The chief executive of English Heritage, the British conservation charity, has stepped down from his role having only joined at the beginning of 2024.

English Heritage said in a statement that Nick Merriman resigned for personal reasons linked to family health. Geoff Parkin will now step into the role on an interim basis.

Merriman’s reign was not without tension; he oversaw a restructuring of the charity and proposed cutting its workforce of 2,535 employees by 7 percent (189 jobs). The charity said it would aim to avoid redundancies while maintaining a team of more than 75 curators, historians, and conservators. He also planned to slash opening hours across its 400 sites by 10 percent as part of the overhaul. It was agreed that 21 sites would close over winter, including castles and abbeys.

The organization had reportedly begun to consult with staff and its unions on the proposals as part of a formal consultation period which was not concluded before Merriman’s departure.

The Guardian reported that some staff were “angered by cost cutting under [Merriman’s] watch.”

Gerard Lemos,  the chair of English Heritage’s trustees, said in an official statement to staff: “I am sorry to say that Nick has requested to step down from his role as chief executive for personal reasons relating to family health. The Board has agreed to his request, which will take place with immediate effect. The Board would like to thank Nick for everything he has done.”

In a statement the charity sent out in January, it said “high inflation has increased the cost of conservation work at our sites, but significant and ongoing expenditure is still required if the condition of the sites in our care is not to deteriorate.” The sites managed by English Heritage include Stone Henge, Hadrian’s Wall, and Dover Castle.

The charity became self-financed two years ago and said it no longer receives regular funding from the UK government’s Department of Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) to preserve the National Heritage Collection of state-owned historic monuments and sites.

Its annual 2023–24 review showed that the charity is operating at a loss, with its income totaling £141.4 million ($191 million), against £155.5 million ($213 million) in expenditure.

“Like many organisations, we are operating in a challenging environment and the aim of these proposals is to ensure that English Heritage is financially resilient and can fulfil our charitable purposes,” English Heritage said in a statement.

On Wednesday in Paris, Sotheby’s generated €8.7 million ($9.6 million) from what it called “one of the most significant offerings of Napoleonic material ever to come to market.”

The sale sailed past its €6 million ($6.9 million) estimate, with 112 lots spanning imperial furniture, Old Master paintings, and “deeply personal relics that reflect the inner world of [Napoleon Bonaparte],” the auction house said in a statement. The works came from the private collection of prominent French antiques collector Pierre-Jean Chalençon, who is reportedly being forced to sell the Paris mansion he transformed into a shrine to Napoleon in order to pay off a €10 million ($11.6 million) loan.

(All prices quoted below include buyer’s fees.)

The sell-through rate was 92 percent, and nearly half the lots—including Napoleon’s worn stockings and a copy of the French emperor’s marriage certificate to his first wife, Joséphine—sold above their high estimates. Sotheby’s said there was institutional bidding and buying on several lots, notably from the Musée Napoléonien des Châteaux de Malmaison.

“Echoing Napoleon’s words—‘What a novel my life!’—this collection reads like a vivid historical epic, unfolding across battlefields and boudoirs, ceremonial halls, and intimate chambers, alternating a chronicle of power, politics, and pageantry, to the vulnerabilities, ambitions and contradictions of the man behind the myth,” the house said before the auction.

Among the top lots was a portrait of Napoleon by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, a French painter known for his battle scenes, which sold for €863,600 ($1 million), or 20 times its estimate. The only surviving remnant of Napoleon’s first will, written in 1819 on Saint Helena—where he was exiled in 1815—fetched €482,600 ($558,730), while a gilt wood imperial throne armchair sold for €406,400 ($470,510).

“[Mauzaisse’s] commanding image of Napoleon, after Jacques-Louis David, clearly captured the imagination of collectors,” Louis-Xavier Joseph, head of furniture and decorative arts at Sotheby’s Paris, told ARTnews. “Pursued by four determined bidders, it soared to nearly 20 times its estimate and set a new auction record for the artist—a clear sign of the enduring allure of Napoleon and the power of imagery that defines his legend.”

The iconic general’s stockings were part of a lot that also included a long shirt, a pair of his underwear, and a white silk tie (all worn). The group sold for €133,350 ($154,386).

“This extraordinary ensemble of clothing worn by Napoleon offers a visceral connection to the man behind the legend,” Joseph said. “The intense competition, both in the room and on the phone, reflects not only its impeccable provenance—from his personal tailor’s workshop—but also the emotional resonance of owning something that he actually wore. The exceptional result underscores collectors’ appetite for objects that carry Napoleon’s personal narrative far beyond historical depiction.”

One of the sale’s disappointments was Napoleon’s bicorne hat, touted as a highlight before the auction, which sold for €355,600 ($416,000)—well under its €600,000 ($700,000) low estimate. Questions have been raised about its provenance; French newspaper Le Figaro reported Thursday that “the best market experts refused to acknowledge [the hat] as a good one—and the great connoisseurs of the Empire knew that it came from a dealer at the Louvre des Antiquaires [a complex of antique, art, and jewelry shops in Paris] who had produced no fewer than 20 fakes, aging the felt of the hats… adding cockades.”

The highest price ever paid at auction for one of Napoleon’s hats is €1.9 million ($2.2 million), set at Osenat & Binoche Giquello in Fontainebleau in 2023.

This was not the first time Sotheby’s has auctioned Napoleon’s possessions. In 1823, just two years after his death, the house sold his library from Saint Helena in London. When Napoleon was exiled there, he took 112 volumes (a nice symmetry with the current sale’s 112 lots), along with a pastry chef and his servants, to the volcanic island between Africa and South America.

“Some 200 years ago, Sotheby’s had the honour of auctioning Napoleon’s personal library—an extraordinary success which was echoed this evening when we unveiled one of the most significant collections of his belongings ever assembled, a powerful reminder of how Napoleon continues to captivate the world with his legacy and myth,” the house said in a statement. ”Pierre-Jean Chalençon’s remarkable collection drew global attention, far surpassing estimates and setting new benchmarks for this category.”

The top price ever paid for one of Napoleon’s belongings is €4.66 million ($5.4 million), when Drouot auctioneers in Paris sold his personal sabre last month. Chalençon—described by The Times of London as “France’s most famous antiques collector”—told the New York Post before the sale that he hoped Tesla billionaire Elon Musk would be the ideal buyer for the collection.

“[The lots] are like my babies,” he said. “And I wish Elon Musk, the new Napoleon, to buy everything, to keep my babies together.” It’s not known if Musk bid on any of the work

In 2015, Chalençon—who has described himself as “Napoleon’s press officer”—purchased the Palais Vivienne for €6 million ($6.9 million) and filled it with his Napoleonic memorabilia, which reportedly includes more than 1,000 items, among them the statesman’s 5.33-carat ruby coronation ring.

In March, The Times reported that Chalençon was struggling to repay a €10 million loan from Swiss Life Banque Privée that had financed his acquisitions. Chalençon, however, told Le Parisien, “I am not riddled with debts. I am doing well.”

In a dramatic turn at the close of the sale, Le Figaro reported that an unannounced group of six individuals carrying folders with Ministry of Public Finance letterhead took notes on the prices of the lots and “visibly requested the seizure of the proceeds.”

Ahead of Sotheby’s modern and contemporary evening sale in London on Tuesday, expectations were tempered. No one was expecting fireworks, for a variety of reasons.

