami canceled its Basel edition, it has swiftly cemented its presence in Paris, becoming one of the most highly attended events during Art Basel Paris week. Its Miami Beach flagship returns for its 21st edition this December, curated by Glenn Adamson, and for the first time, Design Miami is also pushing into Asia with a curated exhibition in Seoul, timed to coincide with the city’s art week and tapping into the region’s booming market. Titled “Illuminated: A Spotlight on Korean Design,” the show (which is part of Design Miami’s new In Situ series) will be curated by Hyeyoung Cho, chairperson of the Korea Association of Art & Design, in collaboration with the Seoul Design Foundation. It will feature over 170 works—from furniture to lighting to objets d’art—exploring the convergence of traditional Korean craftsmanship and contemporary innovation.
This September, The Armory Show will debut a new design-focused section, Function, that explores how artists blur the lines between art and design. Beyond the curatorial intent to expand definitions, the initiative is also a strategic play to attract a broader cohort of aesthetically minded collectors. “The more entry points we can offer different types of audiences, the better,” fair director Kyla McMillan told Observer.
That same week, COLLECTIBLE returns to New York for its second edition, expanding its footprint and exhibitor roster after a successful debut at the new WSA 2 building. Long established in Belgium as the only fair devoted exclusively to 21st-century design, COLLECTIBLE’s New York edition could fill a persistent void in the U.S. market for dedicated contemporary design fairs.
The FASHION section at COLLECTIBLE New York in 2024. Photo: Simon Leung
COLLECTIBLE distinguishes itself with a fluid, non-traditional format that prioritizes aesthetic experience over discrete objects with immersive presentations such as Vignette, a section inviting interior designers to stage fully realized environments, creating compelling conversations between contemporary and vintage works. “Vignette will explore the conversation between collectible and interior design,” said interior designer Michael Hila, who curates the section, in a statement. “Each Vignette becomes a curated mise-en-scène—a sort of ‘store window’—where contemporary works are paired with vintage or antique pieces to express a personal design ethos. While the spaces might be small, the ideas will be boundless.” Combining curatorial rigor with a spirit of experimentation, COLLECTIBLE also keeps an eye on the future of design through New Gaarde, a platform dedicated to pioneering emerging studios founded within the past three years.
“What was once a critically engaged field has in recent years gained momentum,” Liv Vaisberg, who founded the fair with Clélie Debehault in 2018, told Observer. “We have seen a marked acceleration: more galleries dedicated to contemporary collectible design, a growing base of committed collectors, increasing institutional interest and deeper media coverage. While the market remains selective in scale, its cultural relevance has expanded significantly—shifting from the margins to a more prominent, discerning place within the broader design landscape.”
COLLECTIBLE recently announced its first-ever Hong Kong edition—the fair is venturing into the Asian market with an event scheduled for December and supported by the Hong Kong Government’s CCIDA. Curated by co-founders Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, with scenography by Ann Chan (Hero Design), the show will be part of Design Factory, a new international platform presented by Maison&Objet in Hong Kong.
Luxury-branded design holds the furniture market
It’s important to note that the data and analysis above mainly refer to the art and collectible side of the design market, which consists of exclusive collaborations, special editions and artist collaborations that distinguish it from the broader design and furniture industry. However, even when considering the industry as a whole, the global furniture market showed consistent growth in 2024. According to Future Business Insights, it was valued at $568.6 billion and is projected to reach $878.14 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.65 percent. Asia Pacific led the market in 2024 with a commanding 48.68 percent share, underscoring the region’s manufacturing dominance and rising consumer demand. In the United States, the market is expected to reach $130.24 billion by 2032, driven by strong housing sales and growing demand for innovative, design-forward furniture.
The luxury segment remains a leader. According to Technavio, the Global Luxury Furniture Market is expected to grow by $9.54 billion from 2024 to 2028, driven by the increase in the number of luxury furniture showrooms and a demand for more eco-friendly, high-quality craftsmanship.
The market is holding up across different geographies, according to Marcello Lucchetta, a vice president of sales at Luxury Living Group. “It was certainly not the best year, but it has remained stable thanks to a specific and important factor: the world of branded real estate developments,” he said, referring to branded hotels, such as Bentley Residences, Dolce & Gabbana Residences and the Fendi Condo Residences.
At this year’s Milan Design Week, Dolce & Gabbana unveiled the new Verde Maiolica homeware line, its first-ever collection of bed linens, new Gotham furniture and its latest outdoor collection, Saint Jean, created in collaboration with Luxury Living Group. Dolce & Gabbana
And that segment is especially relevant in certain regions, Lucchetta adds, noting the growing presence of so-called “soft luxury” brands—those that aren’t overly loud—doing exceptionally well, like Fendi, automotive names like Bentley and Bugatti and fashion brands like Armani, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, which continues to show strong interest.
