THIS WEEK'S HOT TOPIC
Back to school. Those are words you’re going to hear a lot this week as the art world sheds the summer sand and returns to business as usual. It’s an annual tradition, and yet no one ever seems prepared for the barrage of gallery openings, museum shows, and parties that vie for attention post-Labor Day.
The state of the gallery system—a big topic of discussion over here in the last couple of months—remains a major talking point, though chatter may die down a bit amid the initial fall flurry when adrenaline and excitement are high. And what about the market? The success of the spring auctions has left many feeling cautiously optimistic that the rebound is real.
If we had to bet, the shows most primed to dominate conversation this fall will be the New Museum’s mid-career survey of Arthur Jafa (opening September 24) and the Whitney’s Roy Lichtenstein retrospective (October 11). Expect more on those exhibitions here in the coming weeks. Other museum shows to keep an eye on are Taryn Simon’s rotunda-takeover at the Guggenheim, called “Father Country I Do Love You” (September 18), and the “Art of Manga” (October 3) at the Brooklyn Museum.
New York’s galleries offer an embarrassment of riches too. Lee Bul’s first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth (opening September 10th), Anna Gregor’s “Collected Essays” paintings at D. D. D. D. (September 9th), and Alix Vernet’s air-conditioner sculptures at Chapter NY (September 9th) are among the shows we’re most excited about this month.
Of course these events are just part of the fall sprint, which also includes Frieze London, Art Basel Paris, and the Armory Show in New York, with marquee auctions at each stop along the way. Let us all take a breath before the craziness begins; we might not get another chance to do so until Christmas.
3…THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW YORK ART WORLD AFTER LABOR DAY
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September 9th marks the day that school is officially back in session. Many galleries are using the moment to christen new gallery locations. David Nolan, a longtime stalwart of the Upper East Side, has taken the plunge so many others in the industry have and moved to Tribeca. Now located in the (recently shuttered) Timothy Taylor space on Leonard Street, the gallery will open with a solo show of paintings and drawings from Italian artist Valerio Adami. At the same time, a few blocks up on Walker Street, Ellie Rines Gallery (formerly known as 56 Henry) will open its doors with a show by Christopher K. Ho. Another Lower East Side brick-and-mortar moving to Walker Street is Maxwell Graham Gallery, which is now located in the Chinatown Building Supply location at 72 Walker. The gallery will toast its new space with an exhibition by Michael E. Smith. Elsewhere, Garth Greenan Gallery has picked up from Chelsea and moved to two storefronts on Greene Street.
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Museums are also gearing up for fall openings. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open a major exhibition of work by spouses Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on October 4. Senegalese artist Coumba Samba will make his New York museum debut at the Whitney with an exhibition called “Stars and Stripes,” set to open on September 19, while the newly reopened New Museum will host a mid-career survey of work by Arthur Jafa, called “I Am Tony,” starting September 24.
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Meanwhile, in the auction world: most of the large auction houses are holding their early fall contemporary sales in NYC later this month alongside news that buyer fees are going up. Sotheby’s notably raised buyer’s premiums back in February, with the fee going up to 28% for lots above $2 million, 22% for lots hammering at $2 million up to $8 million, and 15% for any item hammering at $8 million or more. Since September 1, Christie’s has followed suit and enacted the same buyer’s premium structure. Bonhams also recently raised buyer’s premiums across the board for the first time since 2023. Phillips introduced a first-of-its-kind “priority bid” structure, which was rolled out last year. It is now more expensive to shop at auction than in years past. The November auctions are the main event, but these early fall showings are usually a place to find a great work when there’s a bit less attention on the lots.
A NUMBER TO KNOW
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The difference between the number of galleries that have upgraded their real estate and the number of galleries that have downgraded their real estate (or closed for good) in 2026 so far, per analysis by yours truly. All told, we were 38 dealers up and 33 dealers down as of September 4, reinforcing that the sunniest optimists and the gloomiest pessimists are both missing the point by equal amounts—just from opposite directions.
This exercise (an earlier, in-depth version is available here) also illustrates how reductive it can be to evaluate the health of the gallery sector based on the most discussed headlines, like Pace downsizing its London location amid larger cutbacks, or the stalwart New York gallery Lyles & King calling it quits. If it bleeds, it leads.
Meanwhile, less attention gets paid to moves like Lehmann Maupin committing to an ongoing space in London, or rising dealers upgrading from the scrappy Lower East Side to new digs in Tribeca. These doses of positivity aren’t any less important to the bigger picture. They just tend to be less visible and more easily discounted.
I’m not saying the gallery sector or the larger market are uniformly great. But neither one is a flaming catastrophe on the order of, say, the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008-09. Instead, as the fall season roars into the foreground, the business is still stuck somewhere in the middle.
—Tim Schneider / The Gray Market
ASK: ACCESS SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE
ASK: Bonhams recently raised its buyer’s premiums. Are these new percentages in line with those of other auction houses operating at a similar scale, and will the increase affect clients' interest? Why are the percentages higher for smaller price brackets than they are for more expensive purchases? It seems counterintuitive.
Josh Baer for NoReserve: It seems no matter how often the buyers' premium gets raised, the profitability margin is still hard on auction houses.
As an auction house recently made clear to me on a proposal for a collection of works from the low four figures to high six figures, the costs to sell (and ship, hang, catalogue, etc.) are virtually the same, and that's why lower value works require more of the eventual purchase price to be paid by the seller.
That figure can easily get close to 40% after all the fees are calculated. It's a stiff price to pay for a liquidity event. At the super high-end trophy level, on the other hand, this same figure can be relatively quite low.
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