Since reading it two years ago, there’s no book I recommend more frequently than Ravn’s deeply introspective “novel” My Work. I use the quotes because while it is partially fictional, it also careens between memoir, poetry, essay, correspondence, dialogue and newspaper headlines as it explores the struggles of giving birth, being a wife and creating art in a world that seems to be going crazy. It probes one of the great questions that plagues every artist: how can I balance my art with my responsibilities?
Camille Pissarro, Apple Harvest, 1888. Oil on canvas, overall: 24 x 29 1/8 in. (60.96 x 73.98 cm.), dimensions: 33 1/2 x 38 3/4 x 4 in. (85.09 x 98.425 x 10.16 cm.). Brad Flowers, Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund
Their paintings might look like greeting cards from a nursing home, but the Impressionists were 19th century punk rockers. They upended the establishment by presenting what was viewed as rough, unfinished artwork by upstarts bent on subverting tradition. And when the conservative Académie des Beaux-Arts rejected them, this ragtag group of starving artists, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne and Berthe Morisot, among others, set up their own group show, a first, and had the audacity to charge admission.
Their work can be seen in the touring show “Impressionism Revolution: Monet to Matisse,” currently at Santa Barbara Museum of Art, alongside the latter’s “Encore: 19th-Century French Art.” The Dallas show will then travel to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario in the summer and, in late 2026, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“They revolutionized museums and how we encounter exhibitions and who art is made for and who gets to see it,” Dallas Museum of Art curator Nicole Myers tells Observer. “A lot of the things they brought to the table, real innovation at the time, stayed as a proto form of modern art making.”
It’s a short-lived but seminal moment in art history that ran for roughly 10 years, but the stylistic and intellectual offshoots that Impressionism spawned marked a sea change, paving the way for 20th-century art. Beginning with Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (1872), and from which the movement got its name from critic Louis Leroy, Impressionism was maligned by the Académie, a government-run arts organization whose annual Salon show determined which artists might have a prosperous career and which would not.
Popular among the Salon were artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme and Antonin Mercié, academicists who produced Orientalist and historical paintings often depicting scenes from Greek mythology. Impressionist paintings, in both style and subject, were decidedly outré, eschewing tradition-bound standards like a brown wash to prep the canvas as well as the requisite coat of varnish as a final step. They elevated rough subject matter like sex workers, manual laborers and industrialization, presenting them through sketchy brushstrokes unlike the clean application of paint favored by the Salon.
“It was political to them to mount their own show and buck the government in that way. It was a battle they were waging and the stakes were extremely high in France in this period, where no art was not political,” offers Myers, noting how critics like Charles Albert d’Arnoux, known professionally as Bertall, characterized Impressionist works as “awkward attempts, crude in color and tone, without contour and modeling, displaying the most complete disregard for drawing, distance and perspective; colors chucked, so to speak, at random.”
Paul Signac, Mont Saint-Michel, Setting Sun, 1897. Oil on canvas, dimensions: 26 × 32 1/8 in. (66.04 × 81.6 cm.), framed dimensions: 33 × 39 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (83.82 × 99.7 × 8.89 cm.). Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., bequest of Mrs. Eugene McDermott in honor of Bill Booziotis
Banning black from their palette, Impressionists depicted shadow by deepening the color tones of a subject, while pointillists like Pissarro, Signac and Seurat placed disparate colored dots side by side, relying on the viewer’s eyes to mix them. Using color as shadow set the stage for Fauvists like Henri Matisse and André Derain and even Vincent van Gogh, a contemporary who called himself an Impressionist even if no one else did. Most important was their use of rough strokes rather than detailed clarity to indicate a shape or figure, again relying on the eye to draw conclusions based on context.
“Fauvism, the idea of Divisionism (Pointillism), taking color and applying it in separate strokes, the Impressionists were doing that intuitively,” notes Myers. “They began to divorce color and brushstroke from being descriptors. What makes your brain read the whole thing together as an image is about relativity, what’s next to what.”
Gauguin, whose only work in the Santa Barbara show is a familiar Tahitian scene, Under the Pandanus (1891), paints the ground in an otherworldly burgundy. It converses with the show’s second of two works by Edvard Munch titled Thuringian Forest (1904), which depicts an area alongside a forest road as pink and meaty, more like raw flesh than earth.
“Everything was about the external, objective world, but it should be filtered through the imagination, the subjective, the thoughts, the feelings of the artist to translate what they see or feel about their time,” says Myers, noting that Gauguin, who exhibited in 5 of 8 Impressionist shows, sensed something was missing from the movement early on and began exaggerating color and line. “He was the first to bring this idea of a different kind of spirituality, a lyrical quality, something more meaningful but harder to find.”
Four paintings by Piet Mondrian from the first two decades of the 20th century include a farm, a windmill and a castle ruin, as well as a stab at Pointillism in his The Winkel Mill (1908). Among them is no sign of his signature minimalism of primary colored quadrilaterals that characterize later works like New York City and Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43). Neither looks anything like its title, yet both capture the spirit and feel of the city.
Piet Mondrian, The Winkel Mill (pointillist version), 1908. Oil on canvas, dimensions: 17 × 13 5/8 in. (43.18 × 34.61 cm.), dimensions: 25 × 21 1/4 × 2 7/8 in. (63.5 × 53.98 × 7.3 cm.). Jerry Ward, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation
“For Mondrian, it was this spiritual fuzzy religious association with perfect balance and perfect harmony. He felt that if he could just communicate that through lines and grids, you will feel that perfect harmony with the cosmos,” says Myers. “He thought art should convey what cameras can’t capture, because photography had become perfected. What it can’t do is provide mood or thought through color or a line and touch people. It starts with him being exposed and experimenting with Impressionism and post-Impressionism and breaking down these cornerstones of images.”
Most of the Impressionists died before the turn of the century and many didn’t live to see World War I. But Monet, the man who started it all, lived until 1926. While it’s common for artists to do their best work in their youth or prime of life, Monet’s most prescient work came later. The show includes his pre-Impressionist still life Tea Service (1872), highlighting the artist’s technical mastery, as well as two from his decades-long series of waterlilies, which, more than any body of work, best illustrates the transition from Impressionism to Modernism.
The Water Lily Pond (Clouds) (1903) shows the sky reflected in the pond’s surface, disrupted by floating lilies. The far bank of the pond is seen at the top of the frame, helping to orient the viewer (although one critic thought the image was upside down when he saw the sky and clouds reflected in the water). Water Lilies (1908) is a circular composition that has no orienting point. It’s a mass of blue and green, the sky and trees reflected in the pond, with purple patches depicting lilies. It’s not an abstract work but, like the lily paintings that follow, the emphasis is on color and light less on subject matter.
“For Monet, the unifier was the desire to paint light and how it’s interacting with different surfaces,” says Myers. “The circular one, you only have light dancing on the surface of the water or glinting off the plants down below. It is incredibly abstract.”
The other name in the title of the show is Matisse, whose first painting Books and Candle (1890) is the opposite of Impressionism in a way that would have tickled the traditionalist Salon. His one work on display here, Still Life: Bouquet and Compotier (1924), illustrates a drastic departure from his early work, incorporating ideas sprung from Impressionism that stayed with him through his later abstract works before his death in 1954.
