McMillan has a range of experience in the art market. Most recently, she founded her itinerant gallery and consultancy company, Saint George Projects, which has staged exhibitions for artists like Alvaro Barrington and Henri Paul Broyard in New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Berlin, and elsewhere.

Prior to that, she was a director at David Zwirner for a year, and worked at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise for four years, where she was also a director. She has also worked at Alexander Gray Associates and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“I am honored to join The Armory Show at this important moment in the fair’s history,” said McMillan said in statement. “My goal is to empower collectors and emphasize the fair’s role as a platform for artists, galleries and art enthusiasts. The Armory Show has long been celebrated as a foundational fair for New York and the US art market. I look forward to building on The Armory Show’s achievements, while also championing new voices and creating opportunities for diverse perspectives in contemporary art.”

McMillan’s appointment is the first major leadership change at the fair since it was acquired by Frieze in 2023. The fair’s next edition is scheduled to run in early September. Marking its 30th anniversary this year, the upcoming edition announced its exhibitor list last month. Frieze’s director of fairs, Kristell Chadé, and its Americas director, Christine Messineo, were in charge during the application process.

In a statement, Chadé said, “We are thrilled to welcome Kyla McMillan as Director of The Armory Show. Her wide-ranging experience and creative drive will undoubtedly take the fair to new heights, fostering an inclusive and dynamic environment. Her past projects have demonstrated a talent for reaching new audiences and forging meaningful connections with art.”

The 2024 edition of the fair will be the first to be led by Bridget Finn, a former gallerist who was hired to serve as the fair’s director last year. This year’s figure is slightly above the 277 galleries that took part in the marquee US fair last year; the 2022 edition also hosted 283 exhibitors.

The fair will also include 32 first-time exhibitors, the biggest grouping of newcomers to a Miami Beach fair since 2008. Among those are Gallery Wendi Norris, ILY2, Fabian Lang, Dastan Gallery, Gallery Baton, Pearl Lam Galleries, Catinca Tabacaru, Gallery Nosco, Gajah Gallery, and Sweetwater. While participating galleries come from 34 countries and territories, the fair said that around two-thirds are from the Americas.  

Among the blue-chip exhibitors are Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace, David Zwirner, Blum, Sadie Coles HQ, Paula Cooper Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch, Gladstone Gallery, David Kordansky Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Galerie Lelong & Co., Victoria Miro, Mnuchin Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac, and Jack Shainman.

Additionally, 25 galleries will show in the fair’s main Galleries section for the first time. Of those, 21 of them are doing so after previously participating in a different section; they include Instituto de Visión, Edel Assanti, Daniel Faria Gallery, Central Fine, and Afriart Gallery and Rele Gallery, who will share a booth. Several of these galleries benefit from the introduction of a minimum-size booth option.

In a statement, Finn said, “It was incredibly important that we carve out a more equitable path to participation for small and mid-sized galleries entering the main sector of this show, and the proof is in the extraordinary number of newcomers joining this edition. We remain super agile and attuned to the changing and individual needs of our galleries and their artists, and committed to creating an absolutely cannot-miss experience for them and for collectors, museums and foundations, major cultural partners, and visitors from Miami Beach and around the world.”

In addition to the main Galleries section, the fair will also include five additional sections: Nova, for work made in the past three years; Positions, for solo showcases of emerging artists; Survey, for presentations of work made before 2000; Kabinett, for presentations within a main booth; and Meridians, for large-scale works, which this year is curated Yasmil Raymond, the outgoing director of Portikus. Details on the latter two sections will be announced at a later date. This year’s edition will also see the return of the fair’s Conversations program, which will be organized by writer Kimberly Bradley.

Galleries in the Nova section include Charles Moffett, Kendra Jayne Patrick, Pequod Co., Silverlens, Soft Opening, Gallery Vacany, and Welancora. Positions includes Sebastian Gladstone, Gordon Robichaux, Gypsum Gallery, Peana, Proyectos Ultravioleta, and Verve. And Survey will feature Luis De Jesus, Charlie James Gallery, Lyles & King, PKM Gallery, and Ryan Lee.

“We have an exceptional roster of galleries participating in our Miami Beach show this year, coming from all corners of the Americas, Europe, and Asia,” Finn said. “The proposals in Nova, Positions, and Survey are of exceptional quality and ambition, and it’s clear that galleries in the main sector will not be holding back come December, bringing their best of the best to this all-important fair in the world’s leading art market.”

Galleries

Nova

*Espacio Valverde and Fabian Lang will share a booth.

Positions

Survey

While the VIP preview Thursday of Tokyo Gendai’s second edition brought healthy buzz—along with major collectors like Takeo Obayashi, Shunji and Asako Oketa, Yoshiko Mori, Jenny Wang and Simian Wang—the atmosphere on Friday was more subdued. ARTnews took the opportunity to ask galleries how their sales had been so far.

