Steib, who will take on the role of chief executive at the media company Tegna, will remain in an advisory role with Artsy through July and a board member following his departure. 

Since joining the company in 2019, Yin has overseen Artsy’s strategy and operations, as well as investments in the company and investor relations. Yin also oversaw the expansion of Artsy’s e-commerce transaction capabilities, which now include 37 countries and three currencies, the dollar, the British pound, and the euro.

In an email interview with ARTnews, Yin said that he doesn’t foresee any abrupt shifts in Artsy’s business strategy. Rather, his focus will be enhancing current efforts and “supporting our gallery partners, building out our secondary market business, and expanding the reach of artists globally.”

“My approach will bring a renewed focus on a few specific areas,” Yin said. “I have been involved with the business for five years, ensuring a deep understanding of our strategy and operations.”

Yin cited his passion for collecting works by emerging LGBTQ+, AAPI, Californian, French, and Italian artists as being influential to the company’s future path under his leadership. “My personal connection to these communities and regions … drives my commitment to diversity and representation within the art world. This perspective will shape our strategies and initiatives moving forward.”

He moves in to his new role at a time of cautious optimism in the art market, which over the last two years have shown collectors to be more thoughtful about their spending.

“The art market has proven uneven for many over the last year,” Yin said. “However, collectors continue to buy on Artsy and offline, and I am cautiously optimistic about the resilience of the art market because the joy people feel when collecting and appreciating art hasn’t diminished.”

According to the 2024 Global Art Market Report by Art Basel and UBS, online collecting, which began in earnest following the Covid-19 pandemic and was thought by some to be in decline after restrictions eased, has grown significantly in the last years. Per that report, online sales accounted for $11.8 billion last year alone, a 7 percent rise from 2022’s figure.

The store, which marks the brand’s first push into the retail/lifestyle sector, will feature exclusive and special edition collectibles, clothing, design pieces, and published works curated by Sarah Andelman, founder of the Parisian concept store Colette. The store will be open to both visitors to the fair and the general public starting on June 11; the fair begins its VIP previews on June 10.

Andelman has built a reputation for her novel approach to retail and her recent collaborations with the French luxury perfume house Diptyque and another LVMH-owned brand, the French department store Le Bon Marche.

In a press release Art Basel’s chief growth officer Hayler Romer said that the brand’s audience “has a strong desire for products that bottle and preserve the unique experience of being at Art Basel long after the show closes” and noted that the Art Basel Store “is fully aligned” with the brand’s vision to engage its audience and “deliver more value to galleries, artists, and cultural partners.”

The store could be seen as the first step in broadening Art Basel’s appeal across the art and luxury sectors and a clever move from Romer, who joined Art Basel in last September. Romer came to the fair company after serving as publisher and chief revenue officer of Atlantic Media, where she was initially hired as the head of luxury advertising; she had previously worked at Forbes Media as head of luxury advertising and media giant Condé Nast as executive director of corporate sales.

Among the items available at the shop will be range of memorabilia and apparel under the brand name AB by Art Basel, a string of products in collaboration with artists from Christine Sun Kim, a wooden replica of the Jean-Michel Basquiat Ferris Wheel at the Luna Luna theme park, and solo, diptych, or triptych skateboard decks decorated with designs by Cindy Sherman.

“The journey of our project has been fraught with challenges, and we must announce its conclusion,” the letter read, before stating that the project “faced misunderstandings and baseless accusations of fraudulent activities” that hindered its progress. 

“Despite our relentless efforts to address these concerns and uphold our integrity, the pervasive criticism and bias from certain corners of the industry proved insurmountable,” the email continued.

In March 2023, Art Basel sent a cease-and-desist letter to Digital Basel and accused the company of copyright infringement. At the time, the Digital Basel web site described itself as “a new platform for curated digital art distribution with the opportunity to showcase artists and their work in a digital dimension” and implied a connection with Art Basel by pronouncing that “Art Basel goes digital” and that “The bigest [sic] art fair now has a digital twin – Digital Basel.”

The website claimed to sell NFT versions of paintings  from galleries that often participate in Art Basel fairs including JTT, Blum & Poe, David Zwirner Gallery and Kasmin. Under a page devoted to each “participating” gallery was a list of NFT versions of physical paintings. Often times, the images were of works of art that were not for sale or listed on the corresponding gallery’s website. In one case, an NFT of David Zwirner artist Kerry James Marshall’s When Frustration Threatens Desire (1990) was available for 4,989 ETH, or $8,720. There was no such NFT for sale by the gallery and the physical work was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from April Sheldon and John Casado. 

A spokesperson for Zwirner at the time told ARTnews, “It is important to us to protect both the gallery’s reputation and the intellectual property rights of the artists we represent. We want to make it clear that neither we nor any of our artists have given permission to digitalbasel.io to use our name or their artwork. We will be issuing a cease-and-desist letter to digitalbasel.io.” 

According to the website, galleries paid $199 to have their art posted to the site, though multiple galleries denied having a connection with Digital Basel. The end of the Digital Basel user agreement read—in difficult to read grey text—that the company “is not affiliated with Art Basel in any form or partnership. All galleries, artworks and prices presented on the website are for advisory purposes only.” The user agreement also said that Digital Basel was “not liable for any direct, indirect, or consequential damages, claims, loss or liabilities in connection with the use or inability to use the Digital Basel platform.”

In April 2023, a spokesperson from Digital Basel told ARTnews that the website had not officially launched and that the platform was designed “as a project that would help connect new collectors and top-tier galleries around the world” adding that “we have never intended to be selling anything—on the contrary, we wanted to connect galleries to the new collectors.”

