THIS WEEK'S HOT TOPIC
It’s rare for an art fair to find itself at the center of political discourse, but that’s exactly what happened at Art Basel Paris last week as the event became a symbolic target in France’s ongoing demonstrations over economic inequality.
Though it was supposed to run through the weekend, Art Basel Paris’s organizers opted to halt the fair at the end of Friday, October 23, citing the safety of participants and guests ahead of planned protests in the French capital. The city was rocked by a wave of demonstrations that led to widespread looting and violence over the previous weekend.
Rumors that the fair may shutter prematurely began early in the week, and were, at first, hard to believe. But by Friday, cultural institutions of all kinds—including the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and many high-profile galleries—had similarly announced plans to close by or on Saturday, October 24.
Did the closure affect the success of the fair or the market writ large? It’s complicated. As is often the case at blue-chip events like Art Basel Paris, the vast majority of business took place over the fair’s first two days—the Avant-Première on Tuesday and the VIP opening on Wednesday—when the premier collectors in attendance did most of their shopping. High-profile galleries reported robust sales on these days, with one dealer likening the action to “drinking from a fire hose.”
If any galleries suffered from the closing, it was the smaller-scale ones—a somewhat ironic twist of fate, given the protests’ focus on the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.
3…THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ART RESTITUTION
1
Though restitution is rare, it's always important to examine an artwork's ownership history. Don't overlook or underestimate a spotty provenance. Foul play can be indicated by unclear or absent information. A famous example is the story of Claude Pissarro's Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain (1897). The painting was used in 1939 by then-owner Lilly Cassirer in exchange for an exit visa out of Nazi Germany. Years later, the renowned Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Madrid purchased the work, and the Cassirer family brought a decades-long lawsuit to court.
2
Rightful ownership and legal ownership are two different things. Say you buy a beautiful painting at a European auction house by a well-regarded early-20th-century artist. You close out the invoice fair and square, have the work shipped to the States, but then it gets stuck at customs. Why? Because it turns out this painting was stripped from a family during World War II, and although you’re the legal owner of the work, they are the rightful owners. In some European jurisdictions, though, the claim of ownership from rightful owners is null if an artwork is held in a collection for a certain number of years.
3
The restitution of an artwork can have a big impact on its market value. If there’s a claim that an artwork has been stolen and it’s coming up at auction, it is extremely taboo to bid on that work. An ongoing restitution claim can make it extremely difficult for an artwork to be worth anything. However, if an ownership dispute can be resolved, the artwork in question can balloon in value. Take Gustav Klimt’s stunning Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907): the painting lived in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna throughout the second half of the 20th century. But after Bloch-Bauer’s niece instigated a long arbitration case in 2006 claiming the painting of her aunt was stolen from her family by the Nazis, the artwork was stuck in limbo. After winning the case, the Bloch-Bauer family went on to sell the painting privately to the late Ronald Lauder for $135 million.
A NUMBER TO KNOW
12
The number of shared booths at last week’s edition of Art Basel Paris. The team-ups encompassed 24 of the event’s 211 exhibitors. Depending on your perspective, they also represent either a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty referendum on the level of collaboration in a gallery sector being pounded by rising costs and uncertainty.
On the upside, splitting the price of a stand at a major art fair—which can cost anywhere between around $10,000 and $250,000 before customizations—is a no-brainer way for dealers to meaningfully reduce their expenses while still participating in a high-profile and potentially lucrative international selling exhibition. If all goes well, it’s also a first step to the types of broader-scale partnerships that several analysts have proposed as the surest path out of the economic torture chamber too many dealers have been trapped inside since the 2023 art market correction hit.
On the downside, however, halving the booth fee does little to defray the considerable costs of travel, lodging, meals, artwork packing/shipping/handling, and a slew of other incidentals required for dealers to sell at any fair away from home. Those costs typically run to tens of thousands of dollars or more. They also guarantee nothing about a dealer’s results once the event actually opens.
Case in point, Art Basel canceled the final two days of its Paris show on Thursday amid fears that another weekend of protests over the city’s underfunded schools and spiraling cost of living could put exhibitors, visitors, artworks, or all three in danger. Although the financial fallout of the decision was yet to be resolved at newsletter time, it nevertheless underscores the high stakes of showing at art fairs in 2026: Even if you find someone to share your buy-in, all it gets you is a cheaper dice roll.
—Tim Schneider / The Gray Market
ASK: ACCESS SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE
ASK: With London and Paris's auctions behind us, do you think there will be more or less at stake in the New York marquee sales than usual? What, if anything, did these earlier sales tell us about what to expect in November?
Josh Baer for NoReserve: The Paris and London auctions do succeed in their mission (Hong Kong, too, usually) of maintaining momentum, and they handle a lot of volume that would be impractical to sell in the New York marquee sales.
There are the occasional trophy works that stand out results-wise (see: Monet at Sotheby's last week), but let's face it, we aren’t just being nationalistic in saying that the marquee sales in November do not need a tailwind from Europe. Remember, the jet stream flies east off the US coast in the air and in the markets.
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