“I’m obsessed with lace,” says Swedish fiber and textile artist Ester Magnusson, who loves to deep-dive into the history of garment design. As she prepared her portfolio for a residency focused solely on bobbin lace, she conceived of the idea of a human skull made entirely from the dainty fabric. “Once you express an interest in lace, people come out of the woodworks to give you their grandma’s old collection, so I had a lot of thrifted and gifted material to work with,” she says.

The resulting piece is titled “Skör,” which is pronounced like “sure” and translates to English from Swedish meaning “fragile.” Adjacent to Magnusson’s passion for textiles is a curiosity about wordplay, especially puns. “In Swedish, the words for ‘a piece of weaving’ and ‘tissue (anatomical)’ are both Vävnad, so I was coming up with ideas for a very punny fantasy exhibition when I thought of the concept,” the artist says.

Made of a mix of cotton and linen lace, “Skör” is assembled using cotton thread and wood glue. Tiny stitches connect various strips and shapes, but felt that she needed to add something she had created herself. “I had a feeling that I was just working with other people’s materials, that the piece wasn’t quite mine… so I made the teeth by hand,” she says, noting that she crocheted the details in a scallop pattern using a tiny metal hook. Once the work was complete, the artist used wood glue as a substitute for traditional starching agents like cornflour or sugar glue.

Interested in sustainable production, Magnusson continues to work in the garment industry and has recently been experimenting with a tapestry crochet variation of “Skör” that merges the concepts of pixel art, anatomical studies, and sweaters. Follow her on Instagram for updates.

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“The two things I love the most are observing people and playing with colours,” says Bangalore, India-based artist Muhammed Sajid, whose vivid digital illustrations highlight personalities, garments, and visual culture inspired by his home state of Kerala. Ornate fabrics and objects surround figures who gaze directly at the viewer or interact with flora and fauna, and symbolic references to vernacular architecture and art fill each vibrant composition.

Sajid was inspired to start making portraits while he was in college, and over time, he honed his interest in portraying people and their surroundings. Initially, he worked in watercolor and poster paints, but found it difficult to achieve the saturated hues he was drawn to. “In the digital era, things are entirely different, and I started using different types of colours,” he says, exploring the full spectrum and building bold contrasts.

In his Folks from Kerala series, Sajid draws from memories and renders subjects who are reminiscent of people he would see around his childhood town. “Some of the pieces that I had done in that series show people who are familiar folks and faces from the village,” he says. “I felt that no one gave much attention to how simple and beautiful their lives were.” He continues to build on these initial explorations, combining elements of pop culture, fashion, and landscape.

Later this year, Sajid will show a couple of new pieces with Galerie Kurokama in Paris, which focuses on contemporary Asian art. Find more of the artsit’s work on Behance and Instagram.

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Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast has been forced to admit that it published a marketing image for the game featuring “some AI components,” despite an initial insistence that the art was “created by humans and not AI.” Wizards of the Coast had banned the use of AI artwork in its products in 2023, after AI-generated artwork appeared in a Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook and caused an outcry.

The image, since deleted, was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the official Magic: The Gathering account on Jan. 4. It showed five Magic cards resting on a valve-powered device next to a pressure gauge, in a brass-and-wood-filled steampunk laboratory setting. “It’s positively shocking how good these lands look in retro frame,” the post read.

Many fans were quick to point out elements in the image that bore the hallmarks of generative AI — in particular, difficulty rendering fine details in a consistent way (around bunches of cables, for example, or on the dial of the pressure gauge). But the Magic account initially dismissed these claims.

“We understand the confusion by fans given the style being different than the card art, but we stand by our previous statement,” the publisher replied, in another since-deleted post. “This art was created by humans and not AI.”

But a few days later, Wizards of the Coast acknowledged that it had been mistaken.

“Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI,” the Magic account said in a statement posted to X on Jan. 7. “As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image.”

The publisher continued: “While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great. We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products. Now we’re evaluating how we work with vendors on creative beyond our products – like these marketing images – to make sure that we are living up to those values.”