“We envisioned our platform as a comprehensive, virtual meta-gallery where users can discover contemporary artists, galleries, and notable artworks. Digital Basel aims to not only showcase art but also provide a sense of ownership. To achieve this, we incorporated a ‘call to action,’ allowing visitors to request artwork quotes from galleries,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Digital Basel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With wide-reaching partners from Dior, Adidas, and Stella McCartney to the UN and the World Bank, Parley for the Oceans has an ambitious remit to end the world’s dependence on plastic, and its latest collaboration, with the mega art fair company Art Basel, is just the latest in these no-small plans. 

Launched at Art Basel Miami Beach in December, the organization bills its new “Art for the Oceans” collaboration as a “global fundraising initiative to protect oceans, climate, and life against plastic pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss,” and it will play a role at Art Basel Hong Kong this week.

Parley, as it is often called for short, entering the art world might seem like it’s come out of the blue, but since its launch in 2012, the organization has worked with over 30 artists, including the likes of Julian Schnabel, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer, Katharina Grosse, and Doug Aitken. It would seem, then, that its joining forces with the world’s most important art fair would be the logical next step. What’s more, Gutsch, who closed his design firm to create Parley, said the idea for the organization began at Art Basel in Switzerland, when he learned about the work of environmental activist Captain Paul Watson. Their meeting directly spurred “the epiphany that led me to dedicate my whole life to the oceans,” Gutsch has said.

At the Hong Kong fair, Parley will sell its limited-edition, artist-designed tote bags, made from plastic recuperated from nature. A single bag funds the removal of 20 pounds of plastic waste. They will also offer one-hour guided tours of the fair, highlighting artworks that share a connection to the environment and artists who have previously collaborated with Parley. (Tours cost $388HKD, around $49 USD, with proceeds going to the environmental cause.)

In an email, Art Basel Hong Kong director Angelle Siyang-Li told ARTnews that this collaboration with Parley is a way for the fair to develop both immediate and long-terms plans on how to reduce its carbon footprint. “Sustainability is a pressing issue for art fairs and the entire art world,” she said. “Art Basel is strongly committed to reducing its environmental impact as well as using its platform to encourage wider change across the art world.”

In Miami, Parley also featured artist-designed surfboards, which they chose not to ship to Hong Kong to limit carbon emissions, though they can be sent to any interested takers. For that launch, Schnabel, who has been an early Parley collaborator, exhibited three of his works as part of their partnership with Art Basel, and said at the time he had participated as a way to support “Parley’s work to change the destiny of our planet. Protecting the oceans goes far beyond protecting marine wildlife. Protecting the oceans means protecting humanity.”

Meanwhile, beyond its recent journey into art fairs, Parley also commissions artworks, both limited prints and larger installations, as a way to help fund its advocacy programs, including environmental education, plastic cleanups, recycling, and research into plastic-alternative materials, like the recuperated marine plastic that its bags are made from. Future plans include large, site-specific installations at the Art Basel fairs and beyond, as well as other programs like creating an artist residency.

But more than raising funds, Gutsch said he sees these first few art fairs as “introductions” into the larger art world, to spur both awareness and future collaborations. Beyond these art-related ventures, Parley also generates income from its commercial collaborations with brands like Adidas and Dior, as well as via direct donations and grants. However, Gutsch declined to answer questions about how much was raised at its Miami fundraiser in December, or about Parley’s budget, a nonprofit with 200 “core” employees. “We need a lot, into the 10’s of millions of dollars,” Gutsch said.

Parley relies on thousands of collaborations with other groups to work toward an “end to the plastic crisis,” which involves plans for building recycling and sorting hubs in three countries where the group has concentrated efforts: the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and the Dominican Republic. Once that goal is achieved there, Parley hopes to duplicate their “end-to-end solution” to plastic, built on a strategy that entails: Avoiding plastics/emissions, Intercepting plastic waste and pollutants, and Redesigning materials, methods, and mindset, or AIR. “It works. We’re very efficient… we just need to grow it now,” Gutsch said. The group’s 2023 report counted some 1 million participants in their education programs and cleanups in 57 countries, over 574,000 volunteers in global programs, and over 8.1 million kilograms of debris removed from nature and coastal areas.

“Parley,” in pirate lore, is a French word for a “conference or discussion, especially between opposing sides.” That notion seems to resonate in today’s divisive times, especially when it comes to the immediacy of climate change. Gutsch sees it as a way to describe the group’s method and challenge ahead, to parley—or talk—to art world elites, who aren’t exactly reputed for leading environmentally friendly lifestyles.

“The ecological footprint of the top end of the art market remains incredibly high, because of the almost incessant air travel,” Olav Velthuis, a sociologist focusing on the art market at the University of Amsterdam, told ARTnews in an email. Art fairs, too, are relatively high-polluting events, because they are often held in temporary venues, require shipping artwork, and attract jet-setting collectors who fly private—the bread and butter of major fairs.

The 2023 Art Basel and UBS survey of global collecting noted that while 57 percent of high net-worth collectors surveyed were willing to pay premiums for more sustainable purchases, 77 percent said they planned to travel to more fairs or overseas events than the previous year. “Although most collectors were aware of and concerned over the sustainability of the market, this has not fully filtered down to their actions or resulted in any significant reduction in their plans to travel,” the report concludes.

This lack of reduction in private air travel has already sparked protests, including one staged by the UK-founded environmental group Extinction Rebellion on March 9 that involved blocking the roads to Maastricht’s airport during TEFAF. “This segment of the art market is simply not sustainable,” Velthuis said, recommending a radical shift to a more local model. “Members of the art world, including Art Basel, urgently need to discuss on a more fundamental level how the contemporary art world and art market are organized. So far, I don’t see much willingness to engage in that discussion.”

For Gutsch, that is where Parley comes in. Asked if he sees any contradictions in working with a high-polluting milieu, Gutsch had a ready response. Far from the organization being “pure” itself (“we are no saints” and “we are all natural-born hypocrites at this point,” he said), Parley has already collaborated with major corporations and countries with particularly high carbon emissions. Eventually, he says the “ultimate potential” of the Art Basel collaboration, is to “drastically improve” the fair’s footprint.