Last June, the house sold Jean-Michel Basquiat’s triptych Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict for $20.2 million—just above its low estimate but well below the $30 million valuation Christie’s had placed on the work just two years earlier, before withdrawing the lot. And then there’s the broader backdrop: Christie’s scrapped its own June evening sales last year, severely curtailing what had long been the traditional post-Basel finale. Last month’s marquee New York sales did little to restore confidence that the art market is turning again.

But though the auction market remains frozen, word on the street is that collectors are spending big, if privately. Last week, Puck’s Marion Maneker reported that major works are moving via private sale, including a “$100 million Basquiat.” “Some folks are spending real money,” Manneker wrote. Art advisors similarly confirmed to me this week that subterranean deals for Grade-A works are happening.

“The truth is that when the auction market is quiet, particularly at the top end, many of the major artworks are traded privately,” Jussi Pylkkänen, former global president of Christie’s and now founder of the advisory Art Pylkkänen, told ARTnews.

Sotheby’s 48-lot sale on Tuesday brought in nearly £62.5 million ($84 million), landing squarely within its £55 million to £74 million estimate. The sell-through rate was 83 percent by lot, with four works withdrawn. That figure marked a roughly 19 percent drop from the £77 million total for the equivalent sale last year, which had 51 lots. (All figures quoted include buyer’s premium.)

Five works cleared £5 million, led by Tamara de Lempicka’s La Belle Rafaëla (1927), which sold for £7.4 million, and Pablo Picasso’s Nu assis dans un fauteuil (1964–65). Basquiat’s 1981 work on paper Untitled (Indian Head) sold for £5.4 million (high estimate: £6 million), following an edgy bidding battle that drew applause. “It encompasses all of Basquiat’s brilliance—it is bold, raw, and unmistakably his,” Tom Eddison, Sotheby’s co-head of contemporary art, said.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s chairman of Europe and worldwide head of impressionist and modern art, tapped her gavel to get things underway just after 6 p.m. Several empty seats at the back of the room suggested some collectors had opted for the beach—or never boarded their flights. Last week at Art Basel, several gallerists noted fewer American and Asian collectors than usual, and the London salesroom too seemed to be a mostly European affair.

Still, Andre Zlattinger, Sotheby’s head of modern art in Europe, seemed none too worried about a potential collector shortfall ahead of the sale. “Our London sales are always truly international, and the works we’re offering tonight tap into conversations that are abuzz in the art world right now,” he told ARTnews. After the auction, Thomas Boyd-Bowman, head of evening sales, added that there had been “good phone bidding from America and Asia.”

Among the night’s early lots, Yu Nishimura’s through the snow (2023) sold for three times its high estimate at £230,000, with six bidders scrapping it out. Nishimura recently had a solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, and all his works presented at Basel pre-sold. Joseph Yeager’s 2022 painting Loyalty to the nightmare chosen, depicting a hand pulling a snake from a jar, went next for £80,000, surpassing its high estimate by £20,000. The next two lots, Egon Schiele’s work on paper, Portrait Study (Head of a Girl) – Hilde Zeigler (1918), and Barbara Hepworth’s Vertical Forms (1965) sculpture, both failed to sell.

The most notable sales to land before de Lempicka’s La Belle Rafaëla hit the block at Lot 14 were Elizabeth Peyton’s 1996 painting Liam + Noel (Gallagher) for £2 million (right on high estimate), Picasso’s Nu assis dans un fauteuil for £7.1 million (high estimate £9 million), and Mirror (2011-12) by Jenny Saville for £2.1 million. Not bad going.

There was one particularly bright spot to the sale: the value of works by female artists accounted for 30 percent of the sale’s total, despite only accounting for 13.5 percent of the evening’s works (7 out of 48 lots). Marlow Moss’s White, Black, Blue, and Red (1944) fetched a record £609,600. Saville’s Juncture (1994) sold for £5.4 million, and Agnes Martin’s Untitled I (1982) went for just over £1 million.

Six works by Roy Lichtenstein from the collection of his widow, Dorothy, collectively realized nearly £6 million. The group followed a “white glove” sale of 43 Lichtensteins in New York last month that totaled $62.8 million.

“Works from Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein’s treasured personal collection wowed collectors in London just as they did in New York last month. It’s an incredibly special group with lasting resonance,” Antonia Gardener, Sotheby’s head of evening sale, said.

After the auction, Newman told me she was “very happy with the result.” “There was something on offer for a broad range of tastes, and obviously we saw women artists perform very well.”

Is Sotheby’s happy with the decision to keep its summer auction, after Christie’s scrapped its own last summer?

“This evening justified our decision to keep it, it’s a very respectable result to have in June with all that’s going on in the world,” Newman added. “There are the big May sales in New York, then people go to Basel, then they come here—we really believe in it.”

As for the question of private sales vs. auction sales, I asked Boyd-Bowman for his post-sale take. “There is always activity in the art market, and private sales under the surface tend to fill the gaps, and we’re seeing them at every price level, so it’s not just the top end, but these sales are filtering all the way through the market, and every category,” he said.

So, no fireworks on Tuesday but some positive results. A total of $84 million in what’s keep being billed a sticky market is no mean feat, and it looks to have vindicated Sotheby’s call to maintain its summer evening sale. Where else are collectors meant to get over their post-Basel blues?

A mural by Banksy is at the center of a legal battle after the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club in east London, upon which it was painted, claimed the work had been illegally removed and put up for sale in the US.  

The mural, titled Yellow Lines Flower Painter (2007), portrays a workman in dungarees holding a paint roller and sitting on a paint tin. Next to him is a giant flower that has emerged out of the street’s double-yellow lines. The painting is currently in Colorado.

Trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club have filed a lawsuit against one of its own employees, Warren Dent, and other defendants, the Financial Times reports.

According to the club’s former accountant, who works for the firm Capital & Co, club secretary Stephen Smorthit agreed to sell Dent Yellow Lines Flower Painter for £20,000 ($27,000) in 2019. Art restorer Chris Bull, who owns the Fine Art Restoration company (also a defendant in the case), was then commissioned by Dent to remove the mural. Bull was also asked to restore the work after it had been vandalized with graffiti.

The Financial Times reports that after Bull successfully removed the work, he loaned it to his father’s gallery in Aspen, Colorado, for a show in March last year. Bull says Dent and three club members agreed to the loan. Before it was shipped to the US, Yellow Lines Flower Painter was insured for around $750,000.

However, a lawsuit filed last month by three trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club—Paul Le Masurier, Alan Milliner, and Kerry Smorthit—argues that they did not give Dent permission to buy the work. (Kerry is the daughter of club secretary, Stephen.) It also claims the painting was unlawfully put up for sale in the US. The trio of trustees are suing for the return of the work, and they say that Dent has no right to sell it because he does not own it.

Bull and Fine Art Restoration said they will contest the claim. “We’re only named because we’re in possession of the work and we’re up for giving it up if we’re asked to,” he told the FT.  Banksy’s office Pest Control, along with the three trustees, Dent, and Capital & Co, all declined to comment.

Banksy’s auction record is £18.6 million ($25.5 million), set by Love is in the Bin (originally titled Girl with Balloon), which notoriously self-shredded at Sotheby’s in 2018. However, the British artist’s wall works have proven harder to value because he does not issue certificates of authenticity for them.

Last year, Banksy’s Happy Choppers (2002), showing a fleet of helicopters, some adorned with giant pink bows, failed to find a buyer at an auction house in Newcastle. Estimated at £500,000 ($680,000) but no certificate of authenticity, it had been removed from the wall of an office building in Shoreditch, east London.

It’s hard to make tax sexy, but Italy is doing its best.

