Sales during the first VIP preview day of Art Basel Miami Beach may have been slightly slower than in years past, but dealers remain positive about the state of the market, even amid fallout from a divisive US election, political instability across the rest of the world and softer auction sales in New York last month.
This is new director Bridget Finn’s first edition. She previously took part in the fair as an exhibitor with the Detroit gallery Reyes Finn. The evening before the VIP preview, she was feeling optimistic.
“We are in a post-election moment. What we saw in Paris [at Art Basel Paris in October] was very positive, and that’s a good indicator that the energy and collecting commitment will continue,” Finn says. “Although the [New York] auctions were smaller than in years past, the results were strong. Our VIP rates are incredible, and I feel we’re going to have a very strong show.”
This year’s fair features 286 galleries from 38 countries, including a record 34 first-time exhibitors. One of those newcomers is Pearl Lam, one of China’s most influential dealers with gallery locations in Shanghai and Hong Kong. She says Art Basel Miami Beach will serve as a temperature check for the market.
Clients… are positive, otherwise they wouldn’t be coming. They aren’t here to just look, they want to acquire thingsPearl Lam, gallerist
“This year, there’s been a soft market all over the world,” Lam says. “But overall with the clients we’ve met here, they are positive, otherwise they wouldn’t be coming. They aren’t here to just look, they want to acquire things.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Hauser & Wirth had reported the fair’s most valuable work sold, with an untitled 2014 tarpaulin painting by David Hammons selling for $4.75m. The gallery also sold Female Portrait Abstraction (2024) by George Condo for $2.5m and Jeffrey Gibson’s I can hear you (2024) for $500,000.
Other galleries also reported seven-figure sales in the fair’s early hours. Thaddeus Ropac sold Georg Baselitz’s sculpture Dresdner Frauen—Die Elbe (1990/2023) for €2.5m, and Robert Rauschenberg’s composition on metal, Everglade (Borealis) (1990). David Zwirner reported selling a 2017 painting from Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets series for $3.5m, and a Noah Davis work from 2008 for $2m.
Jessica Arb Danial, an art adviser based in New York, says she has been told by gallerists at the fair that sales have picked up since mid-November. While some anticipated a “Trump bump” that would boost sales, she says the stability that comes with a settled election has given buyers confidence. While business has picked up, Danial says it remains slower than several years ago, which is not necessarily negative.
Even Larry Gagosian noted slower movement. His gallery reported selling works by Maurizio Cattelan, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville and Jeff Koons for undisclosed prices. While in a statement he called the sales “a great start to the fair”, he noted “collectors are taking their time”.
At Sprüth Magers, an untitled work from 2024 by Anne Imhof sold for €250,000, while John Baldessari’s Vertical Series: Fun (2003) fetched $325,000. Exclamation Point (Yellow) (2001) by Richard Artschwager sold for $425,000. Perrotin sold five paintings by Danielle Orchard for between $45,000 and $100,000 each, along with works by Nick Doyle, Vivian Greven, JR, Paola Pivi and Leslie Hewitt all in the range of $35,000 to $60,000.
New collectors show interest
Charles Moffett is a New York gallerist whose stand in the Nova sector features work by Kim Dacres and Melissa Joseph. In the first 30 minutes of the VIP preview, Moffett finalised multiple sales with collectors the gallery had never worked with before.
“My expectation is always to sell out presentations, whether it’s in our fair or at the gallery, but how we get to that point has certainly changed over the course of the past year,” Moffett says. “We’re fortunate that we have had a lot of success. It just required a bit more work and effort.”
At Lehmann Maupin’s stand, the painting I’ll see you on your way (2024) by Calida Rawles—who currently has a solo show across town at the Pérez Art Museum Miami—sold for between $150,000 and $200,000. Marilyn Minter’s painting Left On Red (2024) sold to a Canadian collector for $200,000.
“There’s so much instability in the world. But then on the other hand, people want to do what they always want to do, and that is looking at art,” says Lehmann Maupin co-founder Rachel Lehmann. “Art doesn’t go away… But it is the way people are looking—and who is looking—that is changing.”