In a posted the same day on the Magic website, Wizards said that it wants “to get better at understanding whether and how AI is used in the creative process.” The company added, “We can’t promise to be perfect in such a fast-evolving space, especially with generative AI becoming standard in tools such as Photoshop, but our aim is to always come down on the side of human made art and artists.”

The incident drew so much attention because Wizards of the Coast — a significant employer of artists and illustrators, especially in the case of Magic card art — has repeatedly been called out before for using generative AI art in its materials, and has repeatedly distanced itself from the technology. After AI art was spotted in the D&D sourcebook Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants in August 2023, Wizards said it hadn’t been aware that the artist used AI tools, and that it would revise its artist guidelines “to make clear that artists must refrain from using AI art generation.”

Wizards then on AI art in December, after fans claimed to spot evidence of AI generation in promotional artwork for a Magic tie-in with Tomb Raider. “We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products,” it said at the time.

Some artists who work for the publisher showed their frustration at its repeated failure to curb the use of AI in image creation. Long-standing Magic artist Dave Rapoza publicly split with the company after its initial denial that AI had been used. “And just like that, poof, I’m done working for wizards of the coast – you can’t say you stand against this then blatantly use AI to promote your products, emails sent, good bye you all!” he said in a tweet.

But the incident — especially the evident confusion at Wizards of the Coast over whether AI had been used in the creation of the image — shows just how hard it is going to be for companies working with large numbers of freelance artists to stay on top of this issue, as generative AI art tools become ever more widespread.

Gathered in bunches and trailing like vines, Ryan Villamael’s paper-cut sculptures cascade through niches of interiors, history, and identity. Utilizing maps to create overgrowths of leaves, the artist addresses complex relationships between cartography and culture.

Based in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, Villamael focuses his practice on tangled narratives within himself and the country. Because his father had to leave home as an overseas worker, the young artist grew up without his presence. This physical disconnect was challenging and catalyzed Villamael’s fascination with cartography. He explains, “Looking at maps was my way of connecting with him, of tracing the paths he might have traveled.”

“Locus Amoenus” at Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila

This fixation has carefully cultivated itself ever since, as the artist sees the geographic representations as a way to uncover familial paths and collective memory. However, at odds with this sentiment of reclaiming personal history, Villamael also alludes to the presence of authoritative geopolitical ambitions that perpetuate partial truths. He tells Colossal:

So much of my work, I realize in hindsight, is about a kind of mourning. To be Filipino, I feel, is to be constantly in mourning—for the heritage that was taken from our nation by colonialism, for the memories we discard so systematically as a way of survival, for the historic structures in Manila that are constantly demolished… That does something to a nation’s psyche, and it’s something I feel deeply.

Such longing for ancestral truth beyond the stain of colonialism is evident in the artist’s work, as meticulous cutting, folding, overlapping, and puncturing alters the printed surfaces. Originally working with paper out of financial necessity, the humble material eventually became Villamael’s avenue for the tactile transformation and reclamation of cartographic records.

From the expansive nature of the material to the concept of stitching together ideas of home, the nuances of breadth and space guide his work. Quelled inside glass cloches and proliferating across gallery ceilings, floral motifs and sinuous vines carry a consuming desire for the recapitulation of history.

Villamael has two shows opening this month: a solo exhibit at Silverlens Gallery in Manila and an installation at the Esplanade in Singapore. Follow his Instagram to keep up with his work.

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

“Locus Amoenus” at Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila

Left: “Pulô series X.” Right: “Pulô series IX”

“Pulô series III”

Left: From “Kadō Series.” Right: detail of “Kadō Series 2”

“Kadō, Series 1”

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David Michalek is an American visual artist and director whose work is closely tied to an interest in the contemporary person, which he explores through live performance, filmmaking, photography, drawing, installation, relational aesthetics, and public projects. He often concentrates on carefully staged marginal moments that develop density with minimal action. Examining notions of durational and rhythmic time, his works aim to engage and generate intimate yet open-ended narratives.

Michalek’s installation for New York City Ballet’s 2024 Art Series, “SlowDancing/NYCB,” is a deep dive into the distinctive archive and style of a single ballet company that has become one of the most important artistic engines, and creative mainstays, of New York’s cultural fabric. Operating in a realm between action and image, animation and immobility, theater and painting, the installation features hyper-slow-moving images of 20 of NYCB’s current dancers performing iconic moments from the company’s unparalleled repertory in celebration of its 75th Anniversary Season.