According to Lucchetta, the number of residential and hospitality developments tied to a brand and/or featuring branded interiors is growing, particularly in North America, extending beyond Miami. “Previously, most of the activity was centered in Miami, which now feels somewhat saturated, but the market is expanding across the U.S. and North America more broadly,” he said. “Compared to last year, the numbers are roughly the same, but there’s more uncertainty now, mainly due to tariffs and what could be described as trade wars or customs duty conflicts.” As for retail, it’s a different story—the market is weak for other products. “I think that’s a trend we’re seeing across various sectors, not just luxury.”
An installation view of “Lost and Found: Susan Brockman and Allen Frame,” organized by Soft Network in 2023. Photo: Alexa Hoyer.
Bankers boxes, flat file cabinets, archival portfolios—they’re all here, placed with intention and order, preserving the work of oft-overlooked yet exciting artists in Soft Network’s Soho office. Co-founded in 2021 by curator Chelsea Spengemann, now executive director, and artist Sara Vanderbeek, Soft Network is a nonprofit organization that “preserves and provides access to the work of vital yet often vulnerable experimental artists and those who care for them.” It does this by assisting artists and those managing artist estates—or legacy workers, as they’re known—in cataloging, storing, digitizing and exhibiting artwork through a two-year-long Archive-in-Residence program. This helps artists and legacy workers preserve estates for the future; the ultimate goal is not to house work permanently but to help the estate stand in the art world on its own.
The idea was born out of personal experience. Spengemann had been assisting Sara VanDerBeek in managing the estate of Sara’s father, artist Stan Vanderbeek, for nearly twenty years, and they realized there were little to no resources to assist people who had been bequeathed artist estates but didn’t have their art world expertise. Spengemann believes this kind of legacy work has long flown under the radar because it’s seen as a form of caregiving. But while many have developed more appreciation for and understanding of what goes into physical and emotional caregiving in our post-pandemic world, it’s still difficult for some to see the parallels with the management of artist estates. Like medical caregiving, managing a legacy can be emotional, laborious and time-consuming work, albeit of a different kind.
“Every time you see work by a dead artist in a gallery or a museum, there’s a living person that made that possible,” Spengemann told Observer. “This labor often goes uncompensated, even though it’s a ton of work to preserve and even revive an artist’s career.” Soft Network’s fully-funded residency makes it easier—the organization serves as an artistic caregiver to artist estates. And the estate can continue to tap into Soft Network as a resource after the residency is over through programs such as the Artist Foundations & Estate Leaders List, or AFELL, which is “a membership-based, peer-to-peer listserv for sharing resources, available to artists and legacy workers.”
During the Archive-in-Residence program, an artist’s archive is not just cataloged, researched and digitized but also exhibited in Soft Network’s own exhibition space in two corresponding four- to six-week shows: a group exhibition that includes contemporary artists in conversation with the resident work and a resident solo show. There may be public programs that engage with the work as well. And Soft Network also helps legacy workers make the kind of art world connections that help ensure the estate’s future.
For example, when supporting Haitian-American mixed-media artist Paul Gardère’s work, Soft Network obtained a booth as a nonprofit at Independent 20th Century to put Gardère’s work in front of a larger audience. At the recent OFFSCREEN art fair of image-based works in Paris, Soft Network exhibited the work of their current Archive-in-Residence of filmmaker, film editor and photographer Susan Brockman. They won a prize for Best Presentation, which came with €10,000 that will support the preservation of Brockman’s work and access to it. The 2025-2027 Archive-in-Residence will be that of photographer Sheyla Baykal, a longtime chronicler of downtown New York’s avant-garde performance scenes who passed away in 1997.
The collections Soft Network works with the most, according to Spengemann, are film, photography, experimental and mixed-media work. These are “the hardest to maintain and make accessible after an artist’s life because they’re not as straightforward as a three-dimensional painting or a sculpture,” she said. Figuring out how to present these works can be challenging and, in some cases, because the artist had no market when it was made, there’s little funding for preservation now. Since Soft Network launched, many artist estates have found them by word of mouth. In addition to the Archive-in-Residence, they work with three artist estates held in their archives for a fee–the Stan VanDerBeek Archive, the Rosemary Mayer Estate and the Shirley Gorelick Foundation each have work on site; the associated fees help keep the organization solvent, as does the estate consultation work that it offers on a sliding scale.