“We take it for granted today because it is foundational, the building blocks they set up for different aspects of their production, from color theory to moving away from a kind of illusionistic style, using brushwork to convey more than what something looks like,” Myers concludes. “Feeling and mood, an optical sensation, these are things that artists today are still working with and absorbing.”
Vincent van Gogh, Sheaves of Wheat, 1890. Oil on canvas, dimensions: 20 × 40 in. (50.8 × 101.6 cm.), dimensions: 31 3/8 × 51 1/8 × 5 1/4 in. (79.69 × 129.86 × 13.34 cm.). Ira Schrank, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection
When it comes to gifts for art lovers, wrapping original art is the ultimate power move. But here’s the catch: collectors pour their hearts—and usually their bank accounts—into curating deeply personal collections. If you know your giftee very, very well, a piece of art can be a very, very good gift. You could also treat the collector in your life to a gallery outing or surprise them with a session with an art advisor. But if adding to their collection feels too ambitious, there are plenty of artsy presents for everyone on your list, from the absolute obsessive to the casually cultured. Whether you’re working with a shoestring budget or aiming for extravagance, there’s no shortage of options that are thoughtful, stylish and primed to impress. Enjoy our guide to the gifts guaranteed to thrill any art enthusiast.
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.
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.
Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, better known as the Bean. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
I was going to kick this off with a fun anecdote about my daughter walking into my office to ask whether I knew there was a guy trapped inside the Bean, followed by my inevitable dive into the Man in Bean movement (including Sarah Cascone’s wild dissection). Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate is the kind of artwork people love to hate while still lining up to slap their greasy palms on it to get the same warped selfie everyone takes. And while I usually enjoy a good dunk on that sort of thing, it feels a little tone-deaf given what’s happening in the Windy City right now—from ICE patrols to the arrival of National Guard troops.
The idea that Trump could deploy those troops in Chicago—invoking the Insurrection Act in the process—feels dystopian and doesn’t track with my experience of the city at all. Does Chicago have crime? Yes, Chicago has crime. So does every city. More people, more problems. Is Chicago, as the president has claimed, the “world’s most dangerous city”? Please. Not even close. It’s just a city—and from everything I saw during a trip that took me from the Loop to Streeterville, from East Village to Washington Park and the Fulton Market District—it’s a pretty chill one. Sure, I only saw a sliver, but to echo the words of U.S. District Judge April Perry, I saw nothing resembling a “danger of rebellion.”
What I do see while I’m here for Chicago Exhibition Weekend (CXW) is beautiful in the way most urban places are beautiful—full of hard edges paired with softness and united by the widely held conviction that art is the solution to a range of challenges. Chicago’s artists—and their champions, from patrons to gallerists to curators—are as open as they are unfiltered. When I ask Scott Speh, founder of Western Exhibitions, what makes the Chicago art scene different from, say, New York or L.A., he’s quick to tell me how much he hates that question, then launches into a perfectly clear-eyed answer: “I think everywhere, people want to put on good shows. It doesn’t matter what city they’re in, they want to put forward interesting artists.”
Alexander Calder, Flying Dragon, 1975. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
That’s what he’s been doing for 21 years (“Chicago would be a far less interesting art city if Scott wasn’t doing what he was doing,” artist Stan Shellabarger told The Chicago Reader in 2024), and he’s in good company. Speh might resist boiling it all down, but if I had to try, I’d say Chicago’s is a scene grounded in and by the people who are in the thick of it. “In Chicago, there’s a really good ecosystem because it’s not too small and it’s not too big either,” Sibylle Friche, Document gallery partner, tells me. “You don’t get bored—there’s always enough going on.”
Enough, and then some—as is the case with Chicago Exhibition Weekend, now in its third year. Around 50 galleries and creative spaces citywide mounted shows and everything from panel discussions and artist meet-and-greets to collector tours and an art-and-tennis mixer. The whole thing is the brainchild of Abby Pucker, Gertie founder and Pritzker family scion—yes, that Pritzker family. But despite her association with big bucks and big names (Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is a cousin), Pucker is—as I find out in conversation after conversation, including with the woman herself—simultaneously down-to-earth and committed to lifting others up.
I’m here for CXW, of course, but also to figure out what makes Chicago’s art world tick. Pucker deserves serious credit for rallying next-gen patrons and collectors through Gertie’s EarlyWork program of curated cultural events. Still, she’s one voice in a glorious chorus of artists, curators and civic-minded supporters—all of whom, it seems, are ready to invite outsiders like me in.
Day 0
It’s just around lunchtime when I touch down at O’Hare, but I’m thrilled to find my room at Chicago Athletic Association already ready when I arrive after an uneventful ride on the Blue Line. I can see Cloud Gate from here, or at least glints of it between the leaves of Millennium Park’s many trees, which means I’m also near Jaume Plensa’s ever-smiling crowd-pleaser, Crown Fountain. It’s hours before I need to be anywhere, and my home base is just steps from the Art Institute of Chicago (the second-largest art museum in the United States, after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art), which feels like the perfect way to start an unfamiliar city fling with art.
The Stephen Alesch painting in my hotel room. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
In the elevator, someone cheerfully asks if I’m headed out to see the Bean. “Sure am,” I answer—and I guess I’m just that suggestible because suddenly I feel compelled to make that my first stop. Close up, it’s filthy, covered in smeary handprints and streaks, but from a distance, framed by the city skyline, it’s pure sculpture drama. I take selfies from afar but resist the urge to touch it since I left my sanitizer back in the room—rookie mistake.
Marc Chagall’s America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
On a normal trip, I’d budget at least five hours for the Art Institute, but this isn’t a normal trip, so I decide to focus on the heavy hitters: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Van Gogh’s The Bedroom. Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Grant Wood’s American Gothic. My all-time favorite Cézanne, Basket of Apples. I’m waylaid early on by the Elizabeth Catlett show, “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies,” a fantastic career survey on view through early next year and absolutely worth the flight alone. In Gallery 262, everyone is clustered around Nighthawks, which is probably among the least interesting paintings there—though it’s definitely bigger than you’d expect. Far more captivating are Peter Blume’s weirdly brilliant The Rock (commissioned for Fallingwater but rejected for being too big) and Kay Sage’s deliciously desolate In the Third Sleep. There’s even an early cubist-expressionist Pollock, which feels like spotting a celebrity before their glow-up.
Kay Sage, In the Third Sleep, 1944. Oil on canvas. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
And so it goes. The Art Institute of Chicago is home to paintings we’ve all seen a hundred times on mugs, tote bags and in movies—you can absolutely have your Ferris Bueller moment in front of the Seurat—but it’s the lesser-known gems that really sparkle. There’s a stellar selection of Georgia O’Keeffe’s works (Ballet Skirt or Electric Light is a standout) and Alma Thomas’ Starry Night with the Astronauts. Other highlights: William Zorach’s Summer, Marsden Hartley’s Movement, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones’ Shop Girls and Mary Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath.