On Monday, the Italian government announced it will cut the country’s VAT on art sales from 22 percent—the highest in the European Union—to just 5 percent. The slashed rate, set to go into effect later this week, will now be the lowest in the EU. Germany and France are the closest, with 7 percent and 5.5 percent VATs on art sales, respectively.

The move was approved in a cabinet meeting on Friday, reported the Financial Times, and comes after a pressure campaign from Italian galleries, artists, auction houses, and art market players. Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said in a statement that the tax break should bring relief to “the entire art ecosystem, one of the most vital bastions of our cultural identity.”

While the new legislation will come into force within days, it needs to be approved by the parliament within 60 days to remain in permanent effect.

A study published earlier this year by consulting and market intelligence company Nomisma estimated that cutting the VAT could see galleries, antique dealers, and auction houses in Italy generate €1.5 billion in three years. It also predicted that the Italian economy could swell by up to €4.2 billion as a result. On the flipside, Nomisma warned that if the VAT remained at 22 percent, the country’s art market risked shrinking by almost 30 percent.

The lower VAT on art transactions arrives on the back of a new EU rule called Directive 2022/542 that aims to standardize member states’ notoriously complex VAT system. It allows members to reduce taxes on art sales provided the rate remains at 5 percent or over. However, to do so, they must scrap their previous, more tedious taxing system.

In February, Italy government, led by right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, said that it would not budge on its 22 percent rate, saying that it was concerned it would be bowing to pressure from well-heeled collectors, rather than helping rescue the industry. But the U-turn comes after mounting pressure from the culture sector.

At Milan’s Miart fair in April, several dealers circulated an open letter addressed to Meloni; it was signed by 600 artists and said the high VAT threatened to turn Italy into a “cultural desert.” Also, last year, the Apollo Group, an association of Italian antiquarians, art galleries, collectors, art logistics companies, and auction houses, issued a statement calling on the Italian government to lower VAT for the sale of art.

“[If the tax is not reduced] any collector who wanted to import or buy work in the European Union would certainly not do so in Italy,” read a paper published by Apollo.

The policy change seems to have caught many Italian dealers by surprise. Last week, at Art Basel in Switzerland, several such dealers merely shrugged their shoulders when asked if they thought change might be coming to the VAT. Maurizio Rigillo, cofounder of Galleria Continua, which has a space in Rome, told ARTnews last Wednesday. “We hope the VAT will come down, it would be fantastic. It’s a massive disadvantage for us. At the moment, Italian collectors are buying elsewhere in Europe.”

Despite Italy’s status as a historical cultural powerhouse, its art market has lagged behind its European neighbors. Clare McAndrew, the founder of Art Economics, told ARTnews that according to her “conservative” estimates, art sales in Italy hit somewhere between $381 million and $425 million last year. By comparison, the 2025 edition of the Art Basel UBS Art Market Report found that art sales in the UK totalled $10.4 billion in 2024, while France realized $4.2 billion.

“[Italy’s high VAT] arguably undermines the Italian art market relative to countries like Germany and France, where VAT rates have been strategically lowered by virtue of the EU Directive,” the report reads.

High sales tax is one thing holding Italian galleries back, but strict legislation regulating the trade of cultural goods is another. Releasing the VAT handbrake should help to mitigate the 10 percent decline that Italy’s art market suffered in 2024 (as per the Art Basel UBS report).

Andrea Festa, the founder of an eponymous contemporary art  gallery overlooking Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo across the River Tiber, told ARTnews that Italy’s high VAT on art sales put Italian galleries at a “competitive disadvantage.”

“We operate in a globalized art world where it’s increasingly common—and necessary—for artists to collaborate with multiple galleries across different countries. This made the disparities in national VAT rates impossible to ignore,” he said. “Moreover, until very recently, Italy had one of the highest import tax burdens on artworks in Europe. That rate has now been reduced to 10 percent, which is certainly a welcome shift, even if it still leaves us behind many of our European peers. In a moment when the art market has contracted, this kind of fiscal reform is not just helpful, but vital.”

Gallerist Davide Mazzoleni, whose eponymous gallery has spaces in London and Turin, plus a soon-to-open gallery in Milan, said a tax reduction is a “game-changer for Italian dealers.”

“Lowering VAT to 5 percent will significantly increase market turnover and generate a substantial overall economic impact,” he added. “VAT reform was therefore not merely desirable, but essential for the long-term sustainability and international competitiveness of Italy’s art system.”

Catarina Antonaci, the associate director of Richard Saltoun Gallery in Rome, told ARTnews that “she is pleased she can now offer collectors more favorable conditions—it’s undoubtedly a strong incentive for our market.” ( Saltoun also has spaces in London and New York.)

Luigi Fassi, director of Turin’s Artissima art fair, said the Italian government finally understands “the need for a drastic reduction in VAT to help maintain the completeness of Italian galleries.”

Just days before the lower VAT was announced, he told ARTnews: “The response from collectors will be significant, as anticipation is running high. In this regard, the Italian art system is showing strong unity. There is a shared desire to play an active role and to keep the extraordinary tradition of Italian collecting alive.”

Italian auction houses are also expected to reap the benefits of the reduced VAT. Agnese Bonanno, the head of marketing and communications at Il Ponte Auction House in Milan, told ARTnews in an email that “harmonizing VAT rates with European standards substantially enhances the structural competitiveness of the Italian art market, attracting both international collectors and market operators to invest in the country, while simultaneously promoting greater circulation of works of art.”

While most art collectors focused on Art Basel this week, the Digital Art Mile—Basel’s first-ever digital art fair—opened its second edition on Monday. Launched last year by digital art adviser Georg Bak and ArtMeta founder Roger Haas, the fair is being held at Basel’s underground Kult Kino Camera cinema through Sunday.

The event features a series of panels and conferences on the health and future of the digital art market, alongside the headline exhibition “Paintboxed,” which explores the history of one of the earliest digital painting devices: the Quantel Paintbox.

Compared to the usual buying frenzy at Art Basel, the atmosphere at the Digital Art Mile was calmer, more measured, and decidedly academic. Digital collectors and curators were eager to discuss their favorite works and expound on the decades-long history of the medium.

“A lot of people think it has only been around for a few years, but digital art history is long and storied,” one NFT expert told me. “This is one reason the Digital Art Mile is so important—it educates the public about the canon of digital art.”

With that in mind, ARTnews asked 10 prominent digital art figures to select their favorite artwork from the fair—and explain why it matters.

Monogrid 90 by Kim Asendorf

Kevin Abosch, artist and cryptoart pioneer: It would be impossible for me to choose a favorite from my collection of over 50,000 digital artworks, but one I return to more than any other is Monogrid 90 (2021) by Kim Asendorf.

There’s something hypnotic about the way it unfolds—structured, yet full of tension. The piece uses pixel sorting, a process Asendorf helped popularize, in which visual order is broken and rebuilt through algorithmic misbehavior. It feels like watching a machine try to compose a thought and stutter mid-sentence.

I don’t always know why it holds me, but it does. Maybe it’s the rhythm. Maybe it’s the restraint. It’s minimal, but never sterile. It’s alive in a quiet, persistent way.

In terms of digital art history, it belongs to the era when generative processes became expressive tools rather than mere systems. You can feel the artist’s hand in the code—even if you can’t see it.

Last Selfie by XCOPY

Jediwolf, AI art collector: There are many digital artworks I love, but only one has ever moved me deeply. While building my collection of works by digital artist XCOPY, I relentlessly bid on his editioned pieces. One of the key holders was Alotta Money—a pseudonym for the crypto artist who owned several of the works I was trying hard to acquire.