“Our approach is to be in the room to collaborate,” he said. “Because if I would shy away from polluters or from events that are polluting, I would also have to shy away from governments that are polluting. … I’m actually doing the total opposite.”

He continued, “I am an innovator. We, as an organization, are change-makers. We go to the battlegrounds, where the most damage is being done, and in that sense, you can call Art Basel a battleground.”

While art fairs might be a key battleground when it comes to climate activism, Gutsch said Art Basel has already shown “courage” by choosing to collaborate with Parley, and his goal with this collaboration is to address the full-scope of the polluting, high-net-worth lifestyle that convenes around week-long art events like these, by converting collectors, both to reduce their emissions in their personal lifestyles, as well as in their wider social and professional circles.

“Somebody who can afford to buy an Andy Warhol, or a Basquiat, or a [Julian] Schnabel, usually has a lot of influence, so they can call up their leadership team, and say: ‘Let’s get out of plastic, let’s get out of fossil fuel,’” Gutsch explained. “We want to increase that group of high-net worth individuals that are exposed to us, because I don’t blame and shame anyone. I want to change them. I love sinners!”

Like many art fairs, Art Basel has begun to take steps toward greater sustainability in recent years, and Siyang-Li, ABHK’s director, said the event is “strongly committed to reducing its environmental impact.” One example is its active membership in the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), which requires certain commitments from participants, including developing a “Decarbonisation Action Plan,” a regularly updated, step-by-step carbon reduction strategy that includes setting a “near-zero waste target,” measuring emissions, and auditing waste, while guiding against “bad habits and social convention.”

Siyang-Li added, “We understand the immense value of collective effort. That’s why our collaboration with Parley for the Oceans and also with the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) are central to our strategy. Together, we aim to harness the collective expertise and commitment of the art world to drive meaningful change.”

The Decarbonisation Action Plan is part of the GCC-member goal of reaching a 50-percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030, which “is entirely possible” to do, a spokesperson for the group told ARTnews. The GCC has also witnessed positive change in the arts sector over the last four years, sighting over 1,150 new members, and “rapid progress in climate consciousness,” as well as a “readiness of many to begin to take action on the issues,” according to the spokesperson. The question remains whether that progress will be fast enough.

A key ingredient to these efforts are the artists, whom Gutsch said have a special “convening power.” He asked, “How do you make something like protecting the oceans, and our future, relevant to people that are otherwise so busy? I think the artist has the unique role in society to burst open these bubbles where everybody tends to hide.” Art can empower its viewers to feel a “readiness, an openness, which is something that we need, to create empathy for our cause,” he said. “Empathy is really what this is all about.” 

THE HEADLINES

UNDER CONSIDERATION. Citing a reported spike in antisemitism, legislators introduced a bill in Congress on March 20 aimed at establishing a Smithsonian Museum of American Jewish history. The legislation would set up a commission to examine whether the existing Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, which faced bankruptcy four years ago, could become part of the Smithsonian Institution, providing it with greater financial security. If the Weitzman Museum becomes a full part of the government trust, it would be given a “figurative place” on the museum-lined National Mall in Washington, D.C., reports the JTA. Yet the proposal has already drawn scrutiny, and Hyperallergic notes the bill is sponsored by “vocally pro-Israel Democratic legislators.”

ARREST IN SIKKEMA MURDER. The ex-husband of Brent Sikkema, an esteemed art dealer who was murdered in Brazil in January, was arrested in New York on Wednesday, reports ARTnews’ Senior Editor Alex Greenberger. Daniel Sikkema has been the subject of much speculation in Brazil, where authorities have claimed that he may be connected to his former spouse’s killing, and investigators have been vocal about wanting to arrest him. Alejandro Triana Prevez, a 30-year-old Cuban man, confessed to Sikkema’s murder, but his lawyer said he was groomed and eventually manipulated to do so by Daniel Sikkema.

THE DIGEST

Another Damien Hirst formaldehyde sculpture of a preserved shark, dated to the 1990’s and sold for $8 million, was in fact made in 2017. That makes a total of four known backdated sculptures by Hirst’s workshop, according to The Guardian. The piece titled “The Unknown (Explored, Explained, Exploded),” dated to 1999, features a 13-foot-long tiger shark dissected into three parts, and is the centerpiece of a luxury bar in a Las Vegas resort. [The Guardian]

Hauser & Wirth will inaugurate their 18th exhibition space in Basel on June 1, with a first show featuring 18 paintings by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, made between 1883 and 1914. Titled “Silence” and curated by Felix Krämer, the Vermeer-influenced artist is known for his interiors that capture a poetic stillness. [ARTnews]

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is selling its downtown exhibition space two years after opening a $110-million expansion project. The closure of the space raises questions about several artworks commissioned for the site, as well as its binational mandate aimed at audiences in the San Diego-Tijuana border area. [The Los Angeles Times]

A London judge has ruled that a disputed painting by Anthony Van Dyck, belongs to the bankrupt British socialite, James Stunt. Stunt had tried to claim ownership belonged to his father, Geoffrey Stunt, which would have prevented the piece from being included in the son’s bankruptcy estate. [The Guardian]

French culture minister Rachida Dati wants to reform France’s recently initiated “Culture Pass” program, an app that gives youth credits to spend on cultural activities. Dati argues the pass fails at its intented mission of diversifying audiences and attracting socio-economic groups to certain performances and exhibitions considered high-art. [Le Monde]

The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris is under fire after reports that it pulped early editions of a book about women artists at the school, because of a controversial chapter addressing the #MeToo movement, and the school’s handling of past sexual harassment claims. [ARTnews]