Elizabeth Catlett, Head of a Negro Woman, 1946. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
Time-bound as I am, I feel like I’m jogging through the galleries. (Fun fact: Large as the museum is, less than 20 percent of the collection is on display at any given time.) I pause for a late lunch at the café—great food—and sit in the garden for a charming little reset before diving back in. Monet’s stacks of wheat remind me what repetition can achieve. There are Van Goghs here you haven’t seen on a million mugs, but don’t skip the Pissarros. I breeze through the Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian galleries but somehow miss the entire Asian art collection. I cap off my visit at Marc Chagall’s America Windows and leave feeling artistically overfed yet hungry for more.
Andi Crist’s Precautionary Measures. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
After a stop back at the hotel, where I freshen up and check out Andi Crist’s Precautionary Measures, a site-specific installation that transforms symbols of caution and containment into a new visual language (then installed at Chicago Athletic Association), I hop on the train toward 400 N. Peoria. It’s the hub of CXW and the site of “Over My Head: Encounters with Conceptual Art in a Flyover City, 1984–2015,” a special exhibition curated by Gareth Kaye and Iris Colburn and presented by Abby Pucker’s Gertie.
The weather is perfection—so close to ideal it’s practically invisible. But I’m off to an inauspicious start. My GPS goes haywire, and I’m spinning around River North in a mild panic, trying to figure out where the hell I am. And once I do, I’m unfashionably early—as in, they’re-still-setting-up-the-bar early. But someone lets me in, and the bartenders take pity on me, which is how I score a private preview of the show. I spend an embarrassingly long time standing in the room where Jordan Wolfson’s hypnotic Perfect Lover (2007), one of my favorite works, is playing on a loop.
An installation view of “Over My Head: Encounters with Conceptual Art in a Flyover City, 1984–2015 ” at 400 N. Peoria. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
As the gallery fills, I’m still feeling untethered. I spot Tony Karman. I eavesdrop on conversations, playing a game of Artist, Collector or Scenester? I linger by Wendy Jacob’s Untitled (1988), watching it breathe, then lose myself in Rashid Johnson’s Remembering D.B. Cooper (2013), until Ellen Kaulig, chief of staff at the Chicago Reader, saves me from myself by introducing me to Pucker. In a relatively quiet spot under the stairs, she tells me how Chicago Exhibition Weekend evolved over three years and where the idea for “Over My Head” came from.
“It’s a bit of a double entendre—being a flyover city, right? People don’t often attribute movements like conceptual art to Chicago, but it is an amazing nerve center of that,” she says, calling the planning phase a whirlwind. “We talked to these absolute icons. People like Karsten Lund, Helen Goldenberg, Laura Paulson, John Corbett and Jim Dempsey… just people who have been integral to this area for so many years.” Chicago’s art elite were, she said, excited to share, and the resulting show collected work from Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Dara Birnbaum, Rosemarie Trockel, Martin Puryear, Tony Lewis and others.
“They don’t think so highly of themselves that they’re detached from reality,” she adds. “They’re around. I think sometimes that might work to our detriment, because it’s hard to brand something as cool when it’s so inviting—but it’s fucking cool to be invited.”
Rashid Johnson, Remembering D.B. Cooper, 2013. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
That word—invited—comes up again when I talk to Chanelle Lacy, Gertie’s director of art initiatives, about the crossover between CXW and EarlyWork: “We want to lower barriers to entry. We try to demystify things because once you actually get into it, it’s not that scary. The art world just looks a little intimidating from the outside. We want to expose people to the finer side of things and be a lifeline. And everything is very serious—it’s just about making it more approachable, so people feel invited into the experience.”
The exhibition dinner is where I meet Friche, along with Carla Acevedo-Yates (if the name’s familiar, it’s because she’s on the documenta 16 curatorial team), several dealers and a cadre of arts-friendly businesspeople and politicians. I stay and schmooze for as long as I can before exhaustion sets in.
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Notley, 2013. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
Day 1
I’d planned to follow one of the curated routes that the CXW team had Chicago artists, gallerists and creatives put together, but last night Friche hand-drew me a one-of-a-kind mapped itinerary—and really, how could I possibly say no to that? But Chicago’s art museums don’t open until 10 a.m., and the galleries open even later, so I decide to wander toward Lake Michigan. I get sidetracked by the absolute unit of a fountain in the distance—it’s Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain—and I start heading that way, thinking it can’t be too far. And it’s not, technically, but its sheer scale plays tricks on your senses. I know I’m close when I pass Turtle Boy and Dove Girl and the North Rose Garden, which must be stunning at the height of summer, and then I keep going for a quick peek at Magdalena Abakanowicz’s leggy Agora.
Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
I haven’t even officially started my day, but I’ve already clocked more than a mile—according to Friche’s map, in the wrong direction. After an about-face, I get plenty of lake views on my three-mile walk to the MCA Chicago, which is showing “City In A Garden: Queer Art and Activism” and “Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me,” along with “Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera” across all three floors of the museum’s stairwell galleries. Like the Art Institute, MCA Chicago is a feast, but a much more digestible one. You can see everything in a couple of hours, which is ideal because my weekend itinerary is threatening to become an endurance sport.
Nick Cave’s Sound Suit (2008) in “City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago” at MCA Chicago. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
First stop: Patron Gallery for Bethany Collins’s “DUSK,” which is nuanced but underwhelming as presented—or maybe I’m just too overstimulated post-museum to process it properly. Next up: Western Exhibitions, Document, Volume Gallery and David Salkin Creative, which all share a floor at 1709 West Chicago Avenue. Friche is in, and she tells me the neighborhood is a hub for emerging contemporary art, but you’ll also find heavy-hitters like Mariane Ibrahim Gallery and Corbett vs. Dempsey. “It definitely concentrates a lot of the scene,” she says. “And it feels pretty supportive—we each have our own identity. I think it’s hard to find programs in Chicago that resemble each other. I’m not saying anything negative about New York, but sometimes you go to Chelsea and see the same kind of painting shows over and over. I feel like here, you don’t have that.”
Journie Cirdain’s Chandelier Dewdrops (2025), part of “The Gloaming” at Western Exhibitions gallery. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
Unlike Scott Speh, she’s more than happy to talk about what makes Chicago’s art scene unique: “Because our overhead is manageable, it’s more accessible to open spaces and experiment. Eventually, you get a bit more constrained by the commercial aspects—if you want longevity, you do need to sell some art. That affects your choices. But there’s still a bit more breathing room here than in the coastal cities, given how unaffordable things have become in San Francisco and New York.”
Kiah Celeste’s Four Shores (2025) at Document. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
I linger over Kiah Celeste and Gordon Hall’s work at Document and Journie Cirdain’s “The Gloaming” at Western Exhibitions before briefly popping into “Porfirio Gutiérrez: Modernism” at Volume Gallery. Then I’m back out on the streets, where I’m spoiled for choice but already flirting with art fatigue. Sadly, Monica Meloche gallery isn’t opening its Luke Agada and Braxton Garneau show until tomorrow, so I make my way to Mariane Ibrahim for “Yukimasa Ida: Flaming Memory.” It is, in a word, transcendent. I stand for a long time in front of each painting, hypnotized by the massive brushstrokes and thick layers of paint that blur into half-remembered faces—like fragments of a dream fading faster than I can hold on.
