Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 25 2026

The June Art Fair in Basel was cancelled on Sunday, one day before it was due to begin, without any explanation

Jo Lawson-Tancred has combed through the list of participants at Frieze London for Artnet, looking for galleries that are not taking part this year: “Several galleries, including Almine Rech, James Cohan, Sean Kelly, Gathering, Kurimanzutto, and Tina Kim, have opted out this year, making room for newcomers and returning galleries.”

According to a new study, the Austrian art market is larger than is often assumed and a significant economic factor, explains Werner Remm in Artmagazine: “The visual arts in the narrower sense (artists, galleries, museums) generated a gross value added of just over 3.6 billion euros in 2023. Based on data from Statistics Austria, the visual arts sector as a whole generated a gross value added of just under 6.3 billion euros in the same year. This places the sector well above the value added of, for example, the domestic drinks industry (3.5 billion), telecommunications (3 billion) and the paper industry (2.2 billion). The visual arts sector also employs more than 90,000 people – almost as many as the building construction sector and more than all domestic financial service providers combined (69,000 employees). In addition, the Austrian state collected just over 2.8 billion euros in taxes from the visual arts sector in 2023.”

In the Handelsblatt of 12 June, Johannes Wendland interprets the auction results from Grisebach in Berlin as a sign of an upturn: “Berlin is not New York or London – yet the general upward trend on the global auction market has also reached this country, albeit in a somewhat more modest form. The summer auctions at Grisebach have confirmed the resurgent appetite for buying. This applies above all to masterpieces, i.e. lots that represent exceptional quality, a unique history or provenance. Managing Director Daniel von Schacky was pleased to report a turnover of 19 million euros. That is a full 60 per cent above the lower estimate and thus ‘well above our expectations’, as he puts it. And what was particularly striking: ‘Exceptional works sell exceptionally well.’“ As is so often the case, the devil is in the detail and not in the latest press release. Last year’s spring auctions, in fact, brought in 19.5 million euros. And when the top lot brings in a good quarter of the total turnover rather than ten per cent, one would also think that expectations were exceeded.

Christiane Fricke reports on a successful auction in the Handelsblatt of 12 June: “In the late afternoon of 10 June, it became clear at Van Ham in Cologne just how right the Frankfurt banker Jochen Neynaber (1939–2025) was with his statement: ‘Small art is not small. It is great.’ Of the 31 works—all of them small-format—that Markus Eisenbeis auctioned live from the Neynaber collection, not a single lot went unsold. The white gloves presented afterwards and an outstanding result of more than 1.7 million euros were the reward. The lower end of the estimated price range had been 624,000 euros.”

Margaret Carrigan provides a brief update on the Asian auction market at Artnet (possibly behind a paywall). The only growing sub-market is India: “Asia’s fine art auction market generated $2.2 billion in total sales in 2025, down sharply from its $5.4 billion peak in 2021. Meanwhile, lot volume has held steady at roughly 61,000 works sold per year, according to the Artnet Price Database, suggesting that the market is repricing, even as collectors remain active. The average hammer price has more than halved, from $81,000 to $36,000, since 2021. Asia’s five major regions—China, India, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia—have also diverged into distinct market trajectories, with price disparities now at their widest point in a decade.“

Artnews and Artforum are hosting their own gallery weekend in New York. Seriously. Harrison Jacobs has the task of announcing the cross-platform marketing campaign at Artnews: "The upcoming four-day event, set to run from 11 to 14 November, will bring together public programming, neighbourhood walking tours, artist talks, gallery openings and more. Among the highlights are a Midtown hub programmed by ARTnews and sister magazine Art in America, featuring conversations with leading figures in the art world, and ARTnews editor-led tours in each of New York’s top gallery districts, from the Upper East Side to Chinatown. [...] Luke Bahrenburg, President of the Art and Luxury Group at Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of ARTnews and Artforum, called the event an “unprecedented” and “transformative” platform where “deeper dialogues about art and its broader cultural connections can thrive.” And adverts for sale. “You’ve got a lovely gallery there. It would be a shame if we couldn’t include it in our tours.”

Whether the introduction of JPGs is a curse or a blessing, asks Julia Brener Davich in the Financial Times (paywall): “It also became standard for galleries to send out previews of the works they would be showing before a fair even started, not only eliminating the 11am stampede of excited collectors, but, for some, the desire to attend a fair at all. Now Art Basel is trying to “put the genie back in the bottle”, says [Friedrich] Petzel, with its Basel Exclusive programme, which encourages participating dealers to withhold at least one work from the previews they share with clients beforehand. [...] The initiative is an attempt to recreate the element of discovery that fairs have lost in the digital era and to encourage more collectors to attend in person.”

The downsizing at Pace may not yet be over, suggests Daniel Cassady in Artnews: “That artist said that in conversations with gallery leadership, the upcoming ‘model correction’ was framed as an acknowledgement that the art world had changed significantly in the last 10 years and that Pace needed to change with it. But the conversations offered few specifics about what came next. That uncertainty remains. Even supporters of the restructuring aren’t entirely sure whether they are watching a company make a course correction after years of expansion or respond to deeper financial problems.”

Among the artists and their estates no longer represented by Pace is Hermann Nitsch, reports Olga Kronsteiner in the Standard: “What does the Nitsch Foundation have to say about all this? ‘The exclusive representation of Hermann Nitsch at Pace Gallery was terminated by mutual agreement,’ says managing director Gudrun Marecek in response to a STANDARD enquiry. She adds: ‘Despite good cooperation on a personal and professional level, Pace’s expectations were unfortunately not met, and conversely, it was probably exactly the same,’ emphasises Marecek.” Lisa Kandlhofer remains the sole gallery representative in Vienna, according to Konsteiner.

Templon Gallery is closing its New York branch for the time being, reports Katya Kazakina on Artnet (possibly behind a paywall): “The decision to leave Chelsea came after the gallery’s landlord sought a substantial rent hike as its lease approached renewal, according to Mathieu Templon, the founder’s son, who oversaw the New York operation. “It was way too, too much,” he said in a phone interview. [...] Of the four full-time employees who had worked at the gallery, two remain, according to Templon. Monica King, who was the director for about a year, has moved to Richard Saltoun Gallery on East 66th Street. Mathieu Templon is relocating back to Paris with his growing family, but he plans to return to New York regularly and is looking for a smaller space in Tribeca or on the Upper East Side.”

The dépendance gallery in Brussels is closing. On its website, it bids farewell: “Galleries come and go. Some are short-lived but leave a clear trace, others endure for decades without changing much. dépendance has been there for twenty-three years and now we feel it’s time to say goodbye.”