For many in the art industry, 2025 was a tough year marked by a crop of gallery closures and unfavourable auction results for the first three quarters of the year. Geopolitical and economic pressures including US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs contributed to some of the turbulence in the art market, as the free movement of goods that has enabled the contemporary art boom over the past two decades slowed.

But this wasn’t the whole story. The art market continues to reinvent itself. We are seeing more collaborations and consolidations, as well as new possibilities in geographies such as the Middle East. Much to the relief of art market players, there was a palpable rebound in autumn, with Frieze London and Art Basel Paris surprisingly buoyant, and strong November auctions in New York totaling over USD 2 billion. That mood carried over to Art Basel Miami Beach, where strong seven-figure sales made a comeback.

Here, we reflect on five key stories of the year.

在豪瑟沃斯畫廊（Hauser & Wirth）的展位上，路易絲．布爾喬亞（Louise Bourgeois）的中期作品備受矚目。她的一幅色彩略顯晦暗的油畫《福利特先生：苗圃人》（Mr. Follett: Nursery-Man，1944）以250萬美元的價格售出；而一件纖細金屬雕塑《持續的對峙》（Persistent Antagonