Billionaire Basquiat Collector Yusaku Maezawa Went Shopping at Leonardo DiCaprio’s St. Tropez Art Auction

Leonardo DiCaprio knows that if you want to sell a lot of art, you need to bring in the big guns. Among the guests at the actor’s recent star-studded charity auction in Saint-Tropez was Japanese collector Yusaku Maezawa. Best known for his record-setting $110.5 million purchase of a Basquiat at Sotheby’s in May, Maezawa went home from […]

Here’s Why Damien Hirst’s Art Market Is Not as Terrible as It Looks

A deep dive into the British artist’s prices as he attempts a comeback. After years of sluggish auction prices, is Damien Hirst poised for a comeback? In 2008, the British artist bypassed the gallery system to bring 167 newly created artworks straight to the auction block. The unprecedented sale upended every market convention and raked […]

artnet News Critics’ Picks: The Most Memorable Artworks of 2016

While 2016 may have been pretty awful on any number of fronts, we have to admit that it also gave us a lot of pretty great art. Consider Maurizio Cattelan alone, who gave us a solid gold toilet to relieve ourselves on at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, a real life donkey, pooping in the tent […]

10 Disruptors Who Are Completely Changing the Art World

For the second consecutive year, artnet News set out to identify 10 players who are disrupting the status quo. This year’s edition, like last year’s, is a “subjective, non-comprehensive list of colleagues who have changed the shape of the American art world,” as Brian Boucher writes. Even still, game changers are necessary to any industry—especially the art world. From artists […]

Top 9 Takeaways from Knoedler Forgery Trial

Never has the phrase “Hindsight is 20/20″ held as much weight for anyone as it has for collectors and other art world observers in the  wake of the recent high-profile Knoedler forgery trial. The case was settled a few days ago (February 10), but not without the art world experiencing a mountain of frequently cringe-worthy evidence and an earful […]

Outraged Photographer Sues Gagosian Gallery and Richard Prince for Copyright Infringement

Renowned photographer Donald Graham brought a federal complaint against Gagosian Gallery, Larry Gagosian, and artist Richard Prince on December 30 for unauthorized use of one of his famous images,Rastafarian Smoking a Joint, in the 2014 show “New Portraits.” Along with the black-and-white image of a Rastafarian man lighting a marijuana cigarette, which is the subject of […]

Crowds are Going Crazy Over Martin Creed’s Balloon Installation

British artist Martin Creed’s short-lived but much loved installation titled Work No. 2592 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise on New York’s Lower East Side is open until Saturday, and people cannot seem to get enough of the bright-red balloons that half-fill the space at 291 Grand Street. The playful installation by the 2001 Turner Prize winner has been delighting adults and kids alike and has […]

What 5 of the World’s Riskiest Art Buys Tell Us About Collecting Art Today

As the art world braces for an estimated $2 billion fall auction season in the next few weeks, it’s no secret that the global art market is moving ahead at a rapid-fire pace. The stakes appear higher than ever with an unprecedented number of seven-, eight-, even nine-figure works on the auction block. While headlines […]

Has the Market for ‘Zombie Formalists’ Evaporated?

“No one wants to be a market darling,” an art dealer once told me. It’s the art world equivalent of a one-hit wonder, where sudden stardom and outsize demand for a particularly hot artist creates intense pressure, and has the potential to create unsustainable spikes in his or her market and career. Notwithstanding the fact that the […]

Why Bruce Nauman’s Persistent Market Defies Trophy Hunters

Bruce Nauman is considered a towering and influential figure in postwar American art. His reputation as a master of minimalist and conceptual art was cemented more than four decades ago when he was first showing with Leo Castelli in New York and in important European shows like “When Attitudes Become Form,” at the Kunsthalle Bern […]

7 Reasons Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World

Amid the seemingly endless schedule of international art fairs that take place around the world each year, all art world eyes will be on Seattle this week, where the inaugural Seattle Art Fair, opens on Thursday July 30 and runs through August 2. Previous attempts at organizing fairs here have never really gotten off the […]

Yoko Ono’s Market Is A Mystery Despite Her Superstar Art World Status

After 40 years of neglect from critics and abuse from Beatles fans, Yoko Ono, over the past decade, has risen to an almost untouchable position in the art world. In her 2000 show at New York’s Japan Society, Michael Kimmelman writing for the New York Times called her “a mischievous, wry conceptual artist with a […]

How To Get a Coveted VIP Card for Art Basel

Let’s face it, in today’s cutthroat contemporary art market, it’s not enough that you’re a millionaire, or even a billionaire, when it comes to collecting art for your homes. These days it’s all about access. Whether you are sitting in the auction salesroom fighting for an eight-figure Francis Bacon or jetting off to Switzerland for next week’s […]