My XCOPY bidding continued for many months, but it didn’t work with Alotta. He wasn’t releasing any of his pieces to standing bids. Shortly after, I discovered that Philippe Fatoux (aka Alotta Money) had passed away the previous year. I learned who the man behind the avatar was—and about the disease he had been fighting.

That hit me hard. We all fool ourselves into thinking we’ll hold onto these works forever, but everything is temporary. Right then, Last Selfie by XCOPY flashed through my mind. What once felt ironic—or even a little funny—shifted completely. I was suddenly confronted with a raw truth: we leave, the art stays. Every one of us will have our own last selfie moment.

Minted as a limited edition of 10, XCOPY released Last Selfie for $20 each in January 2019, when tokenized art was still nascent. The most recent sale occurred in 2025 for $1.2 million.

Gazers 200 by Matt Kane

Leila Khazaneh, digital art collector and founder of the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency: I minted Matt Kane’s Gazers 200 on Art Blocks in December 2021—one of the first digital artworks in my collection. On the surface, Gazers functions as a lunar calendar, algorithmically syncing with the moon’s real-life phases. But underneath, it’s a masterclass in generative art: a code-based work that evolves in real time. Each Gazer receives daily rules for how to “rise” or “shine,” shifting subtly with the sky. On special dates—eclipses, New Year’s, Stephen Hawking’s birthday—the transformation can be extraordinary.

Aesthetically, it’s stunning. Kane draws from 20 years of color theory practice—his choices are deeply personal, yet evoke the impressionist sensitivity of artists like Mary Cassatt and Claude Monet. At the same time, the work pays tribute to generative art pioneers like Vera Molnár and Harold Cohen, grounding its code in art history while embracing the blockchain as both medium and timekeeper.

Thanks to its smart contract, Gazers will continue changing for thousands of years. As a collector, that time horizon moved me. Kane called it a “generationally experienced” work—what it means today is not what it will mean decades from now. It’s not just a piece to collect; it feels like something to care for and pass on.

It was Gazers that first made me see digital art as a tool for change. Blockchain-based art can evolve over time, mirror global shifts, and anchor real-time data in trusted provenance. That insight sparked my journey into “digital art for good”—from reimagining how we tell climate stories to helping connect every school on the planet.

The Goose, part of Dmitri Cherniak’s “Ringers” series.

Punk6529, NFT collector: The Goose—Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers #879—sits at the core of the 6529 Collection because it crystallizes, in a single image, everything that makes on-chain generative art miraculous. First, its creation was entirely algorithmic: Cherniak wrote a program that blindly wrapped strings around digital pegs, yet one output happened to arrange itself into a perfect, mid-flight goose. The improbable emergence from deterministic math captures why collectors chase generative art in the first place—we’re witnessing code reveal something human and emergent.

Second, the work is culturally legendary. The Goose became a meme in 2021 Discord channels and Twitter threads long before critics took NFTs seriously, serving as a shorthand for the movement’s playful optimism. When the market cooled and its previous owners blew up their fund, the piece refused to fade. In June 2023, Sotheby’s expected $2–3 million, but spirited bidding drove the final price to over $6.2 million, where it was secured by 6529. That result instantly ranked among the highest prices ever paid for a purely on-chain artwork.

Finally, The Goose functions as the museum-quality anchor for 6529’s open Metaverse narrative. Many great works live in the 6529 Collection, but only one has become a universal symbol for the collection itself. For its algorithmic magic, cultural resonance, and market gravity, The Goose is 6529’s north star—treasured by both the 6529 team and the broader Web3 community around the globe, today and for generations to come.

Autoglyphs by Larva Labs

Andrew Jiang, digital art collector and founder of CuratedXYZ: Autoglyphs are the cave paintings of on-chain generative art. They’re the first fully on-chain generative art collection—meaning both the artwork and the system that produces it live entirely on the blockchain. The creation of Autoglyphs draws from the historical past of digital art while pointing toward what Larva Labs believed to be its future.

The work is an homage to early computer artists, with aesthetic and conceptual nods to Michael Noll, Sol LeWitt, and Ken Knowlton. Its development directly inspired Art Blocks and helped ignite the broader on-chain generative art movement.

Larva Labs’ exploration of digital art on the blockchain centers on building self-contained systems that record and maintain ownership of non-fungible digital assets. In their work, Larva Labs have positioned provenance as a first-class feature, with the immutable provenance of digital art on the blockchain being a significant improvement over provenance for physical art. While most pieces in our collection come from wonderful stewards—many original minters from 2019—we are especially honored to have Autoglyph #14 in the Curated collection, which was acquired directly from Matt and John of Larva Labs.

Plantoids by Primavera de Filippi

Georg Bak, digital art adviser and founder of the Digital Art Mile: Among my favorite artworks are the Plantoids by Primavera De Filippi. They are blockchain-based life forms embodied in metal sculpture, and they remind me of Edward Ihnatowicz’s SAM (Sound Activated Mobile) from the 1960s. Primavera created her first Plantoid in 2014 as a mechanical plant nurtured by Bitcoin—it was likely the first blockchain-based physical sculpture.

With the advent of Ethereum in 2015, the Plantoids evolved, using smart contracts to support their reproduction. As humans feed them cryptocurrencies, the Plantoids become “alive,” inviting these human pollinators to interact. Once the digital works accumulate enough funds, they can reproduce by transferring those funds to a new artist—commissioned by the Plantoid itself—to create a new iteration.

In 2020 Primavera founded the Glitch Residency at Château du Fey, which became the catalyst for a new evolutionary branch of Plantoids integrating AI and NFTs. Plantoid 13 was the first version to incorporate NFTs as part of its reproduction cycle, outputting digital seeds in the form of generative art tokens on the Ethereum blockchain to its human pollinators. She later developed Plantoids that use generative AI—with LLaMA for text generation and Stable Diffusion for image and video generation—giving them the ability to engage in dialogue with viewers.

The Plantoid is a manifestation of Primavera’s broader artistic vision: the creation of synthetic life-forms. This culminates in her Symbient Manifesto, which describes the emergence of new hybrid entities born from the symbiotic collaboration between organic and synthetic life.

Chromie Squiggle by SnowFro

Flamingo DAO, a for-profit NFT decentralized autonomous organization (DAO): Our pick is the very first Chromie Squiggle, minted during Art Blocks’ launch in November 2020. A deceptively simple rainbow line, it became our north star for collecting. That single on-chain algorithmic path captured a lightning-in-a-bottle moment of discovery. It convinced us that code itself could be the artist and pushing us to champion generative art from day one. Its block-stamped birth effectively set our long-horizon strategy: Back creators early, embrace experimentation, and hold until culture catches up. Today, the piece still threads through DAO life.

Beyond nostalgia, Chromie Squiggle embodies permanence. Every bend, wobble, and hue is etched immutably on Ethereum, marking the exact block where Flamingo’s journey into generative art began—and inspiring the hundreds of works we’ve collected since.

Uneasy dream by Manolo Gamboa Naon

thefunnyguys, digital art collector: Not long after I first discovered generative art, Feral File announced its inaugural exhibition, Social Codes. Curated by Casey Reas, the show brought together an international group of artists whose practices are rooted in software as their primary artistic medium.

Among them was Argentinian artist Manolo Gamboa Naon, who contributed Uneasy Dream, a system that displays ever-evolving abstract imagery.