Michalek’s work will be on view at three special New York City Ballet Art Series performances on February 3, 8, and 23. Tickets are $40.

To learn more and purchase tickets, visit nycballet.com/artseries.

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A Russian oligarch will this week accuse Sotheby’s of helping an art dealer to trick him into overpaying for art masterpieces including Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which went on to become the most expensive artwork ever sold.

Dmitry Rybolovlev, ranked as the world’s 180th richest person with an estimated £9bn ($11.4bn) fortune, is suing Sotheby’s in New York, where the London-founded 280-year-old auction house is now headquartered.

He claims Sotheby’s inflated the estimated value of artworks he had expressed interest in buying, including pieces by Gustav Klimt, Amedeo Modigliani and René Magritte.

The 57-year-old, who made his wealth selling Russian producers of potash fertiliser and paid Donald Trump $95m for his Florida beachfront mansion in 2008, spent about $2bn on a huge “world-class art collection” including pieces by Leonardo, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Henri Matisse between 2002 and 2014.

However, according to the New York judge overseeing the case, Rybolovlev and his advisers later “discovered that Yves Bouvier, an art broker who assisted in acquiring the works, had cheated them by buying the works himself for one price and charging them another price – millions or tens of millions of dollars higher”.

Rybolovlev launched legal action against Bouvier in Monaco, Singapore, New York, Hong Kong and Switzerland, accusing the art adviser of misleading him over the value of 38 artworks to the tune of €1bn. Bouvier denied the claims, and last month the pair reached a confidential settlement concerning all their disputes that involved proceedings in various jurisdictions.

Bouvier’s lawyers, David Bitton and Yves Klein of Monfrini Bitton Klein said: “The final outstanding investigation into Yves Bouvier’s business dealings with Dmitry Rybolovlev started in Switzerland in 2017 and was closed on 6 December 2023 by the Office of the Attorney General of Geneva. The Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that it conducted a number of hearings which did not provide any evidence to raise sufficient suspicion against Mr Bouvier.”

Rybolovlev, who owns Ligue 1 football club AS Monaco and the Greek island of Skorpios where Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in 1968, is now suing Sotheby’s alleging the auction house “aided and abetted Bouvier in committing fraud and breaching his fiduciary duties”. Sotheby’s denies the claims.

However, US district court judge Jesse Furman ruled in March 2023 that Sotheby’s must face fraud-related claims on sales of four works: Salvador Mundi, the Modigliani sculpture Tête, Klimt’s Wasserschlangen II and Magritte’s Le Domaine d’Arnheim.

The case is due to begin in Manhattan federal court on Monday. A spokesperson for Sotheby’s said: “Sotheby’s strictly adhered to all legal requirements, financial obligations, and industry best practices during the transactions of these artworks. Any suggestion that Sotheby’s was aware of the buyer’s alleged misconduct or intention to defraud Mr Rybolovlev is false.” Bouvier is not a party to the litigation.

Rybolovlev sold Salvator Mundi for $450m at a Christie’s auction in 2017, making it the most expensive painting ever sold. It was bought by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and had been planned to become the star attraction in a new Louvre gallery in Abu Dhabi. However, it has not gone on show as experts raised questions about its authenticity.

Rybolovlev’s lawyer, Daniel Kornstein, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, said: “The client is looking forward to the trial. For the first time, all the evidence will be presented. For the first time in nine years, Mr Rybolovlev will speak publicly and provide a detailed account of the truth about this case.”

The art world is experiencing a seismic shift. Young, affluent art collectors in Asia are reshaping the market, driving demand and influencing how international auction houses conduct business. The catalyst? A newfound fascination for art, coupled with a rising class of wealthy Gen Z and millennials in Asia, particularly Mainland China.

Generational Shift in Art Collecting

These young enthusiasts are significantly investing in art and antiques. The median expenditures of Gen Z (aged 12-27) and millennials (aged 28-43) stood at $56,000 and $59,785 respectively in the first half of 2023. Their tastes, however, differ significantly from older generations. They have shown a preference for sculptures, installations, digital art, and works that reflect their cultural roots.