Large outdoor artworks are going on view around Hong Kong in time for the Art Basel fair this month. They include giant neon ovoids scattered into the sea, by teamLAB, at Victoria Harbor. [The New York Times]

THE KICKER

STING OF SATIRE. Europe’s outdoor festivals with their parades of giant, moving sculptures offer a fascinating look at how small communities have historically used art and satire to speak up against powerful authorities. Euronews writer Roberto Ferrer takes readers on a tour of such festivals, categorized as UNESCO Intangible Heritage of Humanity, beginning with this week’s Fallas festival, and the Nit de la Cremà celebration in the València region of Spain. There is also the medieval Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea, Italy, which is part of the town’s carnival, in which participants do what one might expect: throw oranges at each other. The story behind it is about a local revolt against an unjust ruler, sparked by a heroine named Violetta, who refused to sleep with him. The list, and the stories, goes on…

Economist Clare McAndrew, who authored the report, attributed the decline to various factors, including high interest rates, inflationary pressures, and geopolitical instability, all of which contributed to a slowdown in sales, particularly at the top end of the market (artworks that sell for $10 million or more).

“It was inevitable that things would slow down a little bit considering how remarkable the post-Covid bounce back was,” McAndrew told ARTnews. “But you don’t need a lot of those $50 million–$100 million plus sales to make a big difference. They do put a big dent in it both ways. Luckily, this isn’t a dramatic contraction of the sort we saw in 2014 or 2009. This is a much more normal, more natural dip that reflects the context of the time.” 

Apart from fewer sales in eight and nine figure last year McAndrew said the rising costs of doing business posed a significant challenge in 2023. The increasingly high interest rates that affected collectors’ purchasing power at the top level also caused dealers to shift focus from sales to profitability and from expansion to sustainability.

Examining regional dynamics, the report found that the United States held on to its position as the leading global art market, accounting for 42 percent of sales by value, though it experienced a 3 percent decline year-on-year. Unsurprisingly, China surpassed the UK to become the world’s second-largest market, with a 19-percent share. Sales in China increased by 9 percent to an estimated $12.2 billion, bolsters by relaxed Covid-19 restrictions in the country, a bourgeoning auction scene flush with inventory from postponed sales, and the launch of several new art fairs across Asia.

Meanwhile, the UK fell to third place with a 17-percent share of the market with sales having decreased by 8 percent to $10.9 billion in 2023. According to the report, the country’s declining global position is likely due to the sharp decline in high-value evening sales, which have historically been reserved for auctions in London and New York, as well as France’s 7-percent share of global sales, ranking it at fourth place.

The US art market, which reached a historical peak of $30.2 billion in 2022, witnessed a 10 percent decline to $27.2 billion in 2023. Despite this contraction, the US remained a key center for high-value sales, but they came in slightly below pre-pandemic levels in 2019. 

“Although down year-on-year, core collecting audiences remained actively engaged with the art market in 2023 and helped support prices on balance – albeit through a more value-driven and quality-conscious lens,” Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s chief executive, said in a press release.

That focus on quality was clear in one of last year’s most watched sales at auction: Agnes Martin’s Grey Stone II (1961). The sale, which took place during Sotheby’s Emily Fisher Landau sale in New York in November, made clear that, while collectors were holding their wallets tighter than they had been in preceding years, the right work could still fetch an astounding price. Unsurprisingly, public auction sales declined by seven percent to $25.1 billion, with a substantial decrease in high-value lots, offset by growth in middle- and lower-priced works.

“Overall,” Horowitz said, “the reversal of trend at the high end of the market after years of compounded acceleration was one of the defining features of the art business last year, as it also creates an opening in the market for exciting new trends and narratives to emerge.”

The report revealed a slowdown in dealer sales by 3 percent to $36.1 billion last year, but, like the auction market, there was a reversal of roles. Smaller dealers (defined as having an annual revenue of less than $500,000 per year) experienced an 11-percent increase in average sales, while larger dealers ($10 million or more in revenue per year) saw a decline by seven percent, a sign that reflects a change in collector behavior. 

Art fairs accounted for 29 percent of dealer revenues, down six percent from 2022 but 27 percent higher than the Covid-era low of 2021. Larger dealers, the report says, are optimistic about 2024 with 50 percent expecting their sales at art fairs to increase, while across the financial spectrum only 39 percent of art dealers believe sales at fairs will increase. 

Online sales experienced a seven percent increase to $11.8 billion, underscoring the growing importance of digital platforms in facilitating art transactions. Though the online art sales are technically down from a $13.3 billion high in 2021, they are still nearly double that of 2019 or any of the preceding years, and this year were especially driven by dealer-owned channels and websites, the report said. Despite the decline in sales of art-related non-fungible tokens (NFTs) outside the art market, the report noted continued interest in NFTs, with sales remaining significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. 

Looking ahead to 2024, the report says dealers on the whole expressed cautious optimism, with 36 percent anticipating increasing sales and only 16 percent foreseeing decline. Still, many dealers said the future looks rocky, with political and economic uncertainty looming over the market and the cost maintaining relationships with clients and participating in art fairs among the biggest concerns.

This year also marks the first time Art Basel will be fully under the direction of Maike Cruse, one of the first hires Noah Horowitz made after taking his place as the fair’s chief executive in 2022. Horowitz, one time director of Art Basel’s Miami Beach edition, was named CEO after Marc Spiegler, the fair’s global director, stepped down in 2022.

This year’s Parcours section, which uses the city of Basel itself as a canvas and exhibition space, will be organized by the director of New York’s Swiss Institute, Stefanie Hessler. According to a press release Parcours will expand throughout storefronts on Basel’s Clarastrasse and into the Hotel Merian, which will serve as a “continuous, around-the-clock venue for artistic events and showcases.”

