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Maike Cruse On Why Art Basel’s Flagship Still Sets the Bar

May 29, 2025 Tarun

Agnes Denes’s Wheatfield – A Confrontation (1984), restaged in the Messeplatz at the 2024 edition of Art Basel. Art Basel

Art Basel announced its fifth edition in Doha, signaling a calculated expansion into the Middle East, just ahead of the final crucible of a busy spring season: the annual pilgrimage to Europe for the fair’s most storied and serious flagship in Basel, Switzerland. What awaits is the final, demanding test of stamina and market mood, played out in a week of champagne, strategic pleasantries and the quiet pressure to act as though the stakes are still as high as they once were—especially at the top end of the market, where Basel has long been expected to deliver. Ahead of the 2025 edition of Art Basel, we spoke with fair director Maike Cruse about how she’s reshaped the Swiss institution in her second year at the helm (following a formidable run building Berlin Art Week) and what we can expect to see in Basel this year.

But first, some background. Launched in Basel in 1970 by local gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt, Art Basel’s roots run deep in the Swiss city. That first summer, the fair welcomed ninety galleries from ten countries and drew over 16,000 visitors—a scale that contrasts sharply with the 289 galleries from forty-two countries on this year’s roster. “Art Basel in Basel is our flagship show—the heart of where it all began and where we’ve called home for over 50 years,” Cruse tells Observer.

Today, each of Art Basel’s five editions is shaped by its host city, creating a distinct identity that reflects the character of participating galleries, institutions and audiences. In Basel, half the exhibitors are European, making it one of the most important events for the continental market, and dealers tend to bring their strongest material. “What truly sets Art Basel apart is the exceptional quality of work on view,” she says. “Nowhere else in a fair setting can you find this caliber of modern art assembled in one place, as well as an exhibition format like ‘Unlimited.’ The fair feels like a temporary museum.”

Even so, Art Basel in Basel is a moment on the calendar where ambition meets opportunity—a place where serious collectors and institutions come not just to view art but also to engage deeply with the people and ideas behind it. “Basel plays a pivotal role in anchoring the European market,” Cruse says without hesitation.

Maike Cruse. Photo: Debora Mittelstaedt

While some have suggested that Art Basel Paris is quietly eclipsing Basel in prominence, propelled by the French capital’s broader cultural offerings and magnetic pull on international collectors, Cruse remains unfazed. “Basel has a long-standing legacy not just as the birthplace of Art Basel but also as a city deeply woven into the fabric of the art world, with an exceptional density of institutions, foundations and historical collections,” she says. “That foundation continues to shape the fair’s depth and character today.”

While Paris brings undeniable momentum, drawing strength from the vitality of the French market and its global cultural cachet, Cruse views the two fairs as complementary: distinct in audience, curatorial rhythm and regional influence. In Basel, she says, you see broader European participation, with galleries from Central and Eastern Europe, the Nordics and even further afield.—“voices that aren’t always visible elsewhere.” And it’s not a matter of one city overtaking the other. “Basel operates in tandem with our other shows, not in competition. They are complementary platforms, each with their own energy, cadence and collecting communities.” The strength of the Art Basel brand, she explains, lies in its ability to respond to and amplify the cultural dynamics of each host city, extending its reach across distinct markets. “Basel and Paris are evolving in parallel, each contributing something vital to the wider conversation we’re shaping across the global art ecosystem.”

More than 50 years in, the fair and the city have become entwined. “The scale of Basel lends a unique intimacy—every corner of the city feels touched by the fair,” Cruse says. “In June, it’s impossible to be here and not feel Art Basel’s presence—whether you’re walking across the Messeplatz or stumbling on a “Parcours” installation in the middle of town.”

“Parcours” is one of the fair’s public-facing sectors—one that pushes the exhibition experience beyond Messehalle and into the city itself. When Stefanie Hessler took over “Parcours” last year, she reimagined the section by placing works in storefronts and civic spaces, creating opportunities for visitors and locals to engage with art through a grounded, place-based lens. This year’s theme, “Second Nature,” brings together twenty-one site-specific projects that probe the increasingly fluid boundaries between life and lifelikeness. St. Clara Church, the Manor department store, the Merian Hotel and even the underpass beneath it will host works, with contributions from Sturtevant, Thomas Bayrle, Selma Selman and Shahryar Nashat. “It’s about reshaping how we inhabit space—and how art can shift the way we move through the city,” Cruse adds. Meanwhile, the central installation at Messeplatz has been entrusted to German artist Katharina Grosse. “She’ll be transforming the plaza in a way that’s sure to be both monumental and unforgettable.”