During our conversation, Spengemann emphasized that Soft Network is not a gallery but rather a “shared studio and active storage space with access to an exhibition space.” That space is shared with designer Rachel Comey, a longtime supporter of the organization. Soft Network provides artwork for her showroom in exchange for the space to exhibit work and hold public programs that bring the work of previously overlooked artists into modern conversation. Coming up on October 28 and 30, for example, are events centering painter Shirley Gorelick’s work, which will be hung in the space, including discussions about portraiture, community and memory featuring historians, academics, archivists and artists. Outside of the public programs and exhibitions, historians, artists, and curators can view the resident work in Soft Network’s offices by appointment.
It’s perhaps not surprising that many of the estates Soft Network works with belong to artists who were women, people of color and/or queer. These works are pieces of art history that have been disregarded or left out of the narrative previously, Spengemann says, but through Soft Network, they can once again be part of the conversation—or in some cases, for the first time. These artists then become accessible to contemporary artists seeking inspiration, curators seeking missing pieces of a puzzle and historians chronicling parts of the art world once unseen.
“We really just try to be a community for people doing this work, bring visibility to this work and then as a group help one particular estate and collection with whatever they need,” Spengemann said. Artists have often operated via community, she added, and hers is dedicated to freeing their work from those bankers boxes, literally and figuratively.
Art Basel Paris 2024 on opening day. Courtesy of Art Basel
The majestic Grand Palais quickly filled with a steady stream of art lovers there for Art Basel Paris’ VIP preview day. The atmosphere was positive and the mood upbeat, spurring healthy sales and lively negotiations from the early hours. Collectors and professionals from across the globe descended on the preview, with many traveling from the Americas and Asia. Among the notable attendees were Chloe Sevigny, Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson, Princess Maria-Anunciata von Liechtenstein, Queen Rania of Jordan, Raf Simons, Sheikha Mayassa, Sheikha Nawar Al Qassimi, Philip Tinari, Massimiliano Gioni, Adrian Cheng, George Economou, Maya Hoffmann and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, to name a few.
Pace Gallery’s booth “Mystic Sugar” curated by Paulina Olowska at Art Basel Paris. Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
At the entrance, Gladstone’s booth greeted fairgoers with a monumental Dubuffet hanging on the wall, juxtaposed with a sculpture by Sarah Lucas and drawings by Marisa Merz, an homage to the Arte Povera artists celebrated in the show at La Bourse—Pinault Collection. Pace Gallery stood out with “Mystical Sugar,” curated by Paulina Olowska, featuring an extensive work that dominated the booth alongside pieces by Louise Nevelson, Kiki Smith and Lucas Samaras. In the first few hours, all four of Olowska’s paintings sold, as did several sculptures by Nevelson and Smith. In the backroom, Lee Ufan’s Response from 2024 led sales, complementing works by Ufan, Agnes Pelton, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini and Alexander Calder.
Next door, Blum & Poe presented a solo booth of Asuka Anastacia Ogawa, which sold out by the afternoon, with prices ranging from $22,000 to $100,000. Not far away, Eva Presenhuber’s solo presentation of new works and furniture by Tschabalala Self also sold out in the early hours, with prices ranging from $175,000 to $320,000. Jeffrey Deitch curated a booth featuring rarely seen artists like Myrlande Constant and Ella Kruglyanska, with a focus on Judy Chicago and a standout selection of Rammellzee works, ahead of his upcoming show in NYC.
PPOW saw strong results, selling all of its Grace Carney pieces in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, along with a central piece, a large table with a hand-painted tablecloth and porcelain vases by Ann Agee, sold as a pair for $14,000-18,000. MASSIMODECARLO also did brisk work, selling twenty-five pieces on the first day, including a Matthew Wong painting consigned directly from the estate, presented alongside a work by Salvo. Other sales included a piece by Dominique Fung ($36,000), various works by Jean-Marie Appriou, two by Tomoo Gokita, three by France-Lise McGurn and one by artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, who currently have a museum exhibition at Le Musée D’Orsay.
Among the notable sales on the first day, White Cube sold a Julie Mehretu work for $9.5 million, a Howardena Pindell piece for $1.75 million and a Lucio Fontana slash for $1.3 million.
Jeffrey Deitch at Art Basel Paris. Photo by Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of the artists and Jeffrey Deitch, New York and Los Angeles.