Of the 287 galleries, 245 will make up the main section of the fair. Seven of these galleries previously contributed to the Feature or Statements sections including Commonwealth and Council, Galerie Crèvecœur, Gaga, and Tina Kim Gallery.

The Features section this year will focus solely on art-historical presentations, including a “condensed” retrospective of the artist Jean Tinguely by first time contributor Basel’s own Galerie Mueller, and a presentation of the partnership between Maryn Varbanov and Song Huai-Kuei (aka Madame Song), presented by the Shanghai-based gallery, Bank. 

This year’s Statements section will feature 18 solo presentations including Safe to Visit (2024) by Angolan artist Sandra Poulson by the Luandan gallery Jahmek Contemporary Art, a multi-part installation by Argentinian artist La Chola Poblete presented by the Buenos Aires-based gallery Barro, and the Vienna-based gallery Felix Gaudlitz’s video installation by Hong Kong artist and filmmaker Tiffany Sia.

The 25^th annual Baloise Art Prize, worth CHF 30,000 (about $34,000) will be presented to up to two artists with work in the Statements section. The Baloise Group, a Swiss insurance holdings company, will also by the winning artists to donate European museums, which in turn will give the artist a solo exhibition.

Additional events will be held throughout the city, including the Fondation Beyeler, Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunsthaus Baselland, Museum Tinguely, and Vitra Schaudepot.

The fair’s preview days are June 11-12. Public admission days are June 13-16.

The full exhibitor list follows below.

Main Sector

303 Gallery
47 Canal
A Gentil Carioca
Miguel Abreu Gallery
Acquavella Galleries
Air de Paris
Antenna Space
Applicat-Prazan
The Approach
Art : Concept
Alfonso Artiaco
Balice Hertling
von Bartha
galería elba benítez
Bernier/Eliades
blank projects
Daniel Blau
Blum
Marianne Boesky Gallery
Tanya Bonakdar
Gallery Bortolami
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi BQ
The Breeder
Ben Brown Fine Arts
Galerie Buchholz Buchmann
Galerie Cabinet
Emanuela Campoli
Canada
Galerie Gisela Capitain
Cardi Gallery
carlier gebauer
Carlos/Ishikawa
Casas Riegner
Galeria Pedro Cera
Chemould Prescott Road
ChertLüdde
Mehdi Chouakri
Clearing
James Cohan Gallery
Sadie Coles HQ
Commonwealth and Council
Contemporary Fine Arts
Galleria Continua
Paula Cooper Gallery
Pilar Corrias
Galleria Raffaella Cortese 
Galerie Crèvecœur 
Galerie Chantal Crousel
Croy Nielsen
Thomas Dane Gallery
MassimoDeCarlo
Jeffrey Deitch
dépendance
Di Donna
Ecart
Galerie Eigen + Art
galerie frank elbaz
Empty Gallery
Essex Street/Maxwell Graham
Experimenter
Konrad Fischer Galerie
Foksal Gallery
Foundation Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel
Fraenkel Gallery
Peter Freeman, Inc.
Stephen Friedman Gallery
Frith Street Gallery
Gaga
Gagosian
Galerie 1900-2000
Galleria dello Scudo
Annet Gelink Gallery
Gladstone Gallery
Gomide&Co
Galería Elvira
González Goodman Gallery
Marian Goodman Gallery
Galerie Bärbel
Grässlin Gray
Alexander Gray Associates
Garth Greenan Gallery
Greene Naftali
greengrassi
Galerie Karsten Greve
Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art
Galerie Michael Haas
Hamiltons
Hauser & Wirth
Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert
Herald St
Galerie Max Hetzler
Hollybush Gardens
Edwynn Houk Gallery
Xavier Hufkens Gallery
Hyundai
A arte Invernizzi
Taka Ishii Gallery
Bernard Jacobson Gallery
Alison Jacques
Galerie Martin Janda
Catriona Jeffries
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
Annely Juda Fine Art
Kadel Willborn
Casey Kaplan
Jan Kaps
Karma
Karma International
kaufmann repetto
Sean Kelly
Tina Keng Gallery
Kerlin Gallery
Anton Kern Gallery
Kewenig
Kiang Malingue
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Tina Kim Gallery
David Kordansky
Gallery KOW
Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler
Andrew Kreps Gallery
Galerie Krinzinger
Nicolas Krupp
Kukje Gallery
kurimanzutto
Labor
Galerie Lahumière
Landau Fine Art
Layr
Lehmann Maupin
Tanya Leighton
Galerie Lelong & Co.
Lévy Gorvy Dayan
Galerie Gisèle Linder
Lisson Gallery
Luhring Augustine
Luxembourg + Co.
Kate MacGarry
MadeIn Gallery
Magazzino
Mai 36 Galerie
Gió Marconi
Matthew Marks Gallery
Galerie Max Mayer
The Mayor Gallery
Mayoral
Mazzoleni
Fergus McCaffrey
Galerie Greta Meert
Anthony Meier
Galerie Urs Meile
Mendes Wood DM
Mennour
Meyer Riegger
Galleria Massimo Minini
Victoria Miro
Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Mnuchin Gallery
Modern Art
The Modern Institute
mor charpentier
Jan Mot
mother’s tankstation limited
Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie
Schwarzwälder
Galerie Nagel Draxler
Richard Nagy Ltd.
Edward Tyler Nahem
Helly Nahmad Gallery
Galerie Neu
neugerriemschneider
Galleria Franco Noero
David Nolan Gallery
Galerie Nordenhake
Galerie Nathalie Obadia
OMR
Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Roma
P.P.O.W
Pace Gallery
Maureen Paley
Peres Projects
Perrotin
Petzel
Galerie Francesca Pia Galeria Plan B
Gregor Podnar
Galerie Eva Presenhuber ProjecteSD
Galeria Dawid Radziszewski
Almine Rech
Reena Spaulings Fine Art
Regen Projects
Rodeo
Thaddaeus Ropac
Lia Rumma
Deborah Schamoni Esther Schipper
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle
Galerie Thomas Schulte
Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Jack Shainman Gallery
ShanghART Gallery
Sies + Höke
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Skarstedt
Skopia / P.-H. Jaccaud Société
Galerie Pietro Spartà
Sperone Westwater
Sprovieri
Sprüth Magers
Nils Stærk
Galerie Gregor
Staiger Stampa
Standard (Oslo)
Galleria Christian Stein
Stevenson
Galeria Luisa Strina
Take Ninagawa
Galerie Bene Taschen
Templon
Galerie Thomas
Galerie Barbara Thumm
Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
Tornabuoni Art
Travesía Cuatro
Galerie Tschudi
Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte
Contemporanea
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie
Vallois
Van de Weghe
Vedovi Gallery
Vielmetter Los Angeles
Vitamin Creative Space
Galleri Nicolai Wallner
Offer Waterman
Galerie Barbara Weiss
Michael Werner Gallery
White Cube Barbara Wien
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Yares Art
Galerie Thomas Zander
ZERO…
David Zwirner