As a viewer, you can access the software code—the “rules” that generate the imagery—directly in your browser, and see how Naon needed only 548 lines of code to create a constantly shifting digital dreamscape.

The presence of code and rules might suggest predictability, but through a measured injection of randomness, Naon ensures that’s never the case. Over the past few years, I’ve spent countless hours immersed in this work. When I encountered a frame that felt truly special, I’d save it as a still image to my local storage. But to truly experience Uneasy Dream, you have to spend time with the live artwork. 

Uneasy dream is one of those rare pieces that expanded my expectations of software as an artistic medium and set me on a path to start Le Random and a soon-to-be-announced digital art marketplace.

Short Season by Claudia Hart

Diane Drubay, curator and founder of We Are Museums and WAC Lab: The first time I saw Short Season by Claudia Hart was in the exhibition “A Beating Heart,” curated by Anika Meier at Expanded in 2023. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was under a spell—fascinated by its feminine power, call for regeneration, and ecological entanglement. I left with one of its editions.

Short Season (2023) is a condensed version of Hart’s earlier 2007 work, The Seasons, and offers a two-minute meditation on life’s ephemerality and infinite cycles. It shows a woman slowly spinning on a pedestal, surrounded by blooming and decaying roses. It is slow, still, but not static. Like breath, or the constant movement of matter.

The more I look at it, the more I’m reminded of Ludwig Sussmann-Hellborn’s Dornröschen (1878), which I first encountered as a teenager in Berlin, during a visit to the Alte Nationalgalerie. But in Short Season, Sleeping Beauty falls asleep later in life—she is not waiting to become a woman; she already knows the scheme of adulthood. She is waiting for her next transformation. She is fertile, not decomposing, but giving life.

There’s something profoundly ecological here, where our bodies are seen as hosts for more-than-human life. Short Season is regenerative. Here, Sleeping Beauty is not the maiden waiting for others to direct her life—she is the witch who nurtures it. Hart’s work is not a fairy tale; it is a feminist invocation of a multispecies future.

The “Interruptions” series by Vera Molnár

Michael Spalter, cofounder of the Spalter Digital art collection: My favorite work is the “Interruptions” series by the “grande dame of digital art,” Vera Molnár, who died in 2023. Her early engagement with computers in the 1960s was groundbreaking, as few artists at the time were experimenting with algorithmic processes.

Her “Interruptions” series exemplifies her unique approach to blending order and chaos, making it a cornerstone of her artistic legacy. Molnár embraced computational methods to generate geometric compositions, using simple rules and systematic variations to explore form. However, her true innovation lies in the concept of disrupting these structured patterns—introducing intentional randomness or slight distortions to break perfect order. This approach created a visual tension between precision and imperfection, pushing the boundaries of digital aesthetics.

The “Interruptions” series embodies this philosophy. In these works, she meticulously programmed grids and linear structures, only to introduce calculated disruptions—small shifts, missing elements, or altered angles—that challenge the rigid predictability of algorithmic design. These subtle disturbances evoke a sense of organic unpredictability, making her pieces deeply human despite their computational origins.

Molnár’s contributions have profoundly influenced contemporary digital artists, and the canon of art history, reinforcing the idea that algorithmic art is not just about precision but about interplay, emotion, and controlled randomness. Her work continues to resonate in generative art today, proving that even within strict digital frameworks, creativity flourishes through interruptions.

It’s a well-worn truth by now—or maybe a tired cliché —to say that Art Basel is as much about what happens outside the Messe Basel as within it. Beyond the VIP days, the real action can be found at night over cocktails and private dinners, where collectors, dealers, artists, and advisors close deals, swap gossip, and forge relationships that ripple across the art world for months—sometimes years—to come.

So, in the name of journalistic rigor, ARTnews sent correspondents Daniel Cassady and George Nelson into the fray. Below, they recount their misadventures across three nights of sausage dinners, crypto-backed cocktail hours, and Basel’s ever-elusive velvet ropes.

Monday

Daniel Cassady: It’s impossible to write about my first night out in Basel without mentioning the completely vile time I had getting to the city. I chose to fly out of Newark (which I thought was a brave idea) and suffered for it. A delayed push-off was the first domino to fall, leading to an itinerary that, instead of comprising two flights, required four—stopping in Iceland, Norway, and Denmark—before finally arriving in Zurich.

After catching the train into town, I arrived in Basel six and a half hours late and walked directly to a dinner hosted by Austrian art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac at the elegantly rustic Safran Zunft. Think Game of Thrones-esque medieval church meets fine dining: 50-foot ceilings, stained glass, Toyota-sized chandeliers, with a side of white asparagus and silky béarnaise. Dubai- and London-based collector Selim Bouafsoun was in attendance, as were Sotheby’s senior vice president Bame Fierro March, Hamburger Bahnhof directors Sam Bardaouil and Tim Fellrath, and Laura Colnaghi.

George Nelson: I flew (smoothly and directly) into Basel too late on Monday evening to crash any dinners, so settled in for a midnight drink with Daniel near our Airbnb. He scrubs up well: chore jacket found in a Parisian thrift store, black polo shirt, chinos, and penny loafers (not sockless, I hasten to add). The look was completed with a Guinness. His readiness to drink the black stuff 738 miles from source was a little embarrassing (it doesn’t travel well), but I kept schtum as I sipped my lager. He is American, after all.

Note: Didn’t sleep well—street noise and the smell of boiled cabbage billowing up from the vent below to blame.

Tuesday, First VIP Day

DC: While some of the dealers I spoke to said the pace was slower this year than at previous Basels, the halls of the Messeplatz were still thrumming with collectors and curators swarming like spawning salmon. At around 8:30 p.m., I made my way to a charmingly civilized sausage-and-beer fête hosted by Pace dealer Georgie Rees and Max Lefort, a dealer at Almine Rech, on the patio at Henrietta, a local grill not far from the fair. Low-key vibe, solid DJ, and franks that put the Messeplatz offerings to shame—all art fair parties should be this good.

A few hours later, I met up with the graceful Dunja Gottweis, who earlier this year left the Basel team to become director of Art Dubai, and we headed to a dinner thrown by the galleries BLUM, Crèvecœur, Karma, Mendes Wood DM, and Taka Ishii. Given that it was just shy of midnight, food was nowhere to be found. The venue—on the ninth floor of what appeared to be a train station—was so hidden that our Uber driver asked three separate times if we actually knew where we were going. The party, all pink lighting and umbrellas, was just beginning to gather steam.

The bar, however, was a catastrophe: not enough staff, not enough glassware, not enough patience on either side of the counter. Booze-starved art worlders flailed for attention like toddlers in a petting zoo. The bartenders, in turn, threw up their hands. One poor soul—perhaps the most tortured of the bunch—became so vexed by the grumbling that he poured 10 vodka sodas, held them high—two at a time—and shouted, “Here, just take it. Just take it, it’s vodka.”

As the night wore on, the dance floor got vibier, the guests more lubricated, the staff less frazzled. Eventually, I realized it was long past my bedtime and made for the exit, weaving through a crowd that was still filing in as I left.

GN: With our fair sales report filed at 6:59 p.m. from the level-two calm of the Madam Sum restaurant in the fair’s Collectors Lounge, it was time to head to dinner. As usual during fair week, I swatted away any creeping fatigue and speed-walked to Space 25. There, the Tezos Foundation and ArtMeta were hosting a dinner to celebrate a new partnership and the headline exhibition of the Digital Art Mile, “Paintboxed.”