Standing out in the Hauser & Wirth booth was a striking spider by Louise Bourgeois, paired with a powerful Ed Clark, which reportedly sold by the end of the day for $950,000. Also sold was a work by Barbara Chase Riboud for $2.2 million and a large Mark Bradford for $3.5 million. Of particular interest, the external wall featured a large Jeffrey Gibson, hinting at a potential new collaboration with the gallery, while the other wall showcased a vibrant, explosive work by Frank Bowling. Meanwhile, Lisson Gallery sold two pieces by Colombian artist Olga de Amaral—one for $800,000 and the other for $400,000—both to a private U.S. collection. The sales coincided with the artist’s current show at Foundation Cartier in Paris, one of many exhibitions opening alongside Art Basel Paris.
Lisson Gallery at Art Basel Paris. Courtesy Art Basel
In celebration of Surrealism’s 100th anniversary, many booths honored artists from the movement in the city where it began. Di Donna offered a beautiful dialogue between Jean Tanguy and Wilfredo Lam, while Nahmad devoted their entire booth to works by Dalí, Picabia, Max Ernst, Tanguy, De Chirico, Picasso and Magritte, along with a stunning floating mobile by Calder. In the masterworks section, featuring pieces priced in the five- to six-digit range, Van De Weghe presented a 1964 Pablo Picasso and a 1985 Great American Nude by Tom Wesselmann, riding the wave of momentum from the “Pop Forever” show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Tornabuoni’s booth featured a standout monumental map by Alighiero Boetti, covering an entire wall. New York dealer Aquavella showcased a series of masterpieces by Fontana, De Kooning, Basquiat and Thiebaud, with a gallery representative telling Observer that “a lot of good collectors” had come through throughout the morning.
Among the best-curated booths, The Modern Institute from Glasgow dedicated its entire presentation to a site-specific, immersive installation by artist Martin Boyce, titled Before Behind Between Above Below. Combining various works and elements, Boyce created a liminal interior space exploring the boundary between the real and imagined and the collapse of architecture and nature. The installation drew inspiration from Jan and Joël Martel’s cubist trees, first exhibited at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925, right in front of the Grand Palais.
The Modern Institute at Art Basel Paris. The Modern Institute
Once the ground floor became too crowded to navigate, many collectors sought breathing room in the upstairs sections, where more space allowed for new discoveries, particularly in the terrace corridor of the “Emergence” section. A standout in this area was the experimental Jakarta-based gallery Rho Projects, showcasing Kei Imazu’s intriguing blend of historical memory, traces,and digital structures (priced between $15,000 and $20,000). Another highlight was a large, narrative-rich painting by young Polish artist Jeh Eustachy Wilsky, presented by Piktogram, stretching across the entire booth.
Upstairs also housed a range of thriving galleries, including Karma, Clearing, Mariane Ibrahim, Sultana and Société. Société’s booth had a future-forward feel, featuring Trisha Baga’s pictorial explorations of the digital realm and a divinatory video by Lu Yang. Nearby, Ortuzar Projects presented a solo booth of Takako Yamaguchi, fresh from the Whitney Biennial, which quickly attracted buyers. With prices set at $300,000, only three works remained by midday.
Throughout the VIP day at Art Basel Paris, the atmosphere was effervescent, proving that collectors are still eager and excited about bold new moves—especially with this being the first Art Basel in its new, opulent historic venue, which truly has no architectural equal worldwide.
SCAD at Design Miami Paris with an Alumni Booth presenting the work of Trish Andersen, Lærke Lillelund, Bradley Bowers and Eny Lee Parker. Photo Chia Chong. Courtesy of SCAD.
Design Miami Paris also saw a successful opening, launching its second edition the day before with a similarly packed VIP reception at L’Hôtel de Maisons. Inside the lavish 18th-century mansion, exhibitors presented a curated selection of historic and contemporary collectible designs, with strong sales early on. Notably, Galerie Downtown-LAFFANOUR (Paris) sold a full-scale Jean Prouvé post-war prefabricated house (1946) for over one million euros.
Among the standout presentations, SCAD took over the elegant staircase with a cascade of abstract forms and vivid colors in a fiber site-specific installation by artist and alumna Trish Andersen. The school also showcased the creative talents of alumni Lærke Lillelund, Bradley Bowers and Eny Lee Parker. Other highlights included fashion designer Rick Owens’ striking pair of Tomb Chairs in the gardens, presented by Salon 94 Design (New York), alongside rare pieces by Gaetano Pesce, such as his Palladio Cabinet (Milk colored prototype) (2007) and Flower Origami Table (2023). The award for “Best Gallery Presentation at Design Miami Paris 2024” went to Galerie Gastou (Paris) and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret (Paris), which brought a significant collection of minimalist works by Jean Touret in wood and iron, shown in dialogue with contemporary pieces by Agnès Debizet.
The garden of Design Miami at the fair’s opening. IVAN EROFEEV
