The Sold and the Unsold at Art Basel - Art Focus Now

Interactive exhibits and unexpectedly lively sales created an upbeat mood at the world’s greatest art fair.Art Basel fair week has always been the event for the international art market, and in this era of post-pandemic reconstruction amidst military conflict, it has become a gauge that shapes the industry. The focus is on Art Basel fair itself, founded by legendary collector Ernst Beyeler in 1970 and for which billionaires and museum curators, art advisers, journalists and spectators all descend on Basel every June. Business in the main venue this year by all accounts was brisk. There were 284 galleries from 36 countries participating, 21 of them exhibiting for the first time. During the first days of the fair, galleries willing to share reported stellar sales: Louise Bourgeois' 1996 sculpture ‘Spider IV’ sold for over $22.5m at Hauser & Wirth; Gerhard Richter's large sculpture ‘Strip-Tower’ sold for over $2.5m at David Zwirner, and a painting by Cy Twombly sold for $20m at Gagosian. Already by the middle of the week ‘The Art Newspaper’ reported that the top 6 galleries had sold over $175m of art, and total sales, as far as it is possible to track them, amounted to more than $245m. Sometimes what is unsold is just as newsworthy as what is sold. At the stand of the New York gallery Aquavella there was an impressive and large canvas by Mark Rothko for $60m which had not found a new home.