The Rise of the Digital Art Market

But it’s not just about what they buy—it’s also how they purchase it. The trend towards online sales has surged post-pandemic. Christie’s, one of the world’s leading auction houses, reported that 80% of their bids in the first half of 2023 were made online, a significant increase from the pre-pandemic level of 45%.

The online art market is expected to burgeon, with projections estimating its worth to reach $17.76 billion by 2030. This digital shift is prompting auction houses, including giants like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, to rethink their strategies.

Auction Houses Respond to the Digital Shift

In response to the changing landscape, these institutions are enhancing their digital offerings. They are leveraging live-streamed auctions and social media engagement to attract these technologically adept and globally connected buyers. Millennials now comprise nearly 40% of Christie’s buyers in the Asia Pacific, indicating a substantial rise in participation from this demographic.

As the art market continues to evolve, it’s clear that these young, tech-savvy collectors from Asia are playing a pivotal role in its future direction.

As a new season of hotly anticipated exhibitions kicks off this month, New Yorkers may notice a shift in their gallery-hopping itineraries. Tribeca—not Chelsea—seems to have the pull of the cultural epicenter, with throngs of art lovers crowding the neighborhood’s narrow streets for buzzed-about opening nights.

Tribeca’s transformation from a swanky, residential enclave into a bonafide gallery hub has, of course, been metabolizing for years. A decade ago, Postmasters, the intrepid avant-garde initiative founded by Magda Sawon and Tamás Banovich, was the first to set down roots in the area, leaving Chelsea behind and paving the way for a larger exodus. Over the years, other dealers—Bortolami, Andrew Kreps, and James Cohan Gallery—trickled in. But since 2021, Tribeca has reached a watershed as upwards of 70 galleries now call the neighborhood home.

Last year, perhaps as a sign of how much things have changed, Postmasters vacated its space, adopting a nomadic model, following a dispute with a landlord. And in the past six months, several of the very galleries that made Tribeca a dynamic destination closed shop, often with little warning. In August, beloved gallery JTT, which had been located on Broadway, abruptly shuttered its doors after over a decade in business. The following month (and just a few doors down) Queer Thoughts, the art space that launched Puppies Puppies, announced its plans to close. Denny Gallery, on Lispenard Street, followed suit in October. But these closures might reflect a mid-tier crunch more than change in the neighborhood itself.

Jonathan Travis, collector and go-to real estate agent for the art world, has shepherded much of this ongoing transformation. “Years ago, I was having conversations with galleries who didn’t like how West Chelsea was changing, with developers moving into Hudson Yards and the Meatpacking District,” he explains. “Galleries wanted to move but didn’t know where.” With prerequisites for high ceilings, ground floor spaces, access to affluence, and subway accessibility, Tribeca emerged as a covetable and long-overlooked destination.

“It was a perfect fit,” Travis says. While the real estate price tag for Tribeca was not much different than Chelsea’s sky-high prices, the economics were nevertheless favorable. Beyond the changing feel of the neighborhood, galleries had also expressed concerns over Chelsea’s propensity for flooding, as seen with Superstorm Sandy in 2012. “Tribeca is far enough inland that it’s sheltered from some of the effects of climate change. [And] many Tribeca spaces have very viable lower-level spaces, which essentially doubles the space galleries can work with,” he concludes.

This metamorphosis is far from over, too. Travis notes that a “big name”—yet unannounced—is heading to the neighborhood in the coming year. Recently a spate of leading galleries—from Los Angeles and Tokyo’s Blum to New York stalwart Marian Goodman—have announced plans to take up residence in the area.

So who are Tribeca’s newcomers, and what’s on the horizon? Read below to find out.

Almine Rech
361 Broadway

International juggernaut Almine Rech continued its global expansion last fall, debuting a new 10,000 square-foot in Tribeca, renovated by architect Shigeru Ban. The gallery said that the downtown neighborhood had been on its radar for years, but the encouragement and feedback of its artists sealed the deal. The new location is Almine Rech’s second in Manhattan, after an Upper East Side space established in 2016. On Jan. 19, the space will open Paris-born artist Sasha Ferré’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, a polychrome meditation on the underworld. 