Two brand-name galleries with Tokyo branches saw robust sales. By the middle of day two, mega-gallery Pace Gallery, a newcomer to the fair that did a soft opening for its new Tokyo space this week, either sold or had on strong reserve all eight works they were showing by Robert Longo, at prices ranging from $90,000 to $750,000. (All the works were going to local collections.) Meanwhile, Los Angeles’s BLUM, which has spaces in New York and Tokyo, sold a Ha Chong-Hyun painting for $250,000, a work on paper by Yoshitomo Nara for $180,000, a Kenjiro Okazaki painting for $160,000, and ceramics by Kazunori Hamana and Yuji Ueda for $20,000 each, among other pieces.

Tokyo’s ShugoArts sold two Lee Kit works, priced in the range of $30,000. Another Tokyo gallery, Anomaly, had sold out almost all of their works by Yusuke Asai, though the gallery declined to give prices.

BLUM founder Tim Blum told ARTNews that the fair seemed more or less the same as last year, but Taku Sato, director of Tokyo gallery Parcel, another returnee to the fair, had a less positive impression. “Compared to last year, as my expectations were not that high, I think so far [the second edition] is good,” Sato said. “However, I do feel there were more people from abroad last year than this year, and more institutional curators last year.” Parcel is showing large works by Tomonari Hashimoto. So far, numerous smaller pieces by Hashimoto have sold, ranging from $3,000 to $5,000, some going into notable private collections in Japan.

There tend not to be million-dollar plus artworks at Tokyo Gendai. The $750,000 Longo at Pace’s booth appeared to represent the upper end of things. Most top works were selling in the up-to-$300,000 range, as is the case for all of Art Assembly’s fairs, co-founder Magnus Renfrew told ARTnews on Friday. (For what it’s worth, he pointed out, although fairs like Art Basel Hong Kong may have works that go higher in price, most works that sell tend to be in a similar same range.)

Renfrew cautioned against taking any sales results thus far as the final word: there is a strong work ethic in Japan, and for that reason many collectors tend to come to the fair, and buy, on the weekend.

“There’s a lot of collectors that won’t come during the week who will come on Saturday and Sunday. And we know someone personally who are doing that,” he said. According to conversations Renfrew said he was having with participating galleries, “most of them have been having good conversations and many have sold artworks,” though results among them were uneven, with some still awaiting sales.

One noted collector missing from the festivities was young mega-collector Yusaku Maezawa, who, according to dealers, usually likes to confirm his purchases in person. The director of his foundation was, however, one of the first to arrive when the fair opened its VIP preview on Thursday.

While some have hoped that a weak yen right now might encourage foreign collectors to travel, as ARTnews Karen K. Ho reported earlier this week, there was not a large contingent of collectors from the United States or Europe. However, that’s not really this fair’s brief. Renfrew is more focused on attracting collectors from the region. He did, however, say, “In an ideal world, we would want to be able to attract a wider audience from around the world, and I think that there could be the potential to do that.”

The July date for the fair, he admitted, when weather in Tokyo is extremely hot and humid, is a hindrance and spring and autumn tend to be more attractive for US and European visitors. (For what it’s worth, the weather right now isn’t the only obstacle. There are events in more attractive climes. Paris’s Almine Rech may be manning a booth in Tokyo, but the gallery opened a branch in Monaco’s Carré d’Or district, and is participating in the sixth edition of Monaco Art Week, which runs July 2 to July 7, precisely the same dates as Tokyo Gendai.)

“The priority for us is to ensure that we’re delivering a really strong Japanese audience of existing collectors in the art community and curators and museum directors, then to be broaden the audience within Japan through this kind of focal point,” Renfrew said. “And then regional attendance, from the core constituencies within the natural catchment area, which is mainland China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.  Then we build up from there.”

When I brought up the recent changes in the art market in the West, where speculators are fleeing as prices for young hot artists correct, Renfew said, “We’re really keen to try and build the market for the long term. We’re not interested in a flash in the pan.” He then pointed to the wild speculation in Chinese art in 2006-2008.

“There was an absence of a curatorial critical framework to provide validation [for artworks with] high prices and were on the cover of auction catalogues. After the correction in the Chinese contemporary art market, people became much more aware of that [vacuum].”

Then came Art HK, of which Renfrew was the first director, from 2007 to 2012, which then became Art Basel Hong Kong, and with it a growth in serious institutions like Hong Kong’s M+. “The first phase was that the fair in Hong Kong was the focal point, with a wide catchment area that required all of the different constituencies [across Asia] to come in, and to have a market that was big enough to sustain the scale and ambition that we set up there.”