I think about squeezing in a few more galleries, but once again, I’ve grossly underestimated Chicago’s distances—and I’m hitting the wall. In a way, it’s a happy accident: I return to my hotel to the news that the iconic Agnes Gund has passed away, and her obit is waiting in my production queue. I edit, publish and then dash out to gape at the Chicago Picasso before hopping on the train to yet another neighborhood: Washington Park.
Darius Dennis, SEEN. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
I’m here to see a different side of the art scene and join the large crowd gathered at the Green Line Performing Arts Center for a tour of the imagined Washington Park Public Art Corridor. In several batches, a trolley ferries us to Amanda Williams’Other Washingtons at 51st and S. King Drive, the future site ofBreath, Form & Freedom, created by the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Foundation to honor victims of police torture, and Arts + Public Life’s Arts Lawn for a preview of Yvette Mayorga’s City Lovers in Paradise. I learn more about Chicago’s recent history in a few hours than I could’ve gleaned from a week of reading—and not all of it’s pretty. Back at the arts center, there’s live music, dance and collaborative art-making with artist and teacher William Estrada, who’s brought his Mobile Street Art Cart Project to the Art Lawn.
When I ask Estrada about the art scene, he’s frank. “There are a lot of spaces where not everyone is welcome, and that’s the worst part of it,” he says. “But the best part is that there’s a lot of art in Chicago, and you can see it across 77 neighborhoods. That’s the part I get really excited about—because you get to experience different art in different communities, and actually engage in conversations about what that art means and who made it with the folks who are being affected by it or get to experience it directly.”
Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
And that’s exactly why I’m here—not just for CXW (which is fantastic) or the city’s world-class museums (also fantastic) but to understand what makes Chicago’s art pulse so distinct. Back in the Loop, I stroll around Millennium Park waiting for a text from Wilma’s letting me know my barbecue is ready. The evening is gorgeous—warm, breezy and humming with life. Kids are splashing in Crown Fountain, musicians are playing on the sidewalks, and the whole scene radiates that beautiful combination of grit and charm. I can see why so many people love it here.
Day 2
If you have limited time in Chicago—say, you’re breezing in for a weekend of art and, like me, you’ll be operating without wheels—you need to think hyper-locally. This is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own cultural flavor and art offerings. Hyde Park has the Smart Museum of Art, the Renaissance Society, Hyde Park Art Center and the Logan Center Gallery (plus the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum and the DuSable Black History Museum in nearby Washington Park). Lincoln Park has the DePaul Art Museum and Wrightwood 659. Ukrainian Village and West Town boast a cluster of commercial galleries, along with the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and Intuit Art Museum.
The Chicago Picasso. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
If there are specific museums or galleries you’re determined to hit, book a spot somewhere central. Because if you’re coming from New York and assuming you’ll just zip between neighborhoods like you’re downtown, you’re in for a rude awakening. Chicago is about ten times the size of Manhattan in terms of land area—which is why, during my final hours in town, I’m speedwalking the South Loop’s Wabash Arts Corridor. (Sidenote: I consider myself a hotel gym connoisseur, but I racked up so many steps during my two-day stay that I never once made it to the Chicago Athletic Association gym. No regrets.)
Crisscrossing streets so eerily empty of cars they feel post-apocalyptic, I admire murals not just on walls but also on doors, alleyways and parking lots. Initiated by Columbia College Chicago in 2013, the Wabash Arts Corridor project has brought more than 100 murals to the neighborhood, including We Own the Future by Shepard Fairey. I’m especially charmed by Marina Zumi’s Impossible Meeting and the candy-colored Moose Bubblegum Bubble by Jacob Watts, and wish I had more time to wander—but I need to get back to Chicago Athletic Association for my final art experience of the trip: the “City as Platform” breakfast conversation.
Jacob Watts’s Bubblegum Moose Bubble, one of the Wabash Art Corridor Murals. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
On my straight-line power walk back to my hotel, I marvel at Chicago’s abundant parking—a downright shocking sight for a New Yorker—and pause to peer into the windows of Elephant Room Gallery, one of many I didn’t make it to, which is showing Darin Latimer’s solo exhibition “Rhinoceros.” Other things I don’t do in Chicago: participate in the “Throw your phone into a body of water!” activation by Weatherproof, which invited art lovers to toss their phones into any handy body of water on September 19, 20 or 21 whenever the numbers on a clock added up to four in military time (e.g. 0400 or 2200)—though I was sorely tempted. Attend the Improvised Sound Making at The Franklin. See “Alex Katz: White Lotus” at GRAY. Visit the National Museum of Mexican Art and the National Veterans Art Museum.
Cheri Lee Charlton’s Curious Bunny. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
Before the talk—an engaging conversation between Kate Sierzputowski (artistic director of EXPO CHICAGO), Nora Daley (co-chair of the Chicago Architecture Biennial), Christine Messineo (Frieze director of Americas) and, no surprise, Abby Pucker, who greets me warmly, by name, when I check in. As Sierzputowski notes when the convo kicks off, the panel “reflects the best of what Chicago has to offer: collaboration across sectors, deep civic commitment and a shared mission to place the city’s cultural work on a global stage.” Daley calls CXW a “cultural palooza” and declares that “Chicago shows up,” which is something I see in action, over and over, during my short time here. “I think it’s who’s in the room at these dinners is what makes this work,” Sierzputowski agrees—whether that’s gallerists, artists, curators, museum directors and civic leaders or, as Pucker reminds us, engaged corporate entities committed to supporting the arts in Chicago.
“City as Platform,” one of the Chicago Exhibition Weekend talks. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
“The creative economy contributes massively to city revenues, yet the people in power often don’t see or understand it,” she says. “We’ve seen perception hurt Chicago. Every city has problems—but if the media only amplifies those, we lose people. Art and culture can bring them back.”
Ironically, the end of the conversation marks the close of my 48 hours of art in Chicago. As I ride the Blue Line back to O’Hare, mulling over everything I’ve experienced, it hits me: as thrilling as it is to be here during Chicago Exhibition Weekend, there’s just too much on the CXW agenda and not enough time to do it. What I experienced in two days was barely a teaser of what this city has to offer. So with that in mind, Abby, if you’re reading this, I have three words for you: Chicago Exhibition Week. Think about it.
Strreet art by Doc Mosher. Photo: Christa Terry for Observer
“Everyone kind of started out on the street, and then certain people became very successful and very hierarchical, and Edward just wasn’t having it,” painter Frank Holliday tells filmmaker Brian Vincent in the documentary Make Me Famous. The story Holliday sketches in that one sentence portrays 1980s East Village neo-expressionist Edward Brezinski as a quintessential starving artist—a painter of integrity whose refusal to sell out precluded his own stardom.
Vincent doesn’t argue with Holliday, and his film at least entertains this mythic version of Brezinski, who is compared in passing to Van Gogh. As the title Make Me Famous indicates, the documentary also acknowledges Brezinski’s ambition and his dreams of getting off the street and grasping some of that success for himself. In the end, the story Vincent tells is not really about an overlooked genius. Instead, it’s about how our insistence on framing genius as a yes or no question reliably and efficiently destroys the human beings who make art.
Brezinski (born Brzezinski in 1954) grew up in Michigan. His father was probably an alcoholic, his mother was distant and support for gay children in that time and place was minimal. He studied at the San Francisco Institute of Art and then moved to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he lived across from a men’s homeless shelter and became part of the growing arts scene.