EDITION

Borch Editions
Cristea Roberts Gallery Gemini G.E.L.
knust kunz gallery editions Carolina Nitsch
René Schmitt
Susan Sheehan Gallery STPI

FEATURE

Almeida & Dale Galeria de Arte
Bank
Thomas Brambilla
Larkin Erdmann Gallery
hunt kastner
Galerie Le Minotaure
Martos Gallery
Maruani Mercier
Galerie Mueller
Gallery Wendi Norris
OH Gallery
Parker Gallery
Meredith Rosen Gallery
sans titre
The Third Gallery
Aya Vadehra Art Gallery

STATEMENTS

Barro
Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou
Broadway
Derosia
Bridget Donahue
Felix Gaudlitz
Gypsum Gallery
Jahmek Contemporary Art
Marfa’ Projects
Nome
OSL contemporary
Project Native Informant
Proyectos Ultravioleta
ROH Projects
Galeria Stereo
Union Pacific
White Space
Wooson

In conversations with over half a dozen New York-based galleries ahead of this week’s edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, gallerists, overseeing programs of less than 20 artists, estimated that this year’s sales are down as much as 25 percent from 2022. The downturn has forced them to tighten budgets, pull back resources from artists, and have seen private collectors pull back from making new acquisitions since the spring. This year’s UBS Art Basel Report, published last month, echoed that finding, suggesting quietly that buyers weren’t planning to acquire new work in 2023 at the same rate they had last year.

“We knew that sales were slowing here [in the US],” Sara Maria Salamone, the founder of a Queens-based gallery Mrs., told ARTnews. “We wanted to make sure that we also had our feet in another territory,”

While Mrs. opened in 2017, Salamone is participating in ABMB for the first time this year. She said she first noticed a slowdown in US sales this past spring, prompting her to present at Kiaf Seoul in September in an effort to find new collectors. Meanwhile, this year she received five requests from clients looking to privately resell work they’d purchased from her less than five years prior, after only receiving one such request in 2022.

Five other downtown New York gallerists, who asked to remain anonymous so they could speak about their businesses candidly, told ARTnews that they have seen once-regular collectors’ drawing back their acquisitions over the past year. One dealer, who opened a permanent space in 2016, characterized the drawback as a noticeable “drying up” of funding within the downtown scene. Some expressed uncertainty over whether or when collector-philanthropists might see financially supporting emerging practices as fashionable as they did during the pandemic.

When the world went into pandemic lockdown in March 2020, many gallerists feared how the resulting economic slowdown might impact their businesses. But as that year progressed, the pessimism appeared unfounded. Galleries closed deals at rapid rates, newly wealthy investors entered the gallery scene, and collectors rushed to buy up work by young and emerging artists. As a result, small galleries were able to expand their spaces and add staff. By last year, art sales were at $67 billion, up six percent from the pre-Covid year of 2019.

One dealer, who founded a New York-based gallery focusing on emerging artists in 2017, said that flush profits during the pandemic years had allowed her to expand her program to three spaces. Like Salamone, her business began to shift in April, she said, especially with American collectors: they have continued to privately inquire about artists on her roster, but have pulled back on buying despite advanced internal conversations. The dynamic has burdened her staff and left her program of eleven artists in a precarious position.  “The U.S. has been abysmal compared to some of our other regions,” she said.

A Tribeca-based dealer, who started her gallery in 2013 and represents primarily multimedia artists, echoed others’ observation about a gradual decline in sales since the heady early days of the pandemic, describing it as “a balloon slowly losing its air.”

Three dealers interviewed by ARTnews, who established their galleries between six and eight years ago — two of which are participating in ABMB for the first time this year—said that they are taking a more cautious approach due to the subdued sales environment. During the pandemic, they expanded their operations, one opened a second location, and added staff to support the growing ambitions of their artists, all of which increased their overhead and the pressure on sales. With revenue plateaued, the dealers said they’ve had to make cold calculations about providing funds to their artists for studio support or covering higher production costs for complex exhibitions. The slowdown, they said, is increasingly affecting their artists’ practices.

One told ARTnews that since opening, the gallery had grown its operations every year for the past six years. “This is the first year the gallery hasn’t grown,” they said.

“It’s not an entirely new dynamic,” Renaud Proch, the director of Independent Curators International, told ARTnews, suggesting such pressures are cyclical. “Galleries adapt and artists adapt. But it points to the fragility of the support structure for artists.”