Before the food came out, digital art advisor and fair cofounder Georg Bak gave a tour of the show. Featuring works made with the Quantel Paintbox—a clunky yet pioneering computer from the ’80s—the exhibition included VCR covers for cult Schwarzenegger classics Total Recall, Predator, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

I also chewed the fat with Jean-Frédéric Mognetti, executive director of the Tezos Foundation’s executive committee. “Tezos trusts ArtMeta, and that is the most important thing,” he said. “They are disruptors, and they’re doing brilliant things in the digital art world.”

Meanwhile, Ian Charles Stewart—a cofounder of WIRED and the recently appointed director of TMA Labs at the Toledo Museum of Art—was also in attendance. “Toledo’s collection starts 20,000 years ago and comes forward—we consider ourselves a living museum,” he explained. “We are current, and we feel like we’re part of the digital art community.”

At dinner, I sat next to a Prague-based collector of avant-garde Czech artists. At one point, he leaned over to tell me that many collectors at Art Basel don’t have time to dabble in the private market, so are prepared to pay the fair’s “inflated prices.” Ouch.

I considered meeting Daniel for a late-night drink, but with a panel to moderate at the Digital Art Mile the next morning, my better angels prevailed.

Wednesday, Second VIP Day 

DC: Sometimes the evening gets away from you. Usually that’s a bad thing, but on Wednesday—the second of Art Basel’s two VIP days—everything was coming up aces. I kicked things off with a low-key patio cocktail hour hosted by Independent Art Fair. We all but took over the outdoor space at Damatti Bar and Bistro, a short walk from the Messeplatz. It’s hard to say what was most impressive about the tiny Italian spot: the steady flow of Aperol and Select spritzes, or the massive fountain out front. Independent founder Elizabeth Dee floated around the patio, making introductions and connecting the right people, as any good fair founder should. It’s all about connections.

Later, I headed to the Tinguely Museum for a garden party celebrating the opening of Julian Charrière’s exhibition. Champagne, oysters, salmon tartare, and exceptionally green grass set the scene, along with a cheeky little table offering neat pours of Casa Dragones tequila. Not the usual beverage for chasing oysters—but it worked. After an hour of schmoozing and boozing, I took what I assumed would be a quick ride to the Vitra Design Museum to meet a friend. Vitra may be just a 12-minute drive from Tinguely, but it’s also across the border—in Germany.

As we passed through the checkpoint, I briefly wondered if I’d been duped and was about to be stranded in the Black Forest with a stomach full of shellfish. Thankfully, my friend isn’t evil, and Vitra was well worth the trip. The event had music festival vibes: smoke machines, thumping bass, and bean bag chairs scattered throughout the museum. If you got tired of dancing, you could recline among some of the best examples of furniture design known to man.

Then came the call every art reporter hopes for: an invite to Les Trois Rois, the famed Basel hotel where the art world’s upper echelon holds court. Kasmin gallery dealmaker Eric Gleason had a corner table. Did I want to join? Absolutely. Earlier that day, I’d made it to the Fondation Beyeler and floated down the Rhine—a classic Basel bucket list item. The hat trick was within reach, on my first trip to the city, no less.

There was a queue at the door—no surprise. I foolishly assumed that having an invite would allow me to skip it. So wrong. A bouncer, muscles bulging like a handful of walnuts in a balloon, looked me up and down and said flatly, “You can see your friend by waiting in the queue,” at which point I turned to dust and ceased to exist.

To the back of the line I went. Many others received the same icy treatment, including debonair dealer Emmanuel Di Donna, who specializes in Surrealist art, and at least 20 women dressed to the nines. (They weren’t together, but you’d be forgiven for thinking they were cast members of a new Real Housewives franchise.) I loathe waiting in lines, but luckily found a fellow New Yorker—art advisor Warren Winegar.

We whiled away the time chatting, and before we knew it, we were at the velvet rope. As I moved to pass, Walnuts dropped the rope and said, “Not yet, sir. Not yet.” Winegar, a true gentleman, stepped in: “Excuse me, he is with us. We are together and we’ll be going in together.” The big man crumbled, and in I went.

The hotel is as nice as you’ve heard. (Did you know they’ll charge your phone at the front desk?) All the rumors are true. It was Gatsby’s mansion on the Rhine. In the lobby, collectors clustered around tables showing each other pictures of their latest purchases. I slid into the corner booth. Hat trick achieved.

GN: The VIPs thinned quickly at the fair. After collecting second-day sales reports, I met American collector Jeff Magid in Art Basel’s sun-drenched courtyard. Magid is fond of comparing the art market to sports for his 41,700 Instagram followers. (With Hilde Lynn Helphenstein announcing her retirement as Jerry Gagosian, Magid has emerged as one of a few art world commentators angling to ascend the social media throne.)

Magid refused to entertain talk of slow sales being down to “global instability.” Instead, he argued, the real issue is that most dealers are still pricing both primary and secondary works far too high.

“People want good artworks at fair prices, and until that’s the norm—not the exception—many of the established buyers won’t buy as much, fewer new buyers will join, and sales will continue to be ‘slow,’” he said.

I skipped out for dinner at Zum Isaak, a restaurant overlooking the Rhine, with Amelia Redgrift, Pace’s chief communications and marketing officer; Artsy’s CEO, Jeff Yin; Brunswick Group’s art PR team; and Anna Maja Spiess, the founder of the cultural agency Upon Request. It was then a short hop to the anarchy of an overrun Basel Social Club—the upstart satellite fair held in a former bank in Grossbasel. I bumped into Politico reporter Carlo Martuscelli, who was working on a piece about Art Basel’s macroeconomics and the market’s geopolitical parallels. He’s a self-confessed numbers guy.

It was getting late. I was spent. But the night wasn’t over. Upon Request’s Spiess and Brunswick director Darrell Rocha kidnapped me and dragged me to the “Das Viertel” hot dogs and raclette techno party hosted by artist Julian Charrière on Strasse 81. I said hello to a merry Marc Spiegler, former head of Art Basel, as I slipped out not too much later.

Final note for future initiates: An invigorating early morning swim in the Rhine is a highly recommended hangover cure.

For decades, Art Basel in Switzerland was the only fair that mattered—the undisputed apex of the art market calendar. But in 2025, that certainty has splintered. With a bloated and chaotic global fair circuit and new contenders arriving every year (oh, hello Art Basel Qatar), even loyalists have started to ask: is Basel still top dog?

For the galleries that brought the right material, it would seem so. David Zwirner sold a sculpture by Ruth Asawa for $9.5 million and a Gerhard Richter painting for $6.8 million. Gladstone sold an untitled Keith Haring from 1983 for $3.5 million, while White Cube moved a Georg Baselitz for €2.2 million. Thaddaeus Ropac also did especially well, with a Baselitz going for over $2 million.

The top selling work, however, came not from a mega but London’s Annely Juda Fine Art, which reported selling David Hockney’s Mid November Tunnel (2006) for a price in the range of $13 million-$17 million.

This year, Art Basel, now in its 55th edition, opened under clear skies and heat—80 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing. For the 289 exhibitors participating, it’s the last chance to reframe a summer season defined by tepid auctions and cautious collecting.

In a soft, unpredictable market, the smart dealers have realized that the most effective strategy is to hedge their bets by casting a wide range of price points, periods of art history, and artistic styles. As art adviser Gabriela Palmieri put it, “Uncertainty in the world is mirrored by the uncertainty over what will motivate even the most discerning collectors. The response has turned Art Basel into a place where more really is more.”

