#art-market

#art-market

Gustav Klimt's Waldabhang in Unterach am Attersee, which is believed to be the last surviving landscape the artist painted, realized $70.8 million (inclusive of fees) at Sotheby's Tuesday night, just meeting expectations in excess of $70 million. The work, which hammered at $61 million, was the third painting by Kilmt sold by Sotheby's; all three came from the holdings of late mega-collector Leonard A. Lauder.

Though last night's 20th Century Evening Sale at Christie's, the first of New York City's fall marquee week, was by all accounts a successful auction, there were not many surprises. It was not exactly shocking that the night's top lot, a desirable flame-colored Rothko from the Weis Collection, went for $62 million. Few eyebrows were raised when Matisse's "Figure et bouquet (Tete ocre)," already requested by MoMA for a show next year, climbed from $10 million to $13 million in seconds, eventually fetching three times that.

The International Fine Print Dealers Association will rebrand to become the International Fine Prints and Drawings Association (IFPDA) following a vote to expand membership to dealers working with drawings. The next IFPDA Print Fair (9 April 2026-12 April 2026) at the Park Avenue Armory in New York will reflect the shift. "This is an historic moment for the IFPDA," David Tunick, the president of the organisation's board, said in a statement. "In welcoming drawing dealers, we're honouring the shared lineage and scholarly connection between prints and drawings. It's an expansion that both strengthens our community and aligns with how museums and collectors engage with works on paper today."

A spokesperson for HM Revenue & Customs confirmed to The Art Newspaper that it had launched the investigation that led to the prosecution, believed to be the first under the law banning the supply of luxury goods to Russia.

Court documents show that Hauser & Wirth allegedly sold Popov the artwork between April 2022 and December 2022. The UK government made it illegal to provide luxury goods, including jewelry, art, cars, and antiques valued over £250 ($330), to Russia in March 2022, when it announced a ban on exports of high-end goods. The European Union also implemented a ban on luxury goods exports as part of its sanctions against Russia in the same month. These moves were the result of Russia invading Ukraine.

"One thing that I realized while writing is that heists are actually easier to execute than we see in movies and on TV shows," Piazza tells Bustle. "So I might have been the least surprised person on the planet about the Louvre heist. In fact, I felt so validated in how I executed it on the page. I also think my version is a little sexier."

Beyond Frieze, of course, is a vast parallel art world, with thousands of unrepresented artists and curators keen to realise their big ideas. Hypha Studios has for some years been finding vacant property in cities around the UK to provide free exhibition and studio space to artists, curators and other creatives. This week it launched Hypha Curates, an online sales platform. Ben talks to the non-executive director of Hypha Studios, Will Jennings.

This is the market laid bare, with all of its champagne, ludicrous outfits and obscene excess on brazen display for anyone willing to fork out a wodge on a ticket. That's what reviews of Frieze generally complain about, all the greedy capitalistic knives being stabbed into the heart of their beloved, pure art. But Frieze, and the more refined Frieze Masters, isn't really about art.

The classic picture of the mature magnate bidding for a Rothko at a London auction room is giving way to that of young individuals in their early thirties who invest from their mobile phones, share online stories of their favorite art stands from the Frieze Seoul fair, and buy and sell digital art with the joy of someone who accepts that everything in this life is transitory, so that leaving a legacy is not a priority.

Without the vast overheads of auction houses and galleries, the leaner, nimbler, more discreet advisory model chimes with a cautious market. "Many of us advisors have thought, what about a Super Advisory firm: taking five specialists from different departments in the auction houses and putting them to work without the overheads," says Josh Baer, author of the Baer Faxt trade newsletter and himself an art adviser.

The war in Ukraine feels much closer to us here than further west,

Adventures with Van Gogh has just marked its 300th post since the weekly blog was launched in 2018. For the 200th, in February 2023, we ran a compilation of what had then been the ten most popular posts. This week, starting with the most popular, we look back at the posts which have attracted most readers since then. Some of the topics were predictable, others came as quite a surprise. All have recently been updated with new information for this latest compilation.

Amid the recent string of large and mid-sized gallery closures, could smaller, emerging galleries step into the power vacuum? "I 100% think they are the future," says Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, a New York-based dealer who has previously worked at galleries including Lehmann Maupin, Canada and Pace. "This whole idea of differentiating and categorising galleries-megas, mid-tier, small-is naturally disintegrating." This spring, Ine-Kimba Boyle launched Gladwell Projects, a nomadic gallery with a staff of one.

Breaking into the New York art scene requires what is euphemistically called 'context,' which includes credentials like an MFA from Yale or similar degrees.

After a visitor consumed a banana worth millions of dollars at a French museum, artist Maurizio Cattelan expressed disappointment that they did not eat the skin and tape.

Judging by recent auction records that have been set by numerous artists from the Arab world and conversations with curators of major collections across the globe, it seems that demand for Arab art has expanded beyond the region into Western and Eastern collections.

The anticipated 'Trump bump' has ultimately given way to a 'Trump slump',” says Christine Bourron, the chief executive of Pi-eX. “Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcement introduced significant geopolitical uncertainty, casting a shadow over the global economy and unsettling buyer confidence in the art market.

"Now is the time to unite-dealers, curators, scholars, collectors-to defend the art trade as a guardian of global heritage," Mestdagh said in a press release.

Ojiri's refusal to disclose high-value art sales raises significant concerns about compliance in the art market, especially regarding transactions with suspected terrorists.