With weaker sales, the benefits of participating in a premier fair appear more elusive for small and mid-size galleries. At this week’s Art Basel Miami Beach fair, individual booths in the prestigious Nova, Positions, and Survey sections cost $11,000, $23,500 and $45,000, respectively, multiple participating galleries told ARTnews. Those figures, they said, amount to roughly half the total cost to execute their presentations. That total, according to two dealers, was still less expensive than participating in NADA Miami, the competing satellite fair that focuses on less-established galleries.

Dealers who spoke with ARTnews noted an imbalance at the fair: participants in Art Basel’s special sections typically feature work that is challenging conceptually and less commercial, making it harder to sell in a fair setting and requiring a heavier lift in educating collectors on the practice behind it. Some dealers went so far as to describe the dynamic with the large fairs as extractive: the fair needs emerging galleries to provide artworks with a critical edge to balance out the painting-heavy aisles and create an experience for its high-end clientele that feels less like retail. But some figures in the trade have said that the cost structure, which is higher for regular booths, makes it difficult to present newer artists with less established markets and disincentivizes some from proposing challenging work to selection committees at all.

“Smaller galleries are the ones on the ground identifying talent. From Basel’s perspective, they need the younger galleries,” Natasha Degen, chair of art market studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told ARTnews of the tension between emerging galleries and the fairs. “They need there to be discoveries.”

That dynamic has been noted by the biggest galleries. In a recent ARTnews interview announcing Hauser & Wirth’s “collective impact” partnership with Nicola Vassell, President Marc Payot described the current haves and have-nots ecosystem. “I came to the realization that the art world is in a state where the few very large successful galleries are becoming more and more successful and larger, and for the rest of the ecosystem, things are very tough,” he said. Meanwhile, in 2018, Art Basel implemented sliding-scale booth pricing to make the payscale between megas and small galleries more equitable; additional changes were introduced in 2021.

Some dealers are less weary of the costs. Nick Lawrence, who runs Freight+Volume in New York, told ARTnews that as a newcomer to ABMB’s Survey sector, he’s re-staging a censored 1990s performance by poet Karen Finley, a proposal that secured him a place at the fair after many years on the waitlist. Lawrence says he’s navigated two decades of “guerilla-financing” during other downturns to keep the gallery going. He estimated the total spend to attend the fair will cost $100,000.

Salamone, of Mrs., said that her decision to not expand last year has now put her in a more advantageous financial position to take risks. “I feel more comfortable bringing an artist that makes challenging work when I don’t have a huge overhead hanging over me,” said Salamone.

For younger gallerists, mostly in their thirties, they spend the first decade in business building their reputation. Participating in a major fair for the first time is part of that maturation: both a mark of approval and an access point to compete for a new clientele of major collectors and curators. Participating in the fair this week then, a few gallerists said, is important for the future of their programs, even if its sometimes difficult to measure how that investment translates into profits or institutional attention for their artists.

Throughout the rest of the year, certain dealers expressed the challenge of reaching what seems like a retracting audience. Some emphasized that gaining exposure for the artists they represent is non-negotiable, especially as their studio practices grow more complex. Isaac Lyles, founder of Lyles & King, who is participating in the fair’s Miami edition for the first time, told ARTnews that he decided to bring works by Aneta Grzeszykowska, 49, and Catalina Ouyang, 30, whose practices span morbid and animalistic themes, because he wanted to create an “institutional level” presentation that ventures into uncomfortable territory. “It warrants a bigger audience in the U.S.,” he said.

After the fair concludes, some dealers expect the challenging landscape to continue. Even more established gallerists told ARTnews that prolonged negotiations and a slower sales environment in New York over the past six months have grown arduous.

“This can’t be sustainable,” Wendy Osloff, the founder of longtime downtown gallery PPOW, told ARTnews of the pandemic-era buying rush. That period, Osloff explained, saw more competition among collectors, creating long-waiting periods for them to privately acquire new work by a single artist. Osloff, who founded PPOW in 1983, sees the current environment as a normal, but painful part of galleries’ lifecycles.

Retaining patrons, she said in a bit of advice to her younger peers, is a difficult long game. “You do not educate people in five days, which is the length of an art fair and you do not educate people in 45 days, which is the length of a show,” she said. “It takes decades.”

When Noah Horowitz rejoined Art Basel a little more than a year ago, there were questions about what exactly the fair’s prodigal son had in store for the business. Horowitz’s newly created title, that of CEO, seemed to provide some indication of Art Basel’s growing corporatization. But that corporate structure had already begun under his predecessor, Marc Spiegler, whose role had been global director.

Several months before Horowitz returned, Spiegler named Vincenzo de Bellis, a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, to the newly created position of director, which gave him oversight of all Art Basel’s fairs and exhibition platforms globally, a role in which he continues today. Then, this year, Horowitz restructured the company further, naming a dedicated director for each fair, all reporting to de Bellis, and a dedicated head of business and management who reports to Andrew Strachan, a 12-year Basel veteran now serving as general manager of fairs and exhibition platforms.

But a more important indicator of the Swiss fair’s future may lie in its announcement in September that it had hired Hayley Romer, former publisher and chief revenue officer of The Atlantic, as chief growth officer, and Craig Hepburn, former head of digital at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), as chief digital officer. Reading corporate tea leaves can often be a fool’s errand, but those very not–Art World hires would appear to augur a new approach, a point not lost on Horowitz.

“When you’re in a leadership role, that role has to change as the business grows,” Horowitz told ARTnews last week. “Of course, I want to make sure that we are working closely with our gallery clients and collectors, both emerging and established, but the day-to-day maintenance of that has been passed to our team. My job as CEO is to put people like Craig and Hayley in place and to make sure our teams, internally, work well with each other.”

Romer has spent her career courting luxury and high-end corporate clients, at Forbes Media as head of luxury advertising, at media giant Condé Nast as executive director of corporate sales, and at Atlantic Media, where she was initially hired as the head of luxury advertising. Two decades’ experience in those roles builds a deep rolodex, not to mention proficiency in building media brands.