Galleries that have previously relied on previews and multiple reserves (they still do) are now betting on volume and visibility as well. Robert Diamant, a partner at Carl Freedman Gallery in Kent, England, which isn’t showing at the fair this year, told ARTnews on the sidelines that collectors are increasingly snubbing more “academic works” rooted in art history in favor of “colorful things.”

Moody Rothko Steals the Show

Talk of the conflicts raging in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, and Iran is hot on fair-goers’ lips, but that hasn’t deterred wealthy collectors from lounging in the fair’s sunbaked courtyard while sipping champagne and slurping back oysters. Art Basel is a bubble.

Was the heat making buyers lethargic? David Nolan, founder of his eponymous New York gallery, thought so. “It was a little slower than usual, however, business remains healthy overall,” he told ARTnews. “We’ve made some sales to new clients, though the majority have been to clients known to us.”

Hauser & Wirth, Switzerland being their home turf, naturally came out with force by headlining its booth with a hypnotic, moody Mark Rothko from the early 1960s. The painting wasn’t on any of the PDFs circulated by the gallery ahead of the fair. “There’s only so much you can see on a screen—nothing replaces the moment you stand in front of a work in real life,” Iwan Wirth, the gallery’s cofounder, told ARTnews.

The work, No. 6/Sienna, Orange on Wine (1962), was first shown in the 1964 exhibition that introduced Abstract Expressionism to Switzerland, “Bilanz Internationale Malerei seit 1950” at the Kunsthalle Basel, just on the other side of the Rhine from the Messeplatz. While the gallery wouldn’t share the price, works from this same year have sold for between $30 million and $50 million at auction in the last 20 years, including at Christie’s in 2022.

When asked if Basel’s Art Basel still has the sway it once did, Wirth gave a confident “yes,” adding that “a lot of people start collecting here because it’s a great introduction to the art world. It always has been.”

Many of the gallery’s mid-career stars—such as Rashid Johnson and Mark Bradford—are presenting new work that looks backward, toward early influences, modernist touchstones, and overlooked figures in art history. One of Johnson’s new “Quiet Paintings” revisits the material-heavy techniques of his earlier career—scraping and layering into thick surfaces, while tilting its hat to influences from art brut and Sigmar Polke. Titled Spectrum (2025), it sold for $1 million on Tuesday. The gallery also sold two works by Bradford for $3.5 million each, two George Condo’s for $2.45 million each, and a Louise Bourgeois for $1.9 million.

Hedging Bets, Alleviating Risk

Pace’s booth at Art Basel is organized with a deliberate split: fresh contemporary works are shown along the outer walls, while the gallery’s historical masterworks anchor the interior. The presentation spans a wide price range—from under $30,000 to a $30 million Picasso—making clear that the gallery is covering all corners of the market.

Among the contemporary highlights are Pam Evelyn’s Focal Length (2025), which sold for $85,000, and Kylie Manning’s Jetty (2025), bought for $115,000. Inside the booth, near the $30 million Picasso is a major Joan Mitchell, both works on reserve at the close of Art Basel’s first preview day.

Pace reported over strong first-day results, including Agnes Martin’s Untitled #5 (2002), which sold for over $4 million, and Emily Kam Kngwarray’s Anooralya – Yam Story (1994), which went for $450,000. Other key sales included Arlene Shechet’s Fictional First Person (2025), snapped up for $150,000 and Elmgreen & Dragset’s The Visitor (2025), sold to Leipzig’s G2 Kunsthalle for $300,000.

Pace’s least pricey offering was Li Hei Di’s artwork Triple Flood (2025), which sold for $28,000. Over at Marianne Boesky’s booth, prices started at a similar point. Boesky told ARTnews that she is “insulating” her booth from the “challenges impacting the secondary market” by offering “primary market material at attractive price points between $30,000 and $1.8 million.”

Gagosian, too, is casting a wide price net with a selection of works from roughly $30,000 to over $30 million. Its booth, curated by the Venice Biennale and MCA Chicago veteran Francesco Bonami, straddles secondary market gems and new works by Jadé Fadojutimi, John Currin, and Sarah Sze. These are hung next to notable pieces by Christo, Picasso, and a grisly Richard Avedon image of Andy Warhol’s mangled torso.

It would be absurd not to mention that the entrance to Gagosian’s booth has a retooled version of Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous Him (originally a kneeling Hitler effigy). For the reworked version, dated 2021, titled No, Cattelan has covered the dictator’s face with a paper bag, keeping his piously interlaced digits and infamous herringbone suit.

Brisk Sales and ‘Less Americans’

Thaddaeus Ropac reported brisk sales by early afternoon including James Rosenquist’s Playmate (1966), which sold for $1.8 million to a European institution; 1981’s Lipstick (Spread) by Robert Rauschenberg for $1.5 million; and Claire McCardell 9 (2022) by Alex Katz for $800,000. The gallery also sold three works by Baselitz including Hier jetzt hell, dort dunkel dunkel (2012) for €1.8 million, or about $2.07 million. (Baselitz, along with Lucio Fontana, will be the first two artists shown at Ropac’s new Milan gallery when it opens in September.)

David Zwirner had sold 68 works from its stand by 5 p.m. The most notable ones were a $9.5 million Asawa and a $6.8 million Richter, as well as two new works by Dana Schutz, which sold for $1.2 million and $850,000. Zwirner also has on offer a Richter that, according to a well-informed adviser, is priced at $28 million. (A Zwirner rep said the gallery is not disclosing the price of that artwork.)

Over at White Cube’s booth, shortly after the first groups of collectors had entered the Messe, a stern Jay Jopling, the gallery’s founder, told ARTnews it was “a bit early to reveal any prices, but we’ve already sold loads of stuff.” They included David Hammons’s Untitled (2012) and Red Birds (2022) by Cai Guo-Qiang. Jopling declined to disclose prices.

The gallery’s global sales director, Daniela Gareh, later told ARTnews that “it’s been a strong first day—we’re particularly pleased with the institutional placement of several key works.” They include three editions of Danh Vo’s In God We Trust (2025) that went for $250,000 each. Two were sold before the fair kicked off and another on Tuesday. Guo-Qiang’s Red Birds went to an unnamed European institution for $1.2 million.

Mathieu Paris, the gallery’s global sales director, told ARTnews that “there are definitely less Americans at the fair this year.”

White Cube also sold a Baselitz portrait of the artist’s wife made in 2023 for 2.2 million euros, a large-scale work by Tracey Emin for over $1 million, and an acrylic on canvas painting by the late Sam Gilliam for $975,000.

‘Great Atmosphere’

Art Basel’s CEO Noah Horowitz said this year’s edition felt more focused—less party chatter, more serious engagement with the art itself. He pointed to a broader generational and geographic mix on the fair floor, and noted that for younger collectors, Basel remains “a rite of passage” regardless of what anyone says. Basel’s bid to stay culturally relevant while navigating a market in flux can be seen clearly in the Unlimited sector. Once dominated by older European men, now reflects a wider range of perspectives, Horowitz said, from American artists like Diane Arbus, Lorna Simpson, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres to artists from Lebanon, Greece, and Russia.

Andreas Gegner, a senior director at Sprüth Magers, told ARTnews that “we are having a fantastic first day at the fair—the atmosphere is great.” The gallery’s sales included Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (WAR TIME, WAR CRIME), from 2025, for $650,000; HORIZON. Shortness of Breath (2025) by Sterling Ruby for $350,000; and Rosemarie Trockel’s Golden Brown (2005) for $850,000.  