Now, Renfrew said, “we’re in a new phase of the market in Asia, [where] each of those constituencies has grown, and warrants a fair of its own.”

One question on dealers’ minds as Renfew’s new group of fairs—Tokyo Gendai, Art SG in Singapore, and Taipei Dangdai in Taiwan—matures is how he is connecting them, for instance, by encouraging cross-visitorship. He said that while it is crucial that the fairs maintain their own identity, “One of the interesting things for us is how we will be able to cross promote and cross pollinate, particularly within our VIP network, I think that the fact that we’d have three fairs a year where we’re gaining data for each means that we’re rapidly expanding our VIP database throughout Asia.”

“Deep roots [in each individual location] and broad branches [across the region], means that we’re in a unique position,” he added.

Having three fairs each year, Renfrew said, enables him to iterate quickly. “We’re able to experiment a little bit with different initiatives and see what works and what doesn’t work. We can kind of we can fail rapidly on things, so there’s some quite good learnings.”

I told Renfrew that one dealer had quipped to me that, while Renfrew was fond of pointing to the sheer amount of wealth in a place like Singapore—i.e. note the number of family investment offices there—that didn’t mean that that the wealthy there are in the habit of buying art. “That’s a valid point,” Renfrew said. “Just because there’s money that does not necessarily translate into sales.” His riposte, however, is that you nevertheless need to go where the money is. “No money equals no sales.”

Fair enough.

If one were to go by the first-day sales results of last month’s Art Basel, one might come away with the impression that the fair was a relative success. For the megas, that might be true. David Zwirner started the fair by selling a Joan Mitchell diptych for $20 million, and Hauser & Wirth sold its most expensive offering, a $16 million Arshile Gorky work, despite noticing a slowed pace. By the end of the fair, Pace had sold its star Agnes Martin painting for a reported $14 million. 

But upstairs at the fair, where smaller and mid-size galleries typically reside, rumors were flying that delicate changes in the market weather were being more acutely felt. These dealers are facing thinner margins, rising shipping and material costs, inflation, and more cautious collectors. The risk, as dealer René-Julien Praz recently told Le Quotidien de l’Art, is “enormous.” Praz recently closed his gallery, the Paris- and Los Angeles–based Praz-Delavallade; he said the high total cost for exhibiting in the international fair circuit contributed to the decision. 

Transportation, insurance, on-site personnel, and booth fees all add up. “During one participation at Art Basel Miami, we left Florida with an $80,000 deficit,” he told Le Quotidien de l’Art. “It’s like playing Russian roulette every time.”

Now, a month on from the fair, with the art calendar’s summer respite in full swing, ARTnews spoke with several small and medium-size galleries, most of whom were at Art Basel, and one at Liste, to discuss the current market. 

None of the galleries found the most recent Art Basel to be a bust, with top-line impressions including “surprisingly well,” “relieved,” “better than expected,” and “good sales and a general positive sensation.” One gallery, Paris’s Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, went so far as to say it was “one of our best” fair outings. (However, that assessment by founder Jocelyn Wolff came with the caveat that the gallery has “never sold out an exhibition at the gallery or a booth at the fair.”)

And yet, there was a definite sense among dealers that the market is in a far different place from 2019, or even from the first fair after the start of the pandemic. As Alex Mor, cofounder of Mor Charpentier (of Paris and Bogotá), told ARTnews, “Art Basel remains the most prestigious fair, where we bring the best works, and where you have connections with people that you usually don’t connect with … But I think the level and the volume has decreased.”

Dealers said the sales activity at Basel and Liste was not uniform. Some reported making numerous sales on the first day, as has been typical, while others described a move further away from the “one-day fair,” where sales mostly happen during the opening, and offer a good indication of how the fair will go from there. It should be noted that smaller galleries tended to say they have traditionally made sales through the week at Art Basel, with the first day setting the tone. Now, collectors are putting down holds and dealers are selling unevenly through the weekend.

That slower atmosphere tracks, dealers said, with an “overall slowdown” in the market over the last six months to a year. “Collectors are being very discerning, which I think is a good thing, but it’s gone back to a slower pace that was very over-accelerated since Covid,” Chicago-based dealer Monique Meloche told ARTnews. “Covid happened and the market went crazy, but that wasn’t real. That pace can’t be maintained.”

To Wolff, the slowdown is less about a lack of collectors willing to buy, but rather comes down to a “pricing-trust issue.” 

Wolff traced this to a combination of high primary prices for some mid-career artists on fast tracks, while the value that institutions have typically lent to contemporary artists “is weaker than before.” Museums’ “stamp of approval is being challenged,” and is “less readable” today, he said, particularly for collectors less interested in certain identity-themed works popular in institutional exhibitions. 