Hepburn, meanwhile, worked at Microsoft, Nokia, and Indian telecom company Tata Communications in various high-up roles manning digital marketing and consumer engagement prior to joining UEFA. But it was at UEFA that Hepburn created a “digital-first mindset,” along with building interactive services, a streaming platform, and the company’s nascent Web3 strategy.

Hepburn described his digital philosophy at a 2019 conference hosted by SportsPro, which covers the business of sports. Hepburn lamented that the proliferation of streaming services had made it difficult for consumers to find the sporting events they wanted, even if they subscribed to the service that streamed them. The future, he went on, was for the sector to consolidate so that streaming could become truly “frictionless” in the way that dominant apps like Uber or Airbnb now are.

“These are problems that, quite frankly, consumers and fans will not put up with,” Hepburn said at the 2019 conference. “We need to figure out a way in the industry to make OTT [over-the-top] frictionless to fans, where it feels really smooth. That will be the biggest challenge.”

Horowitz’s appointments have not gone unnoticed among the art dealing community. “I think what you’re seeing under Noah is a kind of next level professionalization of the art fair business,” Sean Kelly, who founded his eponymous New York gallery in 1991, told ARTnews. “He’s brought in art world experts who are well respected in the gallery circuit like Bridget Finn and Maike Cruse, and people like Romer and Hepburn who are bringing a level of professionalism to the business side. It’s very analytical. He’s strategically putting building blocks in place that will benefit the future of the fair.”

What does all that mean for Art Basel? It would appear we’re heading toward a world where Art Basel the brand is as important as Art Basel the fair. It wouldn’t be out of step with the rest of the art world.

After all, the line between fine art and luxury has been all but erased in recent years. Every season of fashion week offers abundant artist collaborations; a slew of startups are developing platforms to turn paintings into other luxury investment vehicles; Hauser & Wirth is hard at work building out a luxury hospitality business; and Gagosian famously flirted with a sale to French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is enjoying a licensing bonanza, producing everything from Édouard Manet–inspired Amish furniture to Dr. Martens boots emblazoned with Hokusai’s Great Wave. And it’s not just businesses, artists too are riding the wave: Kehinde Wiley is selling a limited-edition soccer ball this holiday season, while the Museum of Modern Art Design Store is selling Yayoi Kusama pumpkins.

Then, consider that Art Basel has become one of the largest media platforms in the art space almost by default. Its 2.4 million followers on Instagram may be a far cry from the hundreds of millions following Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, but it’s nearing striking distance of the Met (4.2 million), the Louvre (5 million), and MoMA (5.8 million), which top the list for art. As longtime gallerist Wendy Olsoff put it recently, “Art fairs are big business now.”

“It’s a completely different industry than when I started 40 years ago,” Olsoff told ARTnews (she cofounded PPOW Gallery in 1983). “I think the fairs, and the galleries and the museums are grappling right now with how to adjust to the pressures—financial, sociological, and political—of the new digital era.”

However, if Horowitz has an Art Basel streaming service in the works, he isn’t letting on. When asked if there were designs for a new Art Basel media outlet, Horowitz mentioned that the company already publishes the annual UBS Art Basel Report.

“With the assets we already have, there is so much potential. When you bring on someone as talented as Hayley, it’s all about giving them access to our assets and our clients and seeing what we can accomplish,” he said.

The changes then appear as a strengthening of Art Basel’s underlying structure, setting the foundation for what comes next, whatever that may be. It speaks to Horowitz’s reputation as an astute critical thinker and his too-often-overlooked background: he’s an art historian and an economist.

“A fresh lens is a great way to have somebody reevaluate the same thing, and Noah, who stepped away from Art Basel for a short while to work at Sotheby’s, has that, on top of an intimate knowledge of the fair,” art dealer Anthony Meier told ARTnews, noting the similarities between Horowitz’s restructuring and Larry Gagosian’s formation of a board of directors in 2021. “It’s about the legacy of the brand. The goal is for the brand to outlast any one individual.”

The 2023 edition, which saw the return of numerous international galleries and visitors, boasted 171 exhibitors; the 242 on deck for 2024 represents a 37 increase from the 2023 total figure. As with past editions, the fair is divided into three main sections: Galleries, the main portion of the fair representing some 200 exhibitors; Discoveries, for solo presentations of emerging artists; and Insights, for historical presentations on artists from the Asia-Pacific region. Details on the remaining four sections (Kabinett, Encounters, Film, and Conversations) will be announced in the coming months.

Additionally, 68 galleries will return to the fair after a hiatus, including Galerie Lelong & Co., Lisson Gallery, Matthew Marks Gallery, Kurimanzutto, Sprüth Magers, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Regen Projects, and Acquavella Galleries. And the fair will also welcome 25 first-time exhibitors, including Alison Jacques (of London), Chapter NY (New York), Gallery 1957 (Accra and London), Bortolami (New York), Fitzpatrick Gallery (Paris), Morán Morán (Los Angeles and Mexico City), Nonaka-Hill (Los Angeles), Almeida e Dale Galeria de Arte (São Paulo), Station (Melbourne and Sydney), and Dvir Gallery (Brussels, Paris, and Tel Aviv).

“Art Basel Hong Kong is excited to announce our 2024 edition, returning in full scale with a warm welcome to exhibitors from around the world, including the 68 galleries that had taken a hiatus and 25 newcomers,” Angelle Siyang-Le, the fair’s director, said in a statement. “Our goal is to connect guests from all around the world in our home, Hong Kong, by offering possibilities of collaboration and innovation inspired by art and artists. As the key strategic cultural hub in Asia and Asia Pacific, the city plays an important role, more than ever, in bridging the evolving art landscape across regions.”

The full exhibitor list follows below.

Galleries

Insights

Discoveries