Overview
- David Zwirner reported selling a Gerhard Richter abstract for $5.5 million, leading opening‑day transactions that included multiple seven‑figure deals across top galleries.
- Hauser & Wirth said its first three hours of sales were 40% higher than the gallery’s total from last year’s fair, with works by George Condo and Louise Bourgeois among early highlights.
- Art Basel debuted its Zero 10 digital‑art platform, where Beeple’s Regular Animals sold out instantly at about $100,000 each, signaling fresh interest in digital formats.
- White Cube reported brisk activity, including sales of Andreas Gursky’s Harry Styles for $1.4 million and works by Willem de Kooning, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Richard Hunt.
- The fair features 283 galleries with 48 newcomers, including El Apartamento as the first Cuban participant, while satellite fairs NADA and Untitled logged busy openings and trends in fiber and sculptural wall works, even as the Art Basel/UBS survey noted a 12% drop in global sales and PAMM made acquisitions via NADA’s gift program.