“There was always a little gap between the values promoted by the art market and the values promoted by the museum,” said Wolff. “But it is a little more complex today and prices are higher.”

For these smaller and mid-size galleries, however, the slowdown makes the calculus around fairs trickier, particularly when you consider the overhead for a fair. As multiple dealers told ARTnews, shipping, framing, storage, and other overhead costs have risen dramatically, with Meloche suggesting that such costs are “at least 50 percent higher” than pre-Covid. Those costs are felt by collectors too, who Meloche said continue to gravitate toward paintings, due to the efficacy in those costs. 

“I don’t complain,” José Kuri, cofounder of Kurimanzutto (of Mexico City and New York), told ARTnews of Art Basel. “We did well, but it’s true that the shipping on average costs are way higher, than two, three years ago, and so the margins are way lower. So, you can feel that.”

Those issues are especially pronounced for galleries hailing from the Global South. As Catalina Casas, founder of Bogotá gallery Casas Riegner, told ARTnews, South American galleries need to do the fairs “because that activates our market, in a way,” but the costs make it difficult to compete. 

“But what I think the art world needs to think about, if they want us to survive, is: under what conditions are we going to compete?” Casas said. “We are basically participating under the same conditions of the galleries who occupy the upper side of the market, where I would have to sell my whole booth to amount to one work in a major gallery.”

At the fair, which she described as better than last year, the gallery presented works ranging from $7,000 to $95,000. But it’s hard to totally evaluate this year’s performance when deals started at the fair are still being negotiated.

Always looming above the market in recent years, and especially over the last 12 months, has been geopolitics, which all the dealers agreed have resulted in collectors being cautious and, in some cases, not traveling at all. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the turbulence in elections across the US and Europe, among other issues, have created “a climate of uncertainty,” according to Kuri.

“People are holding onto their assets, not spending in the way it used to be,” Kuri said. “Everyone’s waiting to see what will happen, so this might create a tighter market, so it’s not as liquid as it was in the last couple of years.”

While the tight market has led some to conclude that collectors are looking for “safer,” more established names, all the gallerists interviewed emphasized staying the course with their unique programs, and even taking on more risk. 

Mor Charpentier, for example, is set to open a new Paris space in the Marais district in October timed to Art Basel’s French fair that is double the size of their current location. The gallery is also investing in its residency program in Colombia. Jochen Meyer, cofounder of Berlin’s Meyer Riegger, has opened a new gallery in Seoul in lieu of participating in multiple Asian fairs each year, with the hope that a permanent space helps build long-term relationships in Korea and Asia more generally. Barcelona’s Bombon Projects has continued to develop its summer space opened in collaboration with Prats Nogueras Blanchard (in Barcelona and Madrid) in the Spanish countryside during Covid.

“It is true that fairs are necessary, they give you visibility and sales, especially if you come from a place like Barcelona that is not in the center of the art world, but this collaborative spirit that we experienced during Covid in which you could share energies, artists, collectors and costs is definitely something to continue bearing in mind,” the gallery told ARTnews in an email.

For Meloche, staying the course means continuing to move slowly and steadily with their artists, and working harder to meet collectors where they are at, whether visiting them in their homes, having more serious in-depth conversations about an artist’s work and practice, and collaborating with other galleries to sell together. 

“It’s the moment also that you have to insist on who you are,” Kuri of Kurimanzutto said. “You cannot change your face at this moment or just go with the market. I think that will be very harmful for the artists.”

Bank of America Private Bank managing director Joshua Greenberg said that while there has been a “massive depreciation” in the yen over the last three or four years, the weak currency could specifically play a role in sales of moderately priced art, which he defined as work valued at between $100,000 and $250,000.

“Collectors are coming from the US and Europe to get exposure to that art,” he said. “We think that the value of their currency relative to the yen at this fair could have a modest impact.”

Given the location of Tokyo Gendai, Bank of America Private Bank senior vice president and head of art sales Drew Watson said he didn’t know of many Americans attending the fair this year, likely because of its geographic location. But, he said, the weak currency would only be a positive for foreign buyers. “People feel like they have more money or more purchasing power, making them more likely to make large, discretionary purchases on assets like art,” Watson told ARTnews. “I think that that component can’t really can’t be ignored.”

One way dealers are hoping to lure Americans is by pricing art in US dollars, not in yen. Ceysson & Bénétière director Maelle Ebelle told ARTnews that the gallery’s solo presentation of South Korean artist Nam Tchun-Mo would be priced in US dollars. It’s also worth noting the three top-selling blue-chip Japanese artists—Yoshitomo Nara, Yayoi Kusama, and Takashi Murakami—are also represented by the major galleries Pace, David Zwirner, and Perrotin, who price their wares in US dollars.

Ebelle said it was a “sensitive time” for the international market, noting the latest Art Basel UBS report, as well as the national elections in the United States and France. “Our strategy is to keep moving forward internationally and keep up with defending and presenting our artists in the world,” she wrote in an email to ARTnews.

Art adviser and art dealer Arushi Kapoor said that currency fluctuations definitely affect the buying and selling decisions of her clients. “Ten cents makes a huge difference, especially for works over $1 million,” she told ARTnews.

A recent notable example was the sale of Alberto Giacometti’s Femme Leoni (1958), highlighted by former Philips chairman David C. Norman in a post on Instagram. Femme Leoni sold at Christie’s this May for $22.2 million, $3.3 million less than when it sold at Sotheby’s in October 2020 for $25.9 million. Artnet reported the consigner of Femme Leoni was Yusaku Maezawa. If it was indeed a Japanese collector like him who consigned the work, they might have made money in the process.

In October 2020, $1 was equal to 105 yen. Right now, $1 is equal to 161 yen. This means that, even though the sale resulted in a drop in value, the Giacometti work’s value has climbed by nearly 800 million yen, if the seller was indeed Maezawa.

Kapoor strongly recommended that collectors looking to similarly take advantage of currency fluctuations time them correctly and speak with a banker first. “It take about two weeks for a payment to go out,” she said.

Ultimately, collectors with the largest means will continue to acquire new works despite currency in fluctuations or geopolitical events. “Art collectors are always going to just buy art,” Art adviser Dane Jensen told ARTnews. “There’s still a lot of money at the top—it’s just about whether they feel like spending it.”

It turns out there’s room in collectors’ bellies for artists born in the eighties and nineties. The auction’s 133 lots (six were withdrawn before bidding started) totaled $13.1 million, shy of its $16.6 million high estimate, and 92.7 percent of lots sold by value.

Katharine Arnold, Christie’s head of post-war and contemporary art, told ARTnews after the auction that she was “very happy” with the result and that it justified the house’s move to scrap its evening sale. “We all said after the pandemic, let’s do everything with more purpose, let’s be more strategic, let’s not have as many fairs and auctions, and now we’re actually trying to do that with purpose and this week’s results tell me we’re right,” she said.

Arnold was alluding to Sotheby’s middling evening auction on Tuesday. When I said that Sotheby’s chairman of Europe and co-head of impressionist and modern art worldwide Helena Newman told ARTnews she was “pleased” with the sale, Arnold added wryly, “Pleased it was over.”

Post-War to Present got off to an electric start with the first three lots blowing their estimates out of the water. Daisy Parris’ (b.1993) Pink At Night realized over $40,000 (high estimate $10,000), Alia Ahmad’s (b.1996) Windflower hammered just south of $60,000 (high estimate $20,000), and Icon by Clementine Keith-Roach (b.1984) sold for more than double its high estimate at $36,500. Things were looking up. When Lot 6, Ben Sledsens’ (b.1991) Girl in a Tree, went for $290,000 (high estimate $150,000), the art market correction narrative’s grip loosened, just a little.

“Some of the contemporary pictures did extremely well today,” Arnold said. “[The sale included] several contemporary artists who have huge followings, and usually it’s the combination of really good estimates and something exciting happening in each artist’s market, like a show or new dealership, that propels bidding.”

The pace faded somewhat after that, but Lot 18 – I Rest Through Your Peace by Sophia Loeb’s (b.1997) – sold for ten-times its high estimate, sending a ripple of excitement through the room.

During the action, Isaac Simon, the founder and director of South Parade gallery in central London, which deals in emerging artists, told ARTnews via WhatsApp that he’s “seen a continued hunger from the market to engage with early and emerging artists.” 

There was no question on Thursday that the younger artists showed up the more seasoned names. Antony Gormley (SMALL VISE III) hammered for $415,000, a David Hockney iPad drawing sold well for $200,000 (The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire), and an untitled Yoshitomo Nara went for almost $320,000. All three artworks flew past their estimates, while Gerard Richter, Philip Guston, and Christo were all pretty quiet.

Faring less well was Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, whose 5am, Cadiz (2009) netted a shade under its low estimate at $716,000 at Christie’s. At Phillips, her 2022 work Minotaur to Matador sold for $1.2 million, a bit above its 1.14 million low estimate.

“The auction performed incredibly strongly,” Christie’s head of impressionist and modern art Keith Gill told ARTnews after the gavel came down for the final time. When asked about the reasoning for erasing the house’s evening sale, he replied, “We now see June as a moment in the calendar that is uniquely British and has crossover appeal. The Vivienne Westwood auction on Tuesday was an extremely strong result and we just closed our Marc Chagall sale, which achieved quadruple its estimate, so it shows we are thinking about June in the right way. Post-War to Present definitely benefited from the Westwood footfall.”