The theme of the 2025 edition of “Parcours” is “Second Nature.” Courtesy of Art Basel

The city of Basel is a cultural destination with an extraordinarily rich museum scene for a city of its size—something that has long cemented its status as a cultural powerhouse. From the Kunstmuseum Basel, home to the world’s oldest public art collection, to private foundations like the Fondation Beyeler and contemporary spaces such as Kunsthalle Basel and Schaulager, the city offers a cultural infrastructure few places can rival.

This year, the city’s institutions have saved their strongest programming for June to coincide with the fair, unveiling major exhibitions that range from Vija Celmins and Jordan Wolfson at Fondation Beyeler to a focused presentation on Medardo Rosso at Kunstmuseum Basel, alongside solo shows of work by Dala Nasser, Ser Serpas and Marie Matusz at Kunsthalle Basel. Meanwhile, Kunsthaus Baselland—which relocated last year to a new, expansive building on the Dreispitz site—will stage the evocatively titled group show “Whispers from Tides and Forests,” featuring works by Caroline Bachmann, Johanna Calle, Lena Laguna Diel, Abi Palmer, Nohemí Pérez, Ana Silva, Julia Steiner, Surma, Liu Yujia and others.

The Schaulager is spotlighting a new site-specific work by Steve McQueen, while Museum Tinguely will present two solo exhibitions dedicated to Suzanne Lacy and Julian Charrière, alongside its unique permanent collection of Tinguely’s singular, absurdist kinetic machines.

While Design Miami has canceled its Basel edition this year to focus on Paris in October, design lovers can still find much to explore. The Vitra Design Museum will host “The Shakers: A World in the Making,” an exhibition dedicated to the religious group that redefined American design and architecture in the 18th Century through beliefs rooted in community, labor and social equality that manifested in a minimalist, ascetic aesthetic and objects built to endure, with exquisite attention to detail. Nearby, the Vitra Schaudepot continues its run of “Science Fiction Design: From Space Age to Metaverse,” staging a provocative dialogue between speculative futures and the design innovations that accompany them.

Art Basel’s “Unlimited” sector is a platform for large-scale installations and performances that transcend the traditional art fair booth. Courtesy of Art Basel

Another museum-caliber highlight of the Basel edition of Art Basel is “Unlimited”—the section dedicated to the kind of large-scale, genre-defying work that simply doesn’t fit within the confines of a standard fair booth. “‘Unlimited’ is unique in both form and spirit—a concept deeply rooted in the identity of Art Basel in Basel,” Cruse says. “It’s our most expansive platform for ambitious works that transcend traditional formats.”

Curated this year by Giovanni Carmine, director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, the 2025 edition features sixty-seven presentations, making it the largest of its kind across all Art Basel fairs. Housed in a cavernous 16,000-square-meter hall, “Unlimited” is designed to accommodate both scale and curatorial freedom. “The space doesn’t just allow for size—it unlocks a different way of experiencing the work, on its own terms,” explains Cruse. “This openness makes ‘Unlimited’ a vital part of the Art Basel experience. It’s where artists and galleries can push beyond constraints, and visitors are invited to slow down, explore and engage more deeply.”

Carmine and the selection committee have assembled a presentation Cruse describes as “both resonant and far-reaching,” spanning works that speak to the current moment and those that reframe or revive overlooked art histories. On view this year will be museum-level pieces by artists including Yayoi Kusama, Martin Kippenberger, Mario Merz, Heinz Mack, Mira Schor, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Lee Ufan. Among the standouts, Cruse points to Alia Farid’s large woven tapestries, presented by Sfeir-Semler, which trace Arab and South Asian migration to Latin America and the Caribbean. “They feel especially urgent,” she says. Claudia Comte’s Temporal Drift (coral, leaf, cactus) (2025), presented by OMR, invites visitors into a rhythmic, ocean-inspired installation blending natural forms and architectural presence. Meanwhile, Mazzoleni will show We Rise by Lifting Others (2023), Marinella Senatore’s 34-meter-long light installation first unveiled at the NOOR Festival in Riyadh. Pace Gallery will stage three major presentations by Arlene Shechet, Latifa Echakhch and Robert Longo.

Photography also sees a strong showing in this year’s “Unlimited,” with standout presentations of Diane Arbus (David Zwirner), Lewis Baltz (Galerie Thomas Zander) and Qin Yifeng (Magician Space). “Each of these presentations offers a distinct lens through which to consider the medium’s possibilities,” Cruse says. But among the 2025 additions, Cruse is most excited about the debut of “Premiere”—a new sector devoted to works created within the last five years, with galleries presenting up to three artists each. “It’s a space designed for discovery. Whether you’re encountering new voices or seeing the evolution of an established practice, ‘Premiere’ offers a fresh, forward-looking view of contemporary art.”

This year also marks the launch of the Art Basel Awards Summit—a new public program of talks, free and open to all, designed to provoke conversation around urgent ideas shaping the art world today. The Summit will convene alongside the announcement of thirty-six winners of the inaugural Art Basel Awards. Honorees include emerging artists such as Mohammad Alfaraj, Meriem Bennani, Pan Daijing, Saodat Ismailova, Lydia Ourahmane and Sofia Salazar Rosales; established figures like Nairy Baghramian, Tony Cokes, Cao Fei, Ibrahim Mahama, Delcy Morelos and Ho Tzu Nyen; and contemporary icons including David Hammons, Lubaina Himid, Joan Jonas, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar and Cecilia Vicuña.

Cross-disciplinary honorees include Saidiya Hartman, Grace Wales Bonner and Formafantasma, while institutions receiving recognition include ART + PRACTICE, Jameel Arts Centre and RAW Material Company. Visionary curators such as Candice Hopkins, Shanay Jhaveri and Eungie Joo also make the list, alongside patrons like Shane Akeroyd, Maja Hoffmann and Joel Wachs. Community-focused initiatives such as Art Handlxrs*, Gasworks / Triangle Network and Sandra Terdjman are recognized as well, along with media and publishing voices like Negar Azimi, Barbara Casavecchia and The Journal of Curatorial Studies.

New this year, Art Basel introduces the “Premiere” sector, offering galleries an exclusive stage to showcase bold, cutting-edge works from the past five years. Courtesy of Art Basel

Aiming to rethink the traditional prize model in the creative fields, the Art Basel Awards will distribute nearly $300,000 annually in honorariums across the Emerging, Established and Icon categories. But beyond the funding, the initiative offers access to global networks, philanthropic platforms, bespoke partnerships and high-profile commissions—designed to propel artists’ practices onto new international stages.

Looking back on her first two editions at the helm—and ahead to what’s next—Cruse has concentrated on strengthening relationships, whether with first-time exhibitors or long-standing fair veterans. “That continuity, paired with openness to new voices, is key to keeping the fair relevant and responsive in an evolving art world,” she says.

Equally crucial to Cruse is nurturing the interplay between art, its community and the urban fabric that hosts it. “My past experiences—from Gallery Weekend Berlin and Art Berlin to the project space Forgotten Bar—shaped my belief that a moment like Art Basel only succeeds through deep collaboration,” she reflects. “It’s not just about the fair itself, but about working in concert with the city, its galleries, institutions, collectors, artists and audiences.”

With each fair now led by a dedicated director, Cruse believes Art Basel is better positioned to cultivate local and regional ecosystems with intention. “Being based in Basel—in the heart of Europe—gives us a unique vantage point,” she says. “My priority is to build on that legacy while helping shape a future that’s as connected, inclusive and ambitious as the art we present.”

Art Basel 2025 opens for VIPs on Monday, June 16, and to the public on June 19.

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Alicja Kwade Probes the Edges of Reality in Her Pace Debut

May 23, 2025 Tarun

An installation view of “Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales” at Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery

Throughout her career, Alicja Kwade has braided together art, physics and mathematics to question the structure of reality—constructing sculptures and installations that propose new modes of coexistence between the anthropic and the natural. For her first major solo exhibition since joining Pace’s roster last year, she takes over the gallery’s 508 and 510 Chelsea spaces with a never-before-seen monumental sculpture alongside a suite of new mixed-media works. Here, Kwade appears to press even further into the integration of human systems and organic matter: bronze tree branches twist through metal scaffolding that echoes the vertical logic of New York’s skyline. “New York is New York—it’s like this grid, this structure,” she tells Observer, walking through the gallery just hours before the opening. “It’s all about human constructions, this human-built reality emerging from, or imposed onto, nature.”

At the core is a question about the frameworks humans have built to govern, shape and—often futilely—contain the unruly nature of the cosmic phenomena that underpin everyday life. Kwade pushes back against the illusion of control, investigating the limits of human dominion over nature and probing where those boundaries are drawn—and where they inevitably begin to dissolve.

Alicja Kwade. © Doro Zinn

Inside these structures, time advances to the sterile rhythm of minimalist, aseptic clocks—devices that one might find in a hospital or laboratory—encased in metal tubes that act as tunnels into the enigma of time and space. Humanity has long attempted to comprehend, quantify and contain these dimensions using systems of codes and languages that, in the end, are more arbitrary than absolute. “This speaks to this kind of human-made reality, but also this kind of perpetual human desire to elevate, to build up, reach this order,” Kwade comments, as we discuss the frameworks we’ve constructed—an architecture of meaning that may comfort, but ultimately is indicative of an anthropocentric view of existence. “We don’t know if mathematics came from heaven, if it’s truly just there and we just picked it, or if we invented it. We still don’t know.”

Architecture, engineering, mathematics and time reveal themselves here as human-centered tools—conceptual structures invented to parse a reality shaped not by order, but by entropy. This is a universe in continuous motion, sculpted by the restless circulation of matter and energy, indifferent to our desire for permanence and inclined toward instability, decay and chance. And yet, it is precisely within these systems of order that human society takes root. “We put it in a shape, we give it numbers we give it structures, and then we can communicate and build up something like social interactions and society in general,” Kwade reflects.

SEE ALSO: In Tactile New Works, Sheree Hovsepian Explores the Physicality of Experience

Her sanitized clocks serve not only as instruments of precision but as quiet acknowledgments of mortality. “It’s something I want to make myself aware of—what I am in, and what the reality of our existence is in this moment and this space,” she continues. “We are time-limited creatures. We are just thrown into existence, living and experiencing reality in pipes, these life tunnels, without any idea what’s happening around us.”

Kwade is known internationally for her sculptures, large-scale public installations, films, photographs and works on paper that engage critically with scientific and philosophical concepts. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery

While her works allow for the experience of reality’s entropic nature, Kwade’s practice also echoes the entropy of epistemology itself—the unraveling of fixed truths and the drift of meaning over time. Through the mesmerizing mirroring effects of her reflective tunnels, she fractures and multiplies physical reality, drawing the viewer into a fragmented, kaleidoscopic field of perception. Multiperspectivism becomes not only a strategy but a necessity—the only viable lens through which to engage with the escalating complexity of the cosmos and the randomness threaded through the universe’s endless expansion and cooling.

Though her installations may appear tightly engineered, governed by precision and a refined, almost surgical aesthetic, Kwade’s process often starts with quick, spontaneous sketches that crystallize an idea in its most intuitive form before being refined through close technical collaboration with her studio team. “I do drawings, then I discuss them with my team and do all the engineering to make it happen,” Kwade says.

In the second room, a constellation of transparent sculptural forms—evocative of melting ice or the shimmer of standing water—crystallizes a fleeting physical state while revealing the material’s inherently unstable molecular structure. These forms offer a glimpse into matter’s continuous metamorphosis. “It doesn’t mean to be like melting ice, but it’s this in-between thing,” she comments. “For me, it’s like a moment of nature, in its happening.” Embedded within them, clocks quietly register time’s passage—not as a forward march, but as a circular motion, a cycle of transformation, shifting states and inevitable return.

Kwade joined Pace’s roster in 2023, and this is her debut solo show with the gallery. Courtesy Pace Gallery

Although Kwade’s work is often linked to postmodern and poverista aesthetics—particularly Arte Povera—her practice is fundamentally grounded in the broader history of philosophy. Her installations interrogate the structure of reality through philosophical, physical and scientific frameworks, while simultaneously exposing the limitations of human knowledge and the inherent instability of measurement, classification and language. “At the end, we just see the world as it is through the reflection of our senses,” she notes, underscoring a central epistemological tension: the gap between what exists and what can be perceived.

At the same time, in contending with the essential dissonance that shapes the human experience of the world, Kwade’s work echoes Aristotelian inquiry into physis, or nature—something she references directly in our conversation. Drawing on Aristotle’s definition of physis as a principle of motion and change, which Heraclitus had already anticipated in his dictum panta rhei (everything flows), Kwade’s installations frame reality as an ongoing process, where the transformation of matter becomes an internal force and generative logic. But where Aristotle imagined an ordered cosmos governed by intelligible causes, Kwade’s universe is entropic, recursive and unsettled—more in step with a post-Newtonian worldview that sees reality as fragmented, relative and ultimately incomplete.

In this sense, her work becomes a philosophical proposition—an invitation to embrace change as the only constant. It resists empirical certainty, revealing instead the fragility and subjectivity of how we define and measure the world around us: the substance of things, the rhythm of time, the motion of matter.

The artist raises questions about structures and systems that govern and shape our daily lives. Courtesy Pace Gallery

Kwade’s work can also be understood through the lens of structuralist and post-structuralist critique, particularly in examining how knowledge is constructed, codified and controlled. Positioned at the intersection of epistemology and politics—much like Foucault—her installations become sites of epistemic resistance: recursive, disorienting environments that unsettle the viewer’s orientation and dissolve the boundary between observer and observed. They prompt a confrontation not only with the contingency of truth, but with the unseen architectures that authorize and enforce it. Where Foucault deconstructed the institutional apparatuses that define and legitimize knowledge, Kwade retools their instruments—clocks, mirrors, measurements—transforming them into fragile systems that reveal their conceptual instability and unravel the illusion of objectivity.

Aligned with this approach, Kwade conceives her work as an open system—resistant to fixed meaning and receptive to multiple, even contradictory, interpretations. “I never give an interpretation,” she says when asked whether the installation refers to the environmental crisis or humanity’s uncertain, time-bound fate. “I can say what I was thinking and why I made some formal and conceptual decisions, but the reading is still very open: you can see a dystopian or a positive message—it’s up to you, and how you project yourself and your knowledge into the work.”

What emerges is a practice that urges viewers to recognize the relativity of all truths, and to question the systems of knowledge we’ve internalized through social, linguistic and temporal frameworks. Rather than offering resolution, Kwade proposes a necessary plurispectivism—a radical openness to the multiplicity of perception and the coexistence of divergent ways of seeing the world.

In works that dismantle boundaries of perception, Kwade challenges commonly accepted ideas and beliefs. Courtesy Pace Gallery

“In the end, I have no idea what reality is,” she says near the close of our exchange. “But the most important point for me is the awareness of not knowing this. It’s not about the country you’re born in, it’s not your name, it’s not your nation—those are all constructions that shape a particular reading of reality. But that’s just one of millions of possible readings. It’s coincidental.”

For Kwade, the essential gesture is this awareness: the recognition that no truth is fixed, no perspective final, and that reality must be continually re-encountered. Though life may feel easier when we accept appearances at face value, her work resists that comfort, refusing resolution in favor of complexity, unsettling assumptions and treating art as a lens to probe beyond the surface of certainty. “I’m just posing questions,” she says, “and trying to unfold and show something more than what you see on the surface.”

Alicja Kwade’s “Telos Tales” is on view at Pace Gallery through August 15, 2025.

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Frieze and NADA New York’s Early Sales Signal Buyer Confidence

May 8, 2025 Tarun

Frieze officially took flight yesterday (May 7) with its VIP preview, kicking off a jam-packed art week in New York, where no fewer than nine fairs are unfolding ahead of the marquee May evening auctions. The fair opened just days after news broke of its acquisition by Endeavor’s former CEO Ari Emanuel, in a deal reportedly worth $200 million, and in the midst of turbulence stirred by an erratic 100-day-old presidency, where trade wars and cultural grandstanding have become the new normal. Still, early sales suggest a market that’s holding steady—albeit one that’s more cautious, more curated and leagues away from the sold-out-at-entry frenzy of years past. As the aisles rapidly filled in the fair’s first hours, most works were still available, with dealers far more open to quiet negotiations, even for formerly too-hot-to-touch names. With Asian collectors largely absent and a notable number of Europeans skipping New York altogether, it was American buyers who showed up, browsed and—crucially—bought, perhaps sensing that now is the moment to make their move.

Held once again at The Shed in the heart of Chelsea’s gallery grid, Frieze New York has positioned itself more like a boutique fair than the sprawling showcases staged in its international iterations. This year’s edition features sixty-five exhibitors from twenty-five countries, though several New York mainstays—assumedly wary of economic crosswinds—opted instead for Independent, TEFAF or bypassed the fairs entirely to focus on in-house programming. “We’re just a few blocks from the fairs, and we decided to focus on our exhibitions; it’s been working. People are stopping by on their way,” Eric Gleason of Kasmin told Observer. On preview day, the gallery opened a solo show of ethereal, mystical works by L.A.-based painter Theodora Allen, and nearly half were already placed by that evening.

The mega galleries that did show up largely opted for single-artist spotlights or tightly curated presentations. At Pace, Adam Pendleton took center stage in a thoughtful pairing with works by Lynda Benglis, highlighting parallels in their layered explorations of materiality and process. The strategy paid off: at the day’s end, the gallery had sold multiple Benglis pieces in the $275,000-300,000 range, while six of Pendleton’s paintings were placed within the first few hours, priced between $165,000 and $425,000. The presentation dovetailed with Pendleton’s solo exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and followed the high-profile announcement that MoMA had acquired all thirty-five works from his 2021-2022 survey.

Pace at Frieze. Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Meanwhile, Gagosian seemed intent on flexing its muscles this season, perhaps to reassure collectors of its continued dominance. Fresh off celebrating Larry’s eightieth birthday, the gallery opened not one but two museum-grade shows: “Willem de Kooning” in Chelsea and the Paloma Picasso–curated “Picasso: Tête-à-tête” exhibition uptown—while anchoring its Frieze booth with a bombastic display of Jeff Koons’s Hulk Elvis sculptures. The three inflatable-looking polychrome steel sculptures, set against a fleshy immersive vinyl backdrop, brought full Koonsian crowd-catching Pop playfulness. That day, the gallery reported selling one piece for an undisclosed price—though auction precedent suggests it landed most likely around $3 million, as a six-foot Hulk (Friends) fetched $3.4 million at Phillips New York in 2019. “The fair is off to a great start, and the response to our booth has been phenomenal,” senior director Millicent Wilner told the press, noting strong interest in the remaining two sculptures. The presentation could signal a homecoming for Koons, who left both Gagosian and David Zwirner for Pace in 2021—only to appear now back in Larry’s court.

Nearby, David Zwirner also took a focused approach, devoting the entire booth to a postmodern wink at early twentieth-century iconography through the lens of Pictures Generation pioneer Sherrie Levine. The presentation included the debut of her 2024 series After Piet Mondrian Inverted, a characteristically sly reversal of modernist canon, with prices ranging from $150,000 to $200,000.

Hauser & Wirth, never one to play it small, reported confident early sales—including a $1.2 million monumental work by Rashid Johnson, strategically placed at the booth’s entrance as Johnson is currently the subject of a significant career survey at the Guggenheim, which opened just a few weeks ago. By afternoon, the gallery had reportedly placed more than twenty-five works, with prices ranging from $20,000 to $1.2 million. Additional sales included works by other artists with strong institutional momentum—Jack Whitten, Amy Sherald, Lorna Simpson, Mary Heilmann, Roni Horn and Thomas J Price, among others. “The crowd and conversations today have been incredibly upbeat,” Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot told the press. “Perhaps most significantly, the energy this first day at the fair has been amazingly optimistic—we’re seeing an even more robust commitment now on the part of collectors, curators and institutions to the story of art in this moment.”

Among the more headline-grabbing day-one sales, White Cube placed a large, emotionally raw Tracey Emin canvas for £1.2 million and one of her bronzes for £80,000. The gallery also moved a lyrical work by Etel Adnan for $180,000 and two Antony Gormley sculptures for £325,000 each. A Christine Ay Tjoe painting was acquired by an institution for $280,000—unsurprising given the artist’s recent auction ascent—while two vibrant works by Ilana Savdie, priced in the $100,000 range, found buyers as well. The sales followed the artist’s New York solo debut with the gallery, her first since joining the roster in 2022.

Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac was still holding firm on a monumental upside-down George Baselitz canvas priced at €1 million by the end of preview day. But sales elsewhere were brisk: a €85,000 painting by Martha Jungwirth, a $210,000 Joan Snyder, two Megan Rooney works at £18,000 each and a $130,000 David Salle acquired by a U.S. collector. Ropac also placed a more conceptually driven work by Liza Lou for $225,000.

Next door at Karma, the action was just as lively. The gallery placed a haunting Gertrude Abercrombie painting for $350,000 and a $90,000 oil by Maja Ruznic, fresh off her Whitney Biennial appearance. Other confirmed sales included a Richard Mayhew for $350,000, a Manoucher Yektai for $275,000, a Reggie Burrows Hodges for $175,000, a sculpture by Alan Saret for $150,000 and a punchy, Pop-catchy work by Calvin Marcus for $135,000.

Further down the aisle, Perrotin reported a complete sell-out of its new psychologically dense paintings by Claire Tabouret, with prices ranging from $65,000 to $200,000. Nearby, Nara Roesler also moved multiple works, including a textile piece by Sheila Hicks for $74,000, a work by Marcelo Silveira for $65,000 and an oil painting by Tomie Ohtake for $350,000—riding the momentum of her sold-out booth at last year’s Art Basel Paris.

Frieze New York 2025 opened at the Shed on May 7 in VIP preview. Casey Kelbaugh/CKA

Korean dealer Tina Kim reported strong first-day sales of works by artists with notable institutional traction, including a $150,000 piece by Filipino American artist Pacita Abad, placed alongside a $200,000 work by Lee ShinJa, a Ghada Amer for $175,000, a sculpture by Suki Seokyeong Kang for $80,000 and a new piece by Maia Ruth Lee for $25,000. Not far away, her mother’s gallery, Kukje, also saw a robust day, reportedly placing several works by Dansaekhwa master Park Seo-Bo in the $250,000-300,000 range, following the artist’s passing last year. Additional sales included works by Kyungah Ham ($140,000-168,000), Kibong Rhee ($80,000-96,000) and a Haegue Yang priced between €35,000 and €42,000.

Meanwhile, Goodman Gallery confirmed the placement of a major Carrie Mae Weems work for $100,000—already earmarked for a European institution—along with a Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum for $90,000 and a Ravelle Pillay painting for £35,000. Nearby, Brazilian powerhouse Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel capitalized on the momentum of Beatriz Milhazes’s current Guggenheim show, selling several of her works in the $45,000-60,000 range. The gallery also placed pieces by Wanda Pimentel ($45,000-60,000), Tadáskía ($25,000-40,000) and Antonio Tarsis, whose meticulously composed wood constructions sold for $40,000 to $55,000.

The demand for more ambitious presentations

The appetite for museum-caliber work was evident at Frieze’s preview. Mendes Wood DM placed the entirety of Kishio Suga’s Sliced Stones installation—eight sculptures priced between $200,000 and $300,000—without much hesitation from buyers. James Cohan also reported strong institutional traction, selling several of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s Calder-esque, organically suspended metal mobiles, priced from $85,000 to $185,000, to a European museum, an American institution and a private collector—riding the momentum of the Vietnamese artist’s breakout U.S. institutional debut at the New Museum in summer 2023. Meanwhile, New York dealer Casey Kaplan devoted the entire booth to Hannah Levy’s alluring, hybrid biomorphic sculptures, and collectors responded accordingly. Several works, priced between $45,000 and $80,000, were swiftly snapped up as Levy’s profile continues to rise—fueled in part by her showing in the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen presented by James Cohan at Frieze. Casey Kelbaugh/CKA

Even the more dynamic and occasionally experimental offerings in the Focus section inspired a strong response. Showing at Frieze for the first time, Parisian and research-centred gallery Sultana reported selling three works by Jean Claracq in the $20,000-30,000 range and two humorously playful works by Turner Prize artist Jesse Darling for €10,000 each. Nearby, Chapter NY captured collectors’ attention, placing multiple works by Milano Chow, priced between $16,000 and $20,000, and Mary Stephenson, with prices ranging from £4,500 to £32,000.

Among the most ambitious presentations in the Focus section was a multimedia installation by Yehwan Song, exploring the discomfort and incommunicability of digital media and online spaces. Presented by Seoul-based G Gallery, the work was acquired by a private institution for $22,000. Leaning further into the multimedia and installation spectrum, London-based Public Gallery made its New York debut with an interactive, video game–based installation by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley that confronts Black trans experiences head-on. Blending reality, gaming, technology and speculative fiction, the artist builds choose-your-own-adventure narratives that compel users to face uncomfortable questions around transphobia and racism—dismantling ethical complacency while centering responsibility, sincerity and care.

Luana Vitra presented by Mitre Galeria at Frieze. Courtesy of the gallery

In the same section, marking its New York debut, São Paulo–based Mitre Gallery presented a solo booth of spiritual, totemic sculptures by Brazilian artist Luana Vitra, who also just opened a solo show at SculptureCenter. Drawing on the history and cosmology of Minas Gerais—the mineral-rich region where she was raised—Vitra explores the metallurgical symbolism and transformative power of minerals to reveal the “spirit in matter.” Her sculptures function as vessels designed to receive, store and transmit energy—works that blur the line between material object and metaphysical conduit. By the end of preview day, the gallery had placed four of Vitra’s pieces, priced between $12,000 and $26,000.

Another standout in the section was the U.S. debut of Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita, presented by Singapore-based Yeo Workshop. Ancestral symbologies unfold in mystical, charged images that explore a visceral and spiritual interconnection between the female body and nature—rendered here in a textile-based installation that seems to transcend the fair’s commercial setting and drift into otherworldly terrain. Titled Vortex in the Land of Liberation, the installation centers on a vertically suspended, embroidered cowhide that uses the traditional Kamasan painting technique and invokes folkloric spirits to evoke feminine power, fertility and the primordial. Drawing from ancient Balinese literature, mythology and iconography, Sasmita creates a personal cosmology that asserts a form of female agency and spirituality in harmony with the cosmos. With prices ranging from $20,000 to $38,000, the presentation aligns with a major Barbican commission in London and the artist’s participation in both the Hawai‘i Triennial ALOHA NŌ and the 16th Sharjah Biennial.

Citra Sasmita’s Vortex in the Land of Liberation presented by Yeo Workshop at Frieze. Courtesy of the artist

Nearby, Bogotá- and Paris-based gallery mor charpentier reported a sold-out solo presentation of Malo Chapuy, whose haunting, jewel-toned paintings draw heavily from Gothic and pre-Renaissance religious art, echoed in the gold leaf backgrounds that transport the subjects to otherworldly levels while channeling a spiritual austerity in new sacred forms refracted through a distinctly contemporary lens. Prices ranged from €12,000 to €22,000, and the swift sales spoke to collectors’ appetite for works that bridge historical gravitas and emerging talent. Further signaling buyer confidence across price points, young L.A. gallerist Matthew Brown also racked up a strong first day of sales, including a mesmerizing Blair Whiteford painting for $45,000, a new work by Kenturah Davis for $40,000 and a TARWUK sculpture for $40,000, along with additional acquisitions such as Vincent Valdez at $45,000, Michelle Uckotter at $25,000 and pieces by rising voices like Olivia van Kuiken ($18,000) and Jack O’Brien ($12,000).

Emerging artists and first-time exhibitors find footing at NADA

Opening in sync with Frieze this year, NADA dealers reported a brisk and in many cases gratifying first day. Now housed in the Starrett-Lehigh Building on Twenty-Sixth Street—a convenient five-minute stroll from Frieze—the fair’s eleventh New York edition brought together one hundred eleven exhibitors, including fifty-four first-timers.