Anat Ebgi
January 2024
372 Broadway

Los Angeles gallery Anat Ebgi recently joined the Tribeca community, taking over a 5,000-square-foot landmark space on the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare. Jonathan Travis helped lead the real estate search in consultation with the gallery’s senior director, Stefano di Paola. The two-floor space soft-launched last fall during the Art Dealers Association of America’s annual fair and will be officially inaugurated with a group show, “The First Taste,” opening Jan. 19. “Having lived in New York before I opened a gallery in Los Angeles, I‘ve always been inspired by the distinct character of spaces you can find in Tribeca—particularly how the qualities of historic buildings feed into the collective energy of the city,” Ebgi says of her attraction to the neighborhood.

Blum
Fall 2024
9 White

Earlier this year, ripples radiated across the art world when veteran partners Jeff Poe and Tim Blum, who founded their eponymous gallery in 1994, parted ways. Tim Blum announced that he would carry on the gallery venture, now known simply as Blum. But the change was more than merely in name. The gallery, which also has Los Angeles and Tokyo outposts, decided to swap its 66th Street digs for a 6,200 square feet space in Tribeca (currently home to Ortuzar Projects). But Blum is bringing its rich history with it and plans to inaugurate the space with an exhibition of Japanese artwork from the 1960s to today, which parallels the gallery’s first-ever show some 30 years ago and will be co-curated by Blum and postwar Japanese art historian Mika Yoshitake.

James Fuentes
Winter 2024
52 White

In another seismic shift, downtown stalwart James Fuentes will be trading neighborhoods, heading to Tribeca in the new year. Fuentes, which recently unveiled a Los Angeles space, opened in the burgeoning Lower East Side neighborhood in 2007. The gallery’s new space will open in February with a show of works by artist Kikuo Saito, curated by Christopher Y. Lew. Fuentes attributes the move to more than riding a trend: “What makes Tribeca exciting for us is the truly intergenerational range of galleries that comprise this new gallery district. What strengthens the neighborhood further is that it is embedded in a deeply historic narrative of artist exhibition spaces, studios, and homes going back 50 years.”

Jack Shainman Gallery 
January 2024
46 Lafayette

Late in 2022, Jack Shainman Gallery announced that it would be taking up residence in The Clock Tower, a building dubbed after the massive timepiece that adorns its tower. The Beaux-Arts structure, which originally housed the New York Life Insurance Company and was completed in 1898, is officially a city landmark. The gallery plans to use its famed bank hall as exhibition space, and will inaugurate it Jan. 12 with an immersive video installation by Irish artist Richard Mosse. (The complete renovation is slated for this fall.) The gallery will maintain its existing space in Chelsea and “The School,” an exhibition space in a converted schoolhouse in Kinderhook, New York. “Expanding to Tribeca was, for us, more of a matter of opportunity than it was a strategic decision … We are so thrilled to be surrounded by so many familiar art faces in our new neighborhood,” Shainman said in a statement announcing the move.

Ortuzar Projects
March 2024
9 White —> 5 White

Ortuzar Projects counts itself among the younger galleries making waves in Tribeca. Founded in the neighborhood by Ales Ortuzar in 2018, this March the gallery will move out of its original gallery space at 9 White—which will be taken over by Blum—and set up shop in a gargantuan venue that triples its footprint, just next door. Ortuzar Projects devotes itself to international artists whose influence in the development of 20th and 21st-century art has hitherto been overlooked. Starting off the year at the 9 White location is a show co-organized with Gordon Robichaux of work by the Detroit-born artist Brian Buczak, his first solo show since his death in 1987 of AIDS-related complications. 

Marian Goodman
Mid-2024
385 Broadway

In a move set to reshape the DNA of the city’s art world, this year New York veteran Marian Goodman Gallery will take up residency in Tribeca’s Grosvenor Building, a historic warehouse built in 1875–76. The gallery is set to become one of the major players in the future of the neighborhood, with a 30,000 square foot complex including two floors of exhibition space, viewing rooms, a library and archive, art storage, and administrative offices all on-site across the building’s five floors. The space is undergoing renovation by the sought-after architectural firm studioMDA, and the gallery will continue to operate out of its 57th Street location through mid-2024.

Timothy Taylor
74 Leonard

Last year, Timothy Taylor heralded its commitment to the New York art scene, moving from a small Chelsea outpost into a sprawling new 6,000-square foot Tribeca space designed by studioMDA. Founded in London in 1996, the gallery opened a New York space in 2016. Their recent relocation to Tribeca was spearheaded by gallery partner Chloe Waddington, who joined in 2019. On Jan. 25, a show dedicated to a selection of late French-Hungarian artist Simon Hantaï’s paintings, many of which are making their U.S. debut, will open in the space. 

Storage
52 Walker

While blue-chip galleries have certainly been flocking to Tribeca recently, experimental spaces, too, have been laying down roots. The most buzzed-about among this lot might be Storage, a space run by artist and dealer Onyedika Chuke, which has brought the work of artists such as Emory Douglas and Rick Lowe to new prominence. The artist-run space first opened in his Chinatown studio back in 2020 but moved to Walker Street in 2022. Born in Nigeria, Chuke grew up as a foster child in New York and has said he is drawn to works that speak to community-building and mutual aid because of those experiences. At last year’s NADA Miami, the gallery made a critical impression with a presentation of works by artists Adam Lupton, Elizabeth Flood, and Baxter Koziol. It’s currently running Chicago-based painter Michiko Itatani’s New York solo debut in the Tribeca space.

Happy New Year, reader! The first column of 2024 finds some of you on the beach, others packing up to get your kids ready for school. Some are cementing deals which started in late 2023 and others are looking to drum up new business. Some of you are preparing for or have just completed expansions in an environment of higher interest rates and lower sales.

To all of you, I wish good luck!

Because luck is what we all need in this period of rentrée—from holidays to reality, from herd mentality to selectivity, from bloat to sobriety. It’s a fragile moment.

This is a moment when predictions abound. And, predictably, some of these tend to be self-serving, verging on spin. Take Marc Glimcher, president of Pace gallery, which plans to open a new branch in Tokyo this spring. In Art News, he anticipates “the continued resurgence of Japan as a global art world hotspot.” Or take any number of art advisers, whose reflex is to position a market contraction as a “buying opportunity.”

Behind the scenes, however, many market players find themselves anxious and confused. There’s a growing fear about gallery closings and collectors dumping art. Younger dealers, who’ve never lived through a market hiccup, lament the drop in Instagram sales. Investors bristle at unsatisfactory returns on art assets.

“History will look back at this time and be like, ‘That was so Babylonian. Those people were so self-indulgent, and it was all so frivolous,’” said Natalia Sacasa, senior director of Fleiss-Vallois, a Paris gallery that opened a New York branch last year.

“I don’t want to be doom and gloom, but I don’t think that the kind of money we’ve been dancing around with will come back,” she added. “Everybody needs to be more considerate and modest—and really examine what’s valuable.”

The question of value (and values) is key for many collectors, who are trying to offload the works they bought very recently.

“There’s been a lot of buying, and people have some regrets about things they spent money on,” said London-based art adviser Morgan Long.

Some sales are related to the ongoing war in the Middle East and collectors’ fury at the Artforum letter, signed by thousands of artists. Others have more purely market-driven concerns. In both scenarios, collectors are considering selling even at a loss, dealers and advisers said.

At the most basic level, it all boils down to supply and demand.

“There’s a complete oversupply on the primary and secondary market,” said Sacasa. “Supply has increased with the perception of increased demand. But now that the demand has been met, supply is overwhelming the buying population.”

There’s also a sense that buyers just awakened from a fever dream.

“People bought really intensely the past three-four years,” said the owner of a bicoastal, emerging-art gallery. “And some collectors are saying, ‘What did I just do?’”

As they contemplate selling, collectors encounter a market that’s gone illiquid seemingly overnight.

One vulnerable segment is early- and mid-career artists, “who’ve been launched but not taken off,” said the owner of a mid-size gallery in New York and Los Angeles. These artists have had a couple of successful solo exhibitions, but haven’t been scooped up by mega galleries.