I put the same question to Gill as I did Sotheby’s senior specialist of contemporary art, Tom Eddison, on Tuesday night – does he think London’s power status is at risk as the big three houses look increasingly towards Asia? 

“It’s fear-mongering and it’s a very easy narrative,” he said. “People have been trying to think about London negatively since Brexit, to be frank, but the reality is that we have had stronger European buying and bidding than ever before recently, and we feel that what we’re doing will actually make the London sales appear even stronger globally. By changing the emphasis to two very strong seasons with very good quality, it will deliver the right understanding and perception of London’s place in the global art market. We are investing in Hong Kong, but this is not at the expense of London, it is complimenting London.”

A ten-minute walk across Mayfair towards Grosvenor Square, Phillips was hosting its modern and contemporary art day and evening sale. Before proceedings kicked off, the house’s head of 20th century and contemporary art, Europe, Olivia Thornton, told ARTnews, “We made a strategic decision to align with Hong Kong and New York and hold two marquee sales a year in London, in March and October. However, June is still very much an important time in the cultural calendar and we are pleased to hold a new format sale.”

Was she concerned given Sotheby’s tepid evening result going into Thursday? “We are experiencing a considered market that is becoming more selective in its acquisitions,” she said. “Yet the appetite for exceptional quality and exciting contemporary artists remains as strong as ever.”

A “considered market” is rhetoric for more frugal collectors and this was evident at close of play when the sale crossed the line at $16.5 million, which was near its low estimate of $14.5 million (high estimate $21.5 million). Ninety-four of 132 lots sold. George Condo’s Green and Purple Head Composition hammered for $1,284,122 (just south of its high estimate) and Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup edged past $1 million (high estimate $820,000).

At close of play, Thornton said, “The enthusiasm we have seen over the past few weeks in London carried into the saleroom today, which included participation from nearly 50 countries spanning four continents.”

The inaugural outing will be a solo show for New York–based artist Derrick Adams at the APMA Cabinet, a nearly 2,000-square-foot, ground-level project space in the headquarters of Amorepacific, the cosmetics company owned by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Suh Kyung-bae. The exhibition will run September 3 to October 12.

This isn’t the first time Amorepacific has collaborated with a mega-gallery in Seoul. When Pace opened its expanded Seoul location in 2022, in tandem with the first edition of Frieze Seoul, it did so with a teahouse by Osulloc, one of Amorepacific’s subsidiaries.  

Last August, Gagosian hired Jiyoung Lee to lead its operations in South Korea. Lee had previously worked in similar capacities for Western galleries like Sprüth Magers and Esther Schipper.

For the exhibition, titled “The Strip,” Adams will debut new works showing mannequin heads in display windows at beauty shops that are related to his earlier series, “Style Variations,” featuring mannequins with brightly colored wigs set against stark white backgrounds. “I’m always picking subjects that are activated by my interest in drawing in the viewer,” Adams told ARTnews in 2021.

In a statement, Gagosian senior director Nick Simunovic said, “It’s a tremendous honor for Gagosian to be the first gallery to program this extraordinary space at Amorepacific’s headquarters. The venue is an ideal location to celebrate Derrick Adams’s first exhibition in Korea and to share his work with such an important community of art enthusiasts and collectors.”

Before Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale in London on Tuesday, the omens weren’t good. There was a stuttering UK economy, an impending election, and a cooling art market. Plus, the headline lot, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict, was listed with a $20 million–$25 million estimate, a noticeable drop from the $30 million estimate Christie’s gave the piece in 2022 before it was withdrawn. Very few were holding out for a blockbuster auction. The result, a shade over $105 million (including buyer’s premium) and $20 million short of the high estimate, was received with determined sanguinity by the top brass.

Were they relieved? Probably a little. 

The outcome—similar to that of Sotheby’s last London contemporary evening sale, in March—won’t send the house spiraling into despair amid ongoing talk of the art market “correction.” Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s vice chairman of global fine arts, told ARTnews that the result was “solid” but said the auction was “difficult to put together” because “people are short on reasons to sell at the moment.” People were short on impetus to spend big as well, relatively speaking. 

The hot, humid weather—about 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the British capital—didn’t exactly fry the bidding. Several lots edged past their low estimate, largely thanks to the patience of auctioneers Oliver Barker and Helen Newman. By the time Lot 27, a landscape by Vilhelm Hammershøi that eventually hammered for $834,669, came up for sale, a heckler (reportedly veteran columnist Danny Katz of the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald) shouted, “Put the hammer down!” Newman implored, “But she came all the way from Asia!”

