The Hague Convention of 1954 ensures that countries prevent theft and pillage of cultural property during armed conflict, while a protocol to that convention prevents the export of such material, requiring other countries to seize unlawful exports and repatriate them at the end of hostilities.
Over the past decade or so, it's becoming increasingly common for galleries to foot the bill for their artist's projects in Venice and other high-stakes biennials: the cost of making (and shipping) ambitious installations has soared, but budgets have not.
According to recent journalistic reports, totems are on the rise: 'These spiritual sculptures have taken prime position in the art market,' says the Financial Times. Firmly anchored in an otherwise indeterminate space, the totem seems to express a yearning for transcultural commonality.
The case traces back to the 1980s, when the dealer Daniel Wildenstein identified Adolphe Monet Reading in a Garden (1867), a significant early work depicting the artist's father and held by the family of Monet's brother, Léon.
KAWS has shown an uncanny ability to connect with a wide variety of people. Younger buyers clamor for his $50 Uniqlo T-shirts, while trophy-hunting collectors shell out millions for paintings.
Hong Kong's particular and seductive Metabolist city planning is an ode to consumption as a great totalizer of culture, and to contemporary art as merely a niche commodity form among many others.
This first edition book of Shakespearean poems was published by Kelmscott Press, the private press founded by the English designer and author William Morris in 1891. This example is covered in an opulent, bejewelled binding from the renowned London bookbinders Sangorski and Sutcliffe. The decoration, set with mother-of-pearl and more than 100 precious stones, takes inspiration from the sonnets inside.
Hemphill Artworks, the longtime modern and contemporary art gallery and a stalwart of the DC scene, has closed its location in Mount Vernon Square, a sign of the challenges facing art dealers across the country. In an email to collectors and supporters, founder George Hemphill said the gallery will pivot to a different business model, continuing to represent artists and sell work but no longer hosting regular exhibitions. It's the first time Hemphill will be without a storefront in 33 years.
A Rembrandt drawing of a young lion has become artist's most valuable work on paper to sell at auction after it realized a breathtaking $18 million at Sotheby's New York on February 4. The work, Young Lion Resting (ca. 1638-43), which carried a $15 million to $20 million estimate, smashed Rembrandt's $3.7 million auction record for a drawing. Ahead of the sale, it went on view Paris, London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Diriyah, as Sotheby's deepens its presence in Saudi Arabia after staging its first-ever auction in the country last year.
The piece, known as "Tagging Robot," was by an art-shipping firm that extracted an entire section of brick wall from the building at Stillwell and Neptune avenues and transported it to a brewery in Bridgeport, Conn. The Ruocco family, six siblings who own the building, said the sale fetched less than $500,000, with the buyer also covering roughly $75,000 in removal and transport costs.
Jeff Koons is a hit-or-miss artist whose sculptures always give viewers something to talk about. The same isn't true of his paintings, none of which have ever become memorable because there is nothing particularly arresting about them. This doesn't mean that painting is dead, just that his are. A lot of the discourse around his sculptures gets unnecessarily heated, with (often White) critics arguing over whether or not they critique capitalism or celebrate consumerism,
One recent weekday morning, the British painter Peter Doig arrived at a bonded warehouse-a cavernous brick building-about a mile south of the River Thames, but not subject to the import taxes of the United Kingdom. He buzzed through security and entered a windowless white room, where he settled in for a long day. Awaiting him were a series of etching prints that had been brought over from the United States to be signed by Doig before being put up for sale.
"I think the last week is going to bring a lot of confidence back into the market," said Madeline Lissner, Sotheby's global head of fine art and major collections, in an interview with the online magazine Puck in November, after a mood-changing $2.2bn series of Modern and contemporary art auctions in New York. "I'm talking beyond auction, to the landscape of dealers and advisors,"
Much of the macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainty has not gone away, and there is now the added threat that the artificial intelligence (AI) stock market bubble looks ready to burst. Within the art market, the shift in taste towards lower-priced art (plus a few trophies) seems here to stay as collectors nurse the reality that their "investments" in art have not paid off these past ten years or so.
The contraction of the global art market stretched well into 2025, with the challenging macro environment cited as a key reason behind the closures of several prominent businesses. Middle market powerhouses Blum (with locations in Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo) and Clearing (New York, Los Angeles) both shut shop, while stalwart New York dealerships Sperone Westwater, Tilton and Kasmin also announced their closures.
First it was the November evening sales in New York, and this week it was the Miami fairs. It so happens that our Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia is a Miami native who knows the city beyond this once-a-year escapade for art worlders. She was there this week to cut through the BS and see through gimmicks ranging from a revolving library on the beach to Beeple's robodogs of famous men.
A new positive mood at Frieze London. Impressive eight-figure sales at Art Basel Paris. Auctions 30% up at Christie's in London. A record-breaking €90m sale at Sotheby's in Paris. Maurizio Cattelan's $10m gold toilet headlining a much-improved offering at November's marquee sales in New York. For many involved in the business of selling art, this autumn's key trading moments represented a long-awaited upturn in a market that for more than two years has seen sales stifled by geopolitical volatility.
To VIP or not to VIP? The art market is currently caught between two competing dynamics. On one hand, the longtime ultra-wealthy are demanding increasingly exclusive treatment now that it seems everyone (with money) can enjoy the finer things in life. On the other hand, the next wave of the rich, notably younger generations and women, is eschewing the old-school trappings of exclusivity in favour of a more socially-minded approach to luxury.