Brezinski’s moment of greatest notoriety came in 1989, when he attended a solo exhibit for Robert Gober at Paula Cooper Gallery. One of the pieces on display was an exact replica of a bag of donuts; Brezinski reached inside and ate one. Gober had treated the donuts with a toxic preservative, and Brezinski had to be rushed to the hospital. Afterward, he contacted the press, and the story became an art world legend.
The incident, in the context of the documentary, neatly encapsulates the combination of fierce commitment, shallow envy, failure and substance abuse that characterized Brezinski’s career. A passionate painter in surprisingly traditional modes (he is perhaps best known for his portraits and his crucifixion scenes), he was enraged to see the success of Gober’s pop art/Dada-inspired work. Probably drunk, he ate the donut as a kind of protest; he claimed, tongue-in-cheek, that he couldn’t tell them from the refreshments. Effectively, Brezinski participated in Gober’s commercial pop art spectacle; the only way he could become known was to appropriate someone else’s concept, turning his back on his own talent and work in an alcohol-fueled fugue of arch disavowal and despair.
Brezinski was very disillusioned by the end of the ‘80s. But even earlier in the decade, the documentary chronicles the push/pull between his hatred of sellouts and his desire to become one. Numerous acquaintances talk about his incessant, pushy, gauche self-promotion; at openings, he would pass out self-made invites to his own gallery shows, and he asked virtually anyone who visited his apartment/studio to buy his paintings. At the same time, he was a perfectionist who would often destroy his own work if he thought it didn’t measure up. Since he was a portrait painter, this often meant asking other artists and art world people—colleagues and potential connections—to sit for him for hours before trashing the paintings without even letting them see them.
No one in the documentary is exactly willing to say that the art Brezinski did finish was groundbreaking or Important with a capital I. Yet many of his efforts are eye-catching and impressive. An expressionist painting of Nancy Reagan, for example, has a striking, Warhol-esque quality with a mocking, evocative edge—Brezinski seems to be celebrating Nancy as a kind of gay icon even as he sneers at her for her and her husband’s callous indifference to gay people and the AIDS crisis. The Nancy painting isn’t remembered as a defining image of the era, but it could have been. “What’s the great difference between a Kenny Scharf painting and an Ed Brezinski painting?” curator Annina Nosei asks.
Maybe the difference is that Brezinski once tossed a glass of wine on Nosei in revenge after she failed to show up for a gallery appointment. Being an asshole can lose you gigs, though Brezinski was hardly the only asshole, or the only drunk, in the East Village. So maybe the difference is just luck and being in the right place at the right time. Fame and fortune are a roll of the dice; get the right number and you’re everybody’s darling. Get the wrong one and you’re nobody.
The film itself chronicles this calculus and occasionally questions it. “These people [with money] went out and exploited these people [artists], and if they could make them pay off, then fine, and if they couldn’t pay off, then they dumped them,” actor and curator Patti Astor comments with cheerful bitterness. When the filmmaker asks her why no one wanted to exploit Brezinski, she laughs.
Perhaps the laugh is because Astor thinks Brezinski wasn’t worth exploiting. Or maybe she laughs because she is aware that Brezinski was, in fact, exploited. An art scene, after all, requires sub-superstars: people who contribute ideas, passion and venues; people who show your work and lend you their work to show; people who argue about what’s good and what isn’t; people who serve as muses and take you for your muse; people who create a community around art and dreams, hope and vision.
Brezinski participated enthusiastically in the scene that launched Keith Haring and Basquiat and his friend David Wojnarowicz to fame. And for his pains, he got little respect, little love and a pauper’s grave in France, where he died penniless and alone in 2007 at the age of 52. The Reagan administration’s callous disregard of AIDS was merely an extension of the administration’s, and the culture’s, indifference to the lives of creators and gay people. We learn late in the film that Brezinski’s money troubles might have been solved by an inheritance had he not been estranged from his family. But of course, queer people are often estranged from their families, which is why queer people are disproportionately poor.
If the U.S., or New York State, or New York City, had a real arts policy and valued all artists rather than the select few who could be turned into investment opportunities, maybe Brezinski would still be alive. Instead, the U.S. has elected a president who hates the arts and LGBT people even more than Reagan did. Rather than cultivating and celebrating creators with talent, drive and dreams, we seem determined to create an endless carousel of Brezinskis, each of whom we are determined to strangle with the entrails of their own dreams.
Make Me Famous is a sad film because Brezinski wanted to be famous and was not. It’s an enraging film because it shows the extent to which we devalue and despise the arts and all the non-famous people who create them.
LONDON (AP) — A group of activists attacked a pair of paintings by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery by throwing what appeared to be tomato soup on the artworks.
Friday’s attack took place shortly after two other activists were sentenced over a similar attack two years ago.
Both paintings were from Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” series.
The gallery said they were not damaged thanks to protective glass coverings.
The three activists from Just Stop Oil environmental group involved in the attack were arrested while the paintings were removed, examined, and then returned to their location.
Visitors at Frieze London in 2023. Photo courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze
As the art world copes with what feels like an abbreviated summer break and a crowded fall calendar looming, Frieze announced details for its upcoming London fairs, coming up on October 9-12 in The Regent’s Park. The 2024 Frieze fair in London will feature more than 160 galleries from forty-three countries, including some of the leading spaces in London’s gallery scene, with established names like Stephen Friedman Gallery, Alison Jacques, Lisson Gallery, Victoria Miro, Modern Art, White Cube and Thomas Dane Gallery plus spaces devoted to pioneering research on the latest contemporary art expressions, including Arcadia Missa, Carlos/Ishikawa, Leopold Thun’s Emalin and Maureen Paley. Among the international galleries returning to Frieze London are Gagosian, Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Gallery Hyundai, Tina Kim Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Pace Gallery, Perrotin, Almine Rech, Thaddaeus Ropac, Esther Schipper, Sprüth Magers and David Zwirner.
What to expect at Frieze London 2024
Frieze London’s newly announced big change is the fresh floorplan by design practice A Studio Between. The new layout will give prominence to the fair’s curated sections, placing more emphasis on artists and discoveries.
Among those sections, “Focus” will feature thirty-four solo and dual presentations from artists and galleries spanning five continents. In the list of participating galleries and artists, we find that 56 Henry (New York) showcases powerful paintings by Jo Messer; El Apartamento (Havana, Madrid) brings Julia Fuentesal; Madragoa (Lisbon) takes the work of Jaime Welsh; and Gallery Vacancy (Shanghai) the work of Korean artist Sun Woo, among others. Meant to offer a platform especially to the young gallery community, the section is presented this year in collaboration with the brand Stone Island, which will help fund the participation of these emerging galleries.
Another interesting curated selection that will return this year is “Artist-to-artist,” which mounts six solo presentations chosen by world-renowned artists. This year’s edition will feature Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom, chosen by Glenn Ligon (Champ Lacombe, Biarritz); Rob Davis, selected by Rashid Johnson (Broadway, New York); Nengi Omuku selected by Yinka Shonibare (Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London); Massinissa Selmani chosen by Zineb Sedira (Selma Feriani Gallery, Tunis); Magda Stawarska chosen by Lubaina Himid (Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London); and Peter Uka chosen by Hurvin Anderson (Mariane Ibrahim, Chicago, Paris, Mexico City).