Ninety percent of the lots sold, a figure that’s on par with what Sotheby’s saw in New York during its marquee sales. The aforementioned Basquiat triptych prevailed, selling for $20.2 million and making it the evening’s top lot. Three works by Tamara de Lempicka, Loie Hollowell, and Emily Kam Kngwarray were withdrawn, while five passed after failing to meet their reserve, including an untitled 1958 Robert Rauschenberg piece, estimated at $440,000 to $570,000. 

Works owned by the late Chicago collector Ralph I. Goldenberg injected more than $16 million into the total. Cy Twombly’s Formian Dreams + Actuality (1983) doubled its estimate, at $3.11 million. Meanwhile, his By the Ionian Sea (1988) went for $2.73 million, nearly double its high estimate of $1.5 million.

“Some very solid, efficient results, and some great surprises,” Tom Eddison, Sotheby’s senior specialist of contemporary art, told ARTnews. “There was a depth of bidding on the Goldenberg collection that truly captivated us internally and UK dealers and collectors alike.”

In view of the softer market and the big three houses’ tilt toward Asia, did Eddison think London’s status was at risk? “No, I don’t agree with that notion. We are very passionate about London being a great platform. We had 35 different countries bidding tonight. Certainly, for Sotheby’s, London still remains the global hub for people coming to buy. We are resolute.”

Contemporary specialist Antonia Gardner echoed his sentiment. “Given that we just had a $100 million plus sale here tonight, it doesn’t feel like we are losing our way,” she said.

London dealers at both ends of the game, meanwhile, were generally upbeat. Elliot McDonald, Pace Gallery London’s senior vice president, told ARTnews in an email before the auction, “We’re experiencing a market that’s becoming more selective in its acquisitions, yet the appetite for exceptional quality and exciting contemporary artists remains as strong as ever.” He pointed out that Pace sold major works by Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Agnes Martin, and Kngwarray at Art Basel earlier this month. “Going in [to Basel], there were some uncertainties, but the very strong sales at our booth demonstrated the enduring vigor and enthusiasm in today’s art market.”

McDonald was optimistic for the future too, adding, “The ongoing stability we’ve observed in the auctions offers reassuring evidence that the broader ecosystem is thriving.”

Will Hainsworth, the cofounder and director of recently opened Palmer Gallery, located near London’s Edgware Road and dealing in emerging artists, told ARTnews that at his end of the market, “things seem strong.” 

“There’s a lot of doom-mongering going on, perhaps some of it justified by poor auction results. When you’re working with emerging artists the price points are accessible for a range of collectors and the enthusiasm to collect is definitely there,” he said in an email pre-sale. “London’s emerging gallery scene is a very exciting place at the moment—there are people doing interesting, risky things and, as ever, there are people on hand to support that.”

Back at the auction, a trio of lots by Alberto Giacometti incited a flurry of bidding, with the penultimate lot, Figure, dite cubiste I (ca. 1926), going for $2.28 million on a $884,000–$1.26 million estimate. Lot 37, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bouquet de Iilas (1878), sparked a 10-minute bidding war. When it hammered for double its high estimate at $8.7 million, the crowd cheered and whistled, perhaps a little sardonically. Aside from Giacometti’s bronze sculpture, the excitement faded soon after. When Lot 38 rolled around, the Baer Faxt’s Josh Baer walked past and said the night “wasn’t exactly a home run” for Sotheby’s. Melanie Gerlis, the Financial Times’ art market columnist, also said she felt the sale was “flat.”

In the press room at the end of the evening, Newman, the chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and co-head of Impressionist and modern art worldwide, said she was far from disappointed. “I’m actually pleased with the result,” she told ARTnews enthusiastically. “We saw a depth of bidding on such a complete range of works, including the red Lucio Fontana [Concetto spaziale, Attese, from 1966, which sold for $4.3 million] to Zdeněk Sýkora’s first appearance at an evening sale [Linie Nr.94, from 1992, which sold for $950,000].”

Sotheby’s modern and contemporary art day sales follow on Wednesday, the latter featuring another tranche of works from the Goldenberg collection. Alex Katz’s Danielle (2020) and Peter Doig’s Border Country (1999) are both estimated at $630,000–$880,000, and Andy Warhol’s 1980 portrait of Joseph Beuys is valued at $500,000–$750,000.

Contemporary sales at Phillips and Christie’s are set for Thursday, with top lots at the former including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2022 painting Minotaur To Matador (estimate $1.1–$1.9 million) and George Condo’s Green and Purple Head Composition (estimate $884,000–$1.1 million). The Christie’s sale is also led by a Yiadom-Boakye work, 5am Cadiz, with an estimate of  $758,000-$1 million.