“Collectors expect that artists start at smaller galleries and go to bigger and bigger galleries,” said the dealer, whose artist had been poached by a mega gallery. “When this doesn’t happen by their third or fourth show, there’s a sense that something is wrong. But big galleries only want artists who can scale up and meet their demands. Collectors should calm down.”

The speculative market has dried up as many new buyers who had rushed into the art market during the pandemic vanished. 

“Anybody who’s been speculating and has stuff they thought they were going to be making some money on might have a few surprises,” Long said. “Especially right now. It’s expensive to get money. Art is no longer an easy place to park your cash.”

The outsize returns once promised to art flippers are hard to nail. “It’s not like buying a Lucy Bull for three grand and selling it for $3 million three months later,” said another bi-coast gallery owner.

There’s also a deadlock between the expectations of buyers and sellers, art adviser Todd Levin told Artnet News this week.

A 2023 Nicolas Party painting that initially sold for $750,000 quickly returned to the market at more than $3 million, according to a person who was offered the work—but the market didn’t take the bait. “You’ve got to be a complete chump to do it,” the person said. (Party’s auction record is $6.8 million and he’s represented by the international powerhouse Hauser & Wirth.)

I also heard a story about artist Hayley Barker, whose intricate oil-on-linen paintings of flowers and plants have become hits with collectors in the past two years, leading to a recent upsurge in primary market prices (current range is $15,000 to $125,000).

Barker’s 2022 painting BOZO Front Yard (2022) sold for $45,000 in August 2022 during her solo exhibition at BOZOMAG gallery in Los Angeles. All the works in that show came with a 5-year non-resale agreement. Yet this painting was offered for resale by the gallery at $375,000 just a year later, according to a person familiar with the offer.

Presumably there were no takers at that level, because the canvas appeared at Sotheby’s day auction on November 16. It ended up fetching $177,800, including fees, according to Artnet Price Database. 

“There’s a sense of urgency to deaccession and concern for the future of the market,” said the owner of a mid-size gallery. One of his seasoned clients uses art as an investment vehicle. The buyer in question is strategic about what he buys and most of the works have gone up in value. But he’s made some mistakes, and is now razor-focused on the 10 to 20 artworks that he’s not going to make any money from, the dealer said.

The main thing on his mind? How to get rid of them. His main fear? That they are going to be worthless.

Still the allure of access to new works by hot artists remains strong.

“It’s like a flex,” said a London-based collector. “It makes [collectors] feel they’ve done something great, they passed some sort of threshold. As if somehow spending the money is a success.”

Buying “investment-grade” art is the focus of many collectors now. People will line up all day to buy a Cecily Brown from Paula Cooper for $1 million, a mid-size gallery owner said. They will also pay $4 million at auction for her work. (The artist’s current auction record stands at $6.8 million.)

What does work, then? Long said her clients are looking for either “important pictures that don’t roll around that often or lower-end things because they really love them.”

Some of the top collectors in the world are still looking for the best of the best and are prepared to shell out millions for those prizes—as the recent record sales of Agnes Martin and Richard Diebenkorn showed.

“They are happy to spend above $100 million,” said an adviser to several top collectors. “They are very specific and very selective. And they ideally want to do it privately.”

Auction houses will be looking for trophies to sell. In February, Christie’s is planning to auction off the contents of Sir Elton John’s Atlanta penthouse, with thousands of objects ranging from his robes and shoes to furniture and photographs, according to a person familiar with the sale.  

But many top clients are “a little bored” with acquiring art these days, and maybe even finding more excitement in other arenas of spending, Sacasa said.

“With the collector at this level of buying, the chase is as exciting as the catch,” said Sacasa, who was a director at Luhring Augustine gallery and worked with Christopher Wool when his prices were going through the roof. “Now these collectors are being chased. And they are being chased by everyone.” 

A case in point: Andre Sakhai, who’s been actively buying, selling, and gifting art over the past decade, is taking a breather from his art-market escapades to focus on a new interest: Miami’s food scene.

“Definitely been more into food recently, for sure,” Sakhai said in a text message, responding to my query. “Signed leases in Covid and now just living through the passion. I still like art—don’t get me wrong—but don’t find art so exciting now.”

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