Finally, connecting material and some narratives that have become increasingly present in the contemporary art scene in recent years, Frieeze created a new themed section, “Smoke,” curated by Pablo José Ramírez (Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles) and dedicated to ceramic works that explore diasporic and Indigenous histories. The section draws its title from El Animal Humo(the Smoke Animal), Humberto Ak’abal’s story of an enigmatic creature made of smoke that emanates from the soil as a sublime and disturbing manifestation of nature. Featured artists include Manuel Chavajay (Pedro Cera, Madrid, Lisbon), Lucía Pizzani (Cecilia Brunson Projects, London), Christine Howard Sandoval (parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles), Ayla Tavares (Galeria Athena, Rio De Janeiro and Hatch, Paris) and Linda Vallejo (parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles), who explore counter-archaeology, the continuum of ancestry and how materials bear witness to diasporic movements.
Koetser Gallery at Frieze Masters in 2023. Courtesy of Frieze and Michael Adair
What to expect at Frieze Masters 2024
This year’s Frieze Masters will feature 130 galleries from twenty-six countries mounting booths focusing on modern and classic masterpieces. Led by Nathan Clements-Gillespie, the fair will similarly try to be more artist-centered, with an expanded “Studio” section and a redefined floor plan designed to encourage creative connections across art history.
The fair will present long-time exhibitors such as Galerie Chenel, Richard Green, Hauser & Wirth, Lehmann Maupin, Skarstedt and Axel Vervoordt, as well as leading Korean dealers such as Arario Gallery, Gana Art, Hakgojae Gallery and Johyun Gallery. This year, there’s a solid contingent of galleries dealing in ancient Asian art on the roster including Gisèle Croës s.a, Rasti Fine Art, Carlton Rochell Asian Art, Rossi & Rossi, Tenzing Asian Art and Thomsen Gallery. First-time participants include Afridi (London), Bijl-Van Urk Masterpaintings (Alkmaar), Galatea (Salvador, São Paolo), Galerie Léage (Paris), Tilton Gallery (New York) and Trias Art Experts (Munich).
In terms of thematic sections, Frieze Masters will continue with the “Studio” section curated by British art historian and curator Sheena Wagstaff. This section focuses on practices that illuminate the interconnections between our civilization’s past and future. The line-up includes Isabella Ducrot, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary and Doris Salcedo
The other curated section, “Spotlight,” is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and previously senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.The section will focus on solo presentations by 20th-century artists, particularly overlooked artists and lesser-known works by established figures from the 1950s to the 1970s. Featured artists include Judy Chicago, Kulim Kim, Balraj Khanna, Donald Locke, Nabil Nahas, Nil Yalter and more.
Visitors at Frieze London in 2023. Photo courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze
Must-see Frieze Week shows
During Frieze Week in October, the vibrant London art scene will showcase a series of major institutional exhibitions that you’ll want to make sure to put on your art week itinerary. Those include: “Francis Bacon: Human Presenc” at the National Portrait Gallery; Lygia Clark and Sonia Boyce at Whitechapel Gallery; Michael Craig-Martin at the Royal Academy of Arts; “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” at the National Gallery London; “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit” and the majestic Mire Lee’s Turbine Hall Commission at Tate Modern; Hew Locke at the British Museum and “Haegue Yang: Leap Year” at the Hayward Gallery.
Summertime is in full swing which means it’s that time of year again to press play on Lorde’s discography. From Pure Heroine to Solar Power, Lorde seems to never disappoint eager fans. It’s been 7 years since Lorde’s greatest project, Melodrama, became ours. Mega Lorde fan or not, you’ve probably heard a majority of the songs on the album and related to many. It’s about growing up, making mistakes, falling out of love with yourself and others, and finding what makes life exciting.
But, what makes Melodrama so iconic? We have to start with the cover art. It’s literally art that if we saw it walking through the MoMA, we wouldn’t think twice. The hues of blues, browns, and pinks on the cover give the songs so much life and really remind us that making timeless music, like that on Melodrama, is a true form of art.
Here are 11 iconic paintings that pair perfectly with each song on the album.
“’Cause honey I’ll come get my things, but I can’t let go/I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it/Oh, I wish I could get my things and just let go/I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it”
When thinking about lighting in famous paintings, we first thought of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. The subtle green lights shining in front of the diner add so much dimension to the painting, just like ‘Green Light’ adds character and depth to Melodrama.
“We’re king and queen of the weekend/Ain’t a pill that could touch our rush/(But what will we do when we’re sober?)/Uh, when you dream with a fever/Bet you wish you could touch our rush/(But what will we do when we’re sober?)”
Whether you are a wine girlie or a beer girlie (or neither!) you probably recognize Bacchus by Caravaggio. This painting portrays a young Dioynusus (or Bacchus in the Roman language), the God of Wine, inviting viewers to join him for a glass of red wine. The Greeks had it pretty great, huh? If we could eat grapes from the vine under the Grecian sun all day, we would. Lorde‘s music is the closest we come to a perfect summer vacation!
Find Bacchus at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
“Might get your friend to drive, but he can hardly see/We’ll end up painted on the road, red and chrome/All the broken glass sparkling/I guess we’re partying”
When we listen to ‘Homemade Dynamite’ we envision a room up in flames (metaphorically or literally) either because the music is just that good or because of a different reason. For this reason, we paired the third track on the album with The Burning of the Houses of Parliament by J.M.W Turner and William Turner. Turner’s painting mixes beautiful hues of red and orange that almost make the viewer feel calm amid the chaos. This mirrors how we feel when we listen to Melodrama.
Find The Burning of the Houses of Parliament at The Tate in London, United Kingdom.
“Our thing progresses/I call and you come through/Blow all my friendships/To sit in hell with you/But we’re the greatest/They’ll hang us in the Louvre/Down the back, but who cares—still the Louvre”
This is one of our favorite, if not our number one, track on the album. Blasting this song on full volume makes us want to run down the miles and miles of halls in The Louvre with our besties and Lorde herself. Naturally, we went with the most famous painting housed in The Louvre, The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.
Find The Mona Lisa at The Louvre in Paris, France.
“They say, “You’re a little much for me/You’re a liability/You’re a little much for me”/So they pull back, make other plans/I understand, I’m a liability”
A famous painting that evokes feelings of horror, sadness, and grief is The Scream by Edward Munch. The beauty of art is that each person who views (or listens) to it, can interpret it differently. That’s how we feel about ‘Liability’ and The Scream. Some may find it beautiful, others may feel uncomfortable. How do you interpret these two pieces of art?
Find The Scream at The National Museum in Oslo, Norway.
“Hard feelings/These are what they call hard feelings of love/When the sweet words and fevers/All leave us right here in the cold-old-old/Alone with the hard feelings of love/God, I wish I believed ya/When you told me this was my home-ome-ome”
When deciding which painting to pair with ‘Hard Feelings/Loveless’ we wanted to pick something that evoked heartbreak and pain. Ophelia by John Everett Millias is stunning, yet quite painful to look at. A young woman bathed in flowers, lying in a pool of water, yet we cannot tell if she is miserable or simply full of bliss. Is this what it feels like to be “alone with the hard feelings of love?”