More than half of this year’s exhibiting galleries will present solo booths at the fair, with highlights including Martha Jackson Jarvis at Susan Inglett Gallery, Tina Barney at Kasmin, Billie Zangewa at Lehmann Maupin, Lee ShinJa at Tina Kim Gallery, and Chase Hall at Pace Prints. First-time exhibitors include Canada, Hales Gallery, Charles Moffett, and Timothy Taylor.

For its 36th edition, the Art Show will introduce two new programs. The first is called “Spotlight On…” that will focus on a different city each year, with the inaugural spotlight being on Houston. As part of this initiative, the fair will organize a panel and a series of video interviews exploring the city’s art scene. At the fair, four Houston-based galleries will have booths: Inman Gallery, McClain Gallery, Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, and Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino.

The fair will also partner with the professional curators organization AAMC Foundation to host a convening on the topic of “Leadership Now” in the curatorial field. The convening will bring together some 60 curators from nonprofits for a series of closed-doors discussion. (A similar curatorial initiative has long been a hallmark of the Expo Chicago fair.)

In a statement, dealer Anthony Meier, the ADAA’s president, said, “The intimate environment created by The Art Show in the Park Avenue Armory is unparalleled, as it offers a unique platform for dealers to take risks they might not consider at other fairs: presenting solo exhibitions by less established or underknown artists and thoughtfully curated group exhibitions that shed new light on a historical moment or artistic movement.”

The full exhibitor list follows below.

ACA Galleries (New York, NY)
George Adams Gallery (New York, NY)
Peg Alston Fine Arts (New York, NY)
Altman Siegel (San Francisco, CA)
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (New York, NY)
Berggruen Gallery (San Francisco, CA)
Berry Campbell (New York, NY)
Peter Blum Gallery (New York, NY)
Jonathan Boos (New York, NY)
CANADA (New York, NY)
Castelli Gallery (New York, NY)
James Cohan (New York, NY)
Crown Point Press (San Francisco, CA)
DC Moore Gallery (New York, NY)
Tibor de Nagy (New York, NY)
Andrew Edlin Gallery (New York, NY)
Derek Eller Gallery (New York, NY)
Eric Firestone Gallery (New York, NY & East Hampton, NY)
Debra Force Fine Art, Inc. (New York, NY)
Forum Gallery (New York, NY)
Peter Freeman, Inc. (New York, NY)
James Fuentes (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
GAVLAK (Los Angeles, CA & Palm Beach, FL)
Hales Gallery (New York, NY)
Hirschl & Adler Modern (New York, NY)
Nancy Hoffman Gallery (New York, NY)
Hosfelt Gallery (San Francisco, CA)
Susan Inglett Gallery (New York, NY)
Inman Gallery (Houston, TX)
Kasmin (New York, NY)
June Kelly Gallery (New York, NY)
Anton Kern Gallery (New York, NY)
Tina Kim Gallery (New York, NY)
Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles, CA)
Krakow Witkin Gallery (Boston, MA)
Kraushaar Galleries (New York, NY)
Greg Kucera Gallery (Seattle, WA)
Lehmann Maupin (New York, NY)
Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York, NY)
Locks Gallery (Philadelphia, PA)
Luxembourg + Co. (New York, NY)
Barbara Mathes Gallery (New York, NY)
McClain Gallery (Houston, TX)
Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY)
Anthony Meier (Mill Valley, CA)
Charles Moffett (New York, NY)
Nazarian / Curcio (Los Angeles, CA)
Jill Newhouse Gallery (New York, NY)
Ortuzar Projects (New York, NY)
P·P·O·W (New York, NY)
Pace Prints (New York, NY)
Franklin Parrasch Gallery (New York, NY)
Paulson Fontaine Press (Berkeley, CA)
Josh Pazda Hiram Butler (Houston, TX)
Perrotin (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
Petzel (New York, NY)
Almine Rech (New York, NY)
Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York, NY)
Roberts Projects (Los Angeles, CA)
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery (New York, NY)
Mary Ryan Gallery (New York, NY)
Sapar Contemporary (New York, NY)
Schoelkopf Gallery (New York, NY)
Marc Selwyn Fine Art (Beverly Hills, CA)
Susan Sheehan Gallery (New York, NY)
Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino (Houston, TX)
Sperone Westwater (New York, NY)
Timothy Taylor (New York, NY)
Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects (New York, NY)
TOTAH (New York, NY)
Two Palms (New York, NY)
Van Doren Waxter (New York, NY)
Venus Over Manhattan (New York, NY)
Michael Werner (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
Yares Art (New York, NY & Santa Fe, NM & Beverly Hills, CA)