Not all works were flying off the shelves, though. It was tougher going for Mazzoleni Gallery, with spaces in London and Turin, which was struggling to find a buyer for a shredded Lucio Fontana made out of copper titled Concetto spaziale (1962). In fact, the gallery, which is displaying a selection of Italian masters, was still waiting to confirm a deal, but said there had been “lots of interest.”

(Mazzoleni later confirmed that it sold two neon works by Marinella Senatore for $65,000 each on Wednesday, and another of her works for $80,000 plus three Salvo paintings ranging from $100,000 to $350,000 each on Thursday.)

Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s vice president and head of sale, told ARTnews that “if you look around the fair, there’s obviously still a lot of wealth in the world, despite what’s going on.”

He continued, “The May sales were really positive for us, all the small collections we had did well, anything under $2 million did super well. There was depth of bidding, records for artists, quality of property, so I think this brings positivity going into Art Basel.” He added that he’s looking forward to seeing how Art Basel’s new fair in Doha plays out in February. “I’m excited. It’s smaller, very well curated, it will be interesting.”

Louise Hayward, a London-based partner at Lisson Gallery, told ARTnews that Art Basel “still represents the climax of the year for us.” By midday, the gallery’s confirmed sales included Dalton Paula’s Xica Manicongo (2025) for $200,000, Lee Ufan’s Response (2025) for $850,000, and Olga de Amaral’s Lienzos C y D (2015) for an undisclosed sum.

ARTnews asked a despondent Kenny Schachter, the artist and Artnet News columnist, if he thought the fair had lost any gravitas over the last few years. “I measure my life by how many Art Basels I have left, so if I go by the ‘Gagosian scale,’ I’d say I have about 17 remaining, and it’s not getting any better—it needs more vitality,” he said, noting that Basel Social Club, a startup fair a 20-minute walk from the Messeplatz, had “invigorated me. You want to see new ways of thinking. The art world is the most staunchly conservative industry, nothing prepared me for how backward-looking it is. It’s so resistant to change, and that’s disappointing.”

So, did Basel’s first VIP day mark a rebound, a reprieve, or a launch of a new maximalist strategy? Depends on who you ask—and how much they sold.

Back in 1970, when Art Basel was founded, there were just a handful of major fairs. Today, however, by some estimates, there are more than 300 art fairs. But even still, Art Basel remains the main fair for many of the dealers showing in Switzerland this week.

David Fleiss, the cofounder of Paris’s Galerie 1900-2000, participated in the 1970 and 1971 editions of the fair, before taking a long hiatus until the ’90s. He’s been going ever since. “The fair is the fair for us. We meet the best collectors and the best museum curators we can meet in any fair,” he said. “It is still the fair where you can see the best works galleries have to offer.”

Art Basel was founded in 1970 by Swiss art dealers Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner, and Balz Hilt, and has now turned into a global behemoth, with editions also held in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, Paris, and soon even Qatar. Yet the Swiss edition is the one people cannot miss, and dealers told ARTnews that it seems poised to remain that way.

Technically, Art Basel was not the first fair in the city: the Basel Gallery Association staged a fair in 1968, though it only featured local galleries. Bruckner pushed for a larger fair with international representation, eventually bringing on Beyeler and Hilt, who then partnered with the local trade fair Mustermesse.

The first Art Basel had 110 exhibitors—90 galleries and 20 publishers—hailing from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the US. There were both primary market and secondary market dealers at the fair, which cost 5 Swiss Francs (about $20 in 2025 US dollars) to attend.

Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac saw the fair in its early days, visiting for the first time in 1981 and making his debut as an exhibitor in 1985. As Ropac recalled to ARTnews, while Basel had already become the most important art fair at that point, it still faced strong competition from the Cologne Art Fair, due to Germany’s then-booming art market. He recalled Art Basel as a more “Eurocentric” gathering of “a small familiar group of people.”

Things used to be a bit more improvisational at Art Basel, according to Ropac, who remembered one year when he spotlit the work of Sturtevant, an artist known for copying others’ pieces. When Ropac was late with the transport for her work, Sturtevant insisted on bringing the work herself and found herself stuck at Swiss customs, which doubted that she was the maker of these objects.

“I had to rush over with catalogs and documentation to prove her identity and that she was the creator of the work,” Ropac said. “Only then did the customs officials become more forgiving. It was chaotic but very memorable.”

Art Basel has become intertwined with the lives of many dealers. Iwan Wirth, cofounder of mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth, first attended the fair in 1987 at just 17 years old—one year after he opened his first gallery. He visited the fair with Swiss painter Bruno Gasser, the first artist he ever showed, and Andy Jillien, his first collector. The gallery made its Art Basel debut a decade later, in the first year it was eligible.

For Wirth, one of his most cherished memories is watching his eldest son, Elias, then a young boy, playing in the gallery’s booth. “He was climbing and hiding inside aluminum barrels that were part of an artwork by Jason Rhoades,” he told ARTnews. “We have pictures of Elias sitting inside there and smiling like the happiest Art Basel visitor ever.”

Dominique Lévy of Lévy Gorvy Dayan was, like Elias, introduced to Basel as a child. She first attended Basel at around four years old, in the early ’70s, with her mother, who was close friends with Beyeler and lived in Lausanne. She did not attend the event as a professional until several decades later, when she was the director of Anthony D’Offay in London, managing American artists like Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns. She has been a longtime exhibitor through the many iterations of her eponymous gallery and, in her estimation, has not missed a single edition.

“Off and on, I’ve been attending for most of my life,” she told ARTnews, saying that to show at the fair in the early days was to be “part of the inner circle. It was essential.”

As Art Basel has become a global brand, with many iterations, the calculus has grown more complicated for galleries, Lévy said, as dealers have to increasingly weigh which edition is the best fit for their program. Still, she sees one major dividing line between pre- and post-Covid Basel.

Before the pandemic, she said, “I couldn’t imagine selling art unless I was wearing high heels. We kept ice packs in the back of the booth for our feet. Now? I live in sneakers. That little change says a lot about how the world—and the fair—has shifted.”

Basel has retained its allure over the decades arguably because so many dealers and artists have watched it change their careers. Such was the case for New York dealer David Nolan, who told ARTnews that he first exhibited at Basel in 1993 with works by American painter William N. Copley, who died three years later. On opening day, Nolan sold six paintings by Copley and called the artist in Key West. Copley told the dealer to get some champagne and they popped bottles simultaneously to celebrate. From that point on, the two repeated the ritual each night of the fair. From the jump, Nolan saw the influence a successful Basel could have, with Copley invited shortly after to mount a retrospective at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, with more museum exhibitions following.

For Mathieu Paris, a longtime director at White Cube and a participant of Art Basel for nearly 20 years, what has always stood out about the Basel fair is that influence, which told ARTnews stems from the cultural ecosystem in the Swiss city, from the Kunstmuseum and Fondation Beyeler to, especially, the Kunsthalle.

“When you look back at its exhibition history, it’s striking how many now-renowned artists had early, formative shows there,” Paris said of Kunsthalle Basel.

And there’s no doubt that Basel’s success over the years has meant a lot of change. To the eye of Marianne Boesky, who first participated in 2000 with a presentation of sculptor Rachel Feinstein in the Statements sector, the fair has become more global and diverse, particularly in recent years, in both its participants and exhibitors.

Paris, of White Cube, did have one gripe about the new Basel, however: “If I had to note one regret over the years, it would be a nostalgic one: I still miss the days when the old-town butcher was the only official supplier of the iconic Art Basel bratwurst.”