Find Ophelia at The Tate in London, United Kingdom.
“All the glamour and the trauma/And the f***** melodrama, whoa, whoa/All the gun fights and the lime lights/And the holy sick divine nights, whoa”
You know we couldn’t forget about the man himself, Vincent van Gogh. He’s created dozens of iconic paintings that we know very well and love today. But, have you seen The Drinkers by Vincent van Gogh? It features his same artistic flair that makes his work stand out, but also relates to the themes in ‘Sober II (Melodrama).’
Find The Drinkers at The Art Institute of Chicago.
“I am my mother’s child, I’ll love you ’til my breathing stops/I’ll love you ’til you call the cops on me/But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power/I’ll find a way to be without you, babe”
The lore behind this song cannot go without a quick mention…but, what does the song really mean to us? Writers, and creators alike, are often misunderstood but quickly become the ones to be celebrated later on in life for their accomplishments that were once taken for granted. One of our favorite paintings depicting a writer is that of Emile Zola by Edouard Manet. The scattered feather pens and messy workspace is so relatable!
Find Emile Zola at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.
“So I fall/Into continents and cars/All the stages and the stars/I turn all of it to just a supercut”
Deciding to chase a memory so far away from your mind is a hard decision to make. Whether that’s in love or in familial relationships, sometimes things happen that we wish to forget about altogether. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí reminds us of those themes. We can try our hardest to erase our memory, but it always remains persistent. The clocks draped over various objects remind us that time cannot be warped, no matter how hard we wish it to be.
Find The Persistence of Memory at the Museum of Modern Art.
“And maybe all this is the party/Maybe the tears and the highs we breathe, oh no/And maybe all this is the party/Maybe we just do it violently”
Every time we listen to this song we get quite emotional. We can never stop the tears from falling down, so we just let ourselves feel all the feels that Lorde evokes within us. To match with us, we’ve chosen Crying Girl by Roy Lichtenstein. We love the style of art that Lichtenstein took with this painting and hope that Lorde gains inspiration from it for future cover art!
“All of the things we’re taking/‘Cause we are young and we’re ashamed/Send us to perfect places/All of our heroes fading/Now I can’t stand to be alone/Let’s go to perfect places”
When we think about perfect places and perfect landscapes, we instantly think of Claude Monet. Our favorite Monet is The Artist’s Garden at Giverny. If we could escape to any place, it would be the garden portrayed here. Perfect places are full of brightly colored flowers and the serenity that nature brings. How would you paint your perfect place? Or, how would you write about it in a song?
Find The Artist’s Garden at Giverny at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.
Image Source: Jonathan Borba | Unsplash
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Pokémon’s profit margins probably don’t reflect it, but the franchise had a rough year in 2023. Without a new mainline role-playing game to dominate the series’ headlines, Pikachu and friends were, instead, shrouded in controversies throughout the past 12 months. Between Pokémon Go angering swaths of its community, scalpers making a public embarrassment of the franchise to people who don’t even pay attention to it, and Scarlet and Violet’s DLC underlining the problems ingrained within the Pokémon pipeline, the screws are coming loose on the hype train. And yet, it cannot be stopped as it barrels down the tracks. Pokémon’s 2023 had its moments, but overall, it was pretty grim for a series usually so full of hope.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Detective Pikachu Returns pulls off its story better than the movie
To start off with some good, Detective Pikachu Returnsfinally came to Switch and wrapped up the original 3DS game’s bewildering cliffhanger. Without a new RPG out this year, Detective Pikachu Returns was the only home console game Pokémon fans got in 2023. The adventure game is pretty simple, but maintains the original’s charm and compelling setting. The ending felt pretty definitive, but hopefully, it’s not the end of The Pokémon Company greenlighting adventure games in the Pokémon universe.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Pokémon Sleep finally wakes up
After years of teases, Pokémon Sleep, the sleeping app meant to encourage consistent sleeping habits, finally launched on mobile devices. In our review, I talked about how it feels geared toward kids who need a little motivation to get to sleep on time. Arceus knows it’s near impossible for an adult with sleep disorders and things to do in the morning to get their recommended eight hours of shuteye. But the app is the latest example of Pokémon getting into lifestyle and wellness, following Pokémon Go’s lead of gamifying daily activity while building people’s relationships with the Pokémon brand.
Photo: Kenneth Shepard
Pokémon remains a community hub
Whether you were one of the 194,000 trainers attending Pokémon Go Fest or were in attendance during the Pokémon World Championships in Yokohama this year, Pokémon remains a community-driven series that brings people together. I even attended my first Go Fest this year, and having felt walled off from that side of the community living in rural Georgia, it was an invigorating experience to be surrounded by so many people coming together for a common love.
Image: The Pokémon Company
The anime ushers in a new era
One of the biggest events of Pokémon history happened in 2023, with long-time protagonist Ash Ketchum walking into the sunset in a final episode. The episode itself didn’t end with a definitive story beat but essentially said he and his partner Pikachu would continue to go on adventures throughout the Pokémon world, but we wouldn’t get to follow them. Instead, Pokémon Horizons, which follows new heroes Liko and Roy, has usurped Ash and Pikachu’s adventures as the primary animated series. The series has been airing in Japan since April, and will finally come to English-speaking territories in February 2024. Though it remains to be seen if Liko and Roy will ascend to Ash’s status as a beloved, iconic hero in anime, Horizons has already garnered acclaim from fans for its lovingly crafted animation.
Image: The Pokémon Company / Netflix
Pokémon shows of all shapes and sizes
While Liko and Roy are headlining the anime, Pokémon has had two more TV projects in 2023 that expand beyond 2D animation. This includes PokéTsume, a live-action drama starring a young woman who sorts through her personal and professional drama by playing Pokémon (she’s just like me, FR), and Pokémon Concierge, a stop-motion animation series on Netflix that is available to stream today, December 28. The Pokémon machine primarily focuses on games, anime, and merchandise as its core pillars, so it’s been nice to see The Pokémon Company continue to expand its projects to tell new stories in this world that aren’t always tied to competitive sports.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Scarlet and Violet’s DLC highlights the best and worst of the base games
While there was no new RPG in 2023, Scarlet and Violet got a two-part expansion called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Between The Teal Maskand The Indigo Disk, fans got new maps to explore, Pokémon to catch, and tools to build competitive teams. While the new story beats didn’t capitalize enough on the base games’ incredible ending to my liking (with one major exception), I was still happy to run around new places with my friends in co-op and learn more about this world. Sadly, in the year since Scarlet and Violet launched, Game Freak hasn’t managed to get the games into a fully functional state, and The Teal Mask and Indigo Disk’s new open-world maps are just as (if not more) buggy and ugly than Paldea was in 2022.
Welcome to Exp. Share, Kotaku’s Pokémon column in which we dive deep to explore notable characters, urban legends, communities, and just plain weird quirks from throughout the Pokémon franchise.