A scene from NADA New York’s VIP Preview. Kevin Czopek/BFA.com

Among the newcomers, London-based gallery Alice Amati sold out its solo presentation of enigmatic, hyperrealist paintings by Danielle Fretwell, priced between $5,000 and $17,000. Fellow Londoner Chilli Projects also had a standout debut, placing every work in its booth by day’s end. The poetic, fragmented meditations on identity and displacement by New Haven–based artist Christopher Paul Jordan, priced between $4,000 and $20,000, found eager buyers. Jordan is currently in residence at Titus Kaphar’s NXTHVN and will show next with James Cohan.

From the West Coast, Los Angeles–based de Boer placed several of Noelia Towers’s unsettling, cinematic figurative works ($10,000-40,000), alongside pieces by Kat Lowish ($6,000) and a large-scale canvas by Rachel Sharpe ($14,000). Minneapolis- and now New York–based HAIR + NAILS also moved early, placing three dreamlike paintings by Julia García. Meanwhile, Rachel Liu Gallery (formerly Rachel Uffner, now in partnership with Lucy Liu) sold two works by Sheree Hovsepian priced at $28,000 and $24,000, tied to the artist’s solo show that opened just ahead of the fair.

Danielle Fretwell presented by Alice Amati at NADA. Photo Gabriele Abbruzzese

The newly launched Chozick Family Art Gallery—helmed by former Uffner sales director Rebekah Chozick—had a promising start, selling several works on day one by Sofía Del Mar Collins, Raphael Griswold and Andrea McGinty, as well as completing a late-evening sale of a work by Sara Gimenez. Another newcomer, MAMA Projects, placed six intimately scaled paintings by Chinese artist Zhi Ding, whose work interrogates the globalization of the American Dream. In NADA’s sculpture section, the gallery also showed Body in trouble (2025), a haunting creature by Nicky Cherry that exists in a liminal space between embodiment and disembodiment, prodding at the fragility of identity as a fixed concept.

Buenos Aires gallery CONSTITUCIÓN brought a quietly stunning solo presentation of Carlos Cima’s moody, intimate domestic scenes, selling out all nine works by day’s end. Another standout came from EMBAJADA, with a booth devoted entirely to Puerto Rican world-builder Joshua Nazario. With his distinctly DIY-meets-Pop aesthetic, Nazario reworks concrete, wood and other industrial materials into sculptures and flat works that slyly dissect status-signaling and emulative behaviors in Puerto Rican life.

Havana-based El Apartamento offered a deeply material meditation on memory and history through Eloy Arribas’s solo booth. His works—priced between $3,200 and $5,800—were generated using the strappo technique, where wax molds capture, layer and distort painted marks over time. Each drawing is tied to a visual genealogy, bearing faint echoes of its predecessors, as figuration gradually dissolves into obfuscation, emergence and erasure. A couple of works had sold by midday.

Longtime NADA exhibitor Kates-Ferri Project (New York) found success with a tight dialogue on geometric abstraction and analog aesthetics, presenting paintings by Uruguayan conceptual artist Guillermo Garcia Cruz and sculptures by Martín Touzon. Two of Garcia Cruz’s paintings sold during the preview, with strong interest in Touzon’s work reported.

Joshua Nazario presented by EMBAJADA at NADA. Photo Luis Corzo | Courtesy the artist and EMBAJADA San Juan

The new tariff threat didn’t discourage South Korean and Japanese galleries, which also showed up in force to the fair this year. A-Lounge Contemporary presented recent Columbia MFA grads Youngmin Park and Ian Ha, placing two of Ha’s works by the evening. Kyoto-based COHJU made its NADA debut with three rising Japanese artists—Takuya Otsuki, Anna Yamanishi and Shu Okamoto—all engaging with the interplay between traditional forms and contemporary expression.

Mexico City–based galleries also had strong momentum at NADA. Third Born, a recently opened gallery, placed several small, poetic canvases by Korean artist Jungwon Ja Hur, whose quiet, existential tone was complemented by ceramics and delicate fabric works inspired by bujagi tradition—all priced under $5,000. Nearby, JO-HS placed four dreamlike paintings by Melissa Rios, whose layered reflections on human connection struck a chord. Naranjo 141, another young Mexico City gallery, made its New York debut in the TD Bank Curated Spotlight with new textile works by New York–based Pauline Shaw. Her intricate tapestries—priced at $11,500 and $8,750—use the metaphor of woven fiber to probe belief systems, emotion and the murky enigma of the natural world. Both works sold on opening day to new clients.

While several collectors admitted to Observer they were waiting to see what Independent had to offer before locking in additional buys, NADA’s preview day signaled an encouraging dynamism. We may no longer be seeing the sold-out stampede of years past, but the fair continues to demonstrate the market’s appetite for emerging voices—and its ability to adapt with resilience to what feel like continuous market shifts.

Frieze New York and NADA New York run through Sunday, May 11, 2025.

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