Image: The Pokémon Company / Vincent Van Gogh
The Van Gogh Museum fiasco underlined deep-rooted issues in the community
Pokémon and the Van Gogh Museum had a collaboration this year that included Pokémon-themed recreations of legendary Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s works, as well as merchandise tied to the event and a rare Pikachu card available with purchase alongside these limited edition items. As anyone who has paid attention to Pokémon in the past seven years can tell you, scalpers have become an entrenched part of this community, as it’s nearly impossible attempting to buy any limited edition item without someone’s bot swooping in and buying it to resell it on sites like eBay. While Pokémon fans know to expect that, it’s not often that this issue becomes a public spectacle. The Van Gogh Museum’s new exhibit, however, was overrun by so many people that it looked like something out of a Black Friday sale, and rather than just being fans hoping to acquire some special merch for themselves, many of these were scalpers, looking to hoard the items and jack up the prices.
It’s not unusual for people to attempt to steal and sell Pokémon merchandise, especially cards, andt more often than not, these are just petty crimes. The Van Gogh Museum fiasco, however, was a public embarrassment for The Pokémon Company, and the museum had to cease its card distribution for the safety of its patrons and employees. But even if the card is no longer being given out at the museum, the lingering aftermath of scalpers can still be seen on overpriced eBay listings for it, as well as associated merchandise from the collaboration. The Pokémon Company issued an apology and has since offered the card through the Pokémon Center store, but has neglected to manufacture more of the merchandise.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Pokémon Go’s Remote Raid changes undermine the community it nurtured
At the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, Pokémon Go developer Niantic made it easier for players to take part in raids with Remote Raid Passes that let you play the game from anywhere. It was a huge move for the game, as it was now possible to take part in these events regardless of where you and your friends were. This was especially helpful for people who lived in rural areas where Pokémon Go was typically not well-supported, as well as disabled players who typically had trouble playing Pokémon Go due to its focus on walking to reach objectives.
In March, Niantic made Remote Raid Passes more expensive and limited how many you can use in a day, which fundamentally undermined the ways several subsets of the Pokémon Go community had been playing the game for three years. The subsequent backlash spawned a fan campaign using the hashtag #HearUsNiantic, in which players expressed how these changes affected their enjoyment of the game, with some going as far as to say the increase in price for Remote Raid Passes felt like a tax on the disabled community. Despite protests and boycotts, these restrictions remain in the game to this day.
Image: Niantic
Niantic’s struggles go beyond Pokémon Go
If the public controversy around its flagship game weren’t enough, Niantic has been the subject of a lot of bad news in 2023. In June, Kotaku reported that Niantic was shutting down its Los Angeles studio, laying off over 200 employees in the process. The company made the decision to move away from in-house development, shuttering its basketball game NBA All-World and canceling its planned Marvel game.
Two weeks later, Niantic was the subject of a lawsuit accusing it of “systemic sexual bias” against its female employees and creating a “boys club” work environment. In November, a California judge approved the lawsuit to proceed.
Image: The Pokémon Company
The death of the 3DS eShop shakes Pokémon trading
The 3DS and Wii U eShops were shut down in 2023. While this affects every game and service on those platforms, Pokémon is in a precarious position because the loss of the 3DS eShop has created a gap between Pokémon generations. Trading old Pokémon to new games has been a long-held tradition within the series. It’s taken different forms between games, but the practice has become much more streamlined with the introduction of platform-agnostic services like Pokémon Home that host Pokémon from any game that can connect to the internet. However, the 3DS has been the bridge between older generations and Home through an app called Pokémon Bank. This 3DS app is used to transfer Pokémon from 3DS games to Home, thus to Switch games like Scarlet and Violet.
Pokémon Home is still probably the best solution The Pokémon Company has launched for this problem, as it doesn’t have to rely on specific hardware to store and trade different monsters. But without Bank, some Pokémon have become difficult or even impossible to obtain and trade over to modern games. As of this writing, Bank still works for those who had it purchased and installed on their 3DS before the eShop shutdown, but the tool is no longer readily available for new players.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Competitive Pokémon has a big hacking controversy
While not every Pokémon player is embedded in the competitive scene, ranked Pokémon play is still a pillar of the RPGs millions of people play every year. However, at this year’s Pokémon World Championship tournament in Yokohama, several players were banned from competing after it was discovered they were using hacked teams that weren’t approved for competitive use at an official tournament. However, some competitors told Kotaku The Pokémon Company’s rulings on this matter have been inconsistent, which made their bans at the headlining event of the year all the more devastating. In the fallout, new data seems to reveal this kind of homebrewing of competitively viable teams is rampant within the community.
The debate about using tools like PKHeX, which allows you to create teams without finding, catching, and training the Pokémon in a game, is a complicated one. Going this route doesn’t necessarily give you a competitive edge but can be viewed as not within the spirit of the franchise. Competitive players argue that using a tool like this is just a matter of saving time, allowing users to craft a team without having to do so within the boundaries of games like Scarlet and Violet. Training Pokémon to their most powerful potential isn’t an easy feat and can take large swaths of your time, even if you have endgame resources. But the argument that you should have to train like a real Pokémon trainer to “earn” your spot in the competitive space harkens to arguments made in the games and anime themselves.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
The machine must be stopped. Or at least made better
We at Kotaku launched Exp. Share, our Pokémon column, in 2023 to talk about all the wild, wonderful, weird, and woeful parts of this franchise. One of the most telling things I’ve learned in my years of covering Pokémon, especially for this column, has been that even as the series frustrates and confounds its legions of fans, those people will still show up to throw their money at it, despite their annoyance.
Issues like the supply problems that let scalpers run rampant, Pokémon Go pushing out the same community that kept it afloat, and Scarlet and Violet selling 23 million copies despite being an absolute trainwreck on a technical level only happen when The Pokémon Company is given little incentive to fix these problems. When I interviewed collectors for the Van Gogh reseller story, Grace Klich, who owns one of the Pikachu-inspired Volkswagen Beetles known as Pikabugs, pointed out that The Pokémon Company has watched systemic issues sprout up in its community over the years, but hasn’t done much to address them. Sure, the company apologized this time, but it’s not making more of what people are asking for. They made their projected profits; what does it matter if people are upset by the same supply problems they’ve always been?
This extends to pretty much every pillar of Pokémon’s business. The merch can sell out before fans can buy it because a scalper’s money clears just as easily for The Pokémon Company as that of a dedicated fan who wanted a Pikachu plush for their shelf. Pokémon COO Takato Utsunomiya said this year that the company’s annual releases may not be sustainable, as it’s affecting the quality of games like Scarlet and Violet, which are largely defined by big ideas and squandered potential. But if they sell 23 million copies despite being raked through the coals for their poor technical performance, is anything actually going to change? If The Pokémon Company knows it can count on people to show up, no matter how poor or frustrating its offerings are, can the machine ever be stopped?
Last year, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet showed that Pokémon is growing beyond simply banking on nostalgia. But 2023 showed that all of that growth can be squandered as it inevitably gets funneled back into the bottom line. The machine is pumping out Pokémon games, cards, merchandise, and collaborations at a rate only rivaled by the late ‘90s Pokémania era. And yet, with every botched launch and misguided decision, with the ongoing lack of real change, the facade of this most hopeful franchise gets increasingly exposed for the money-making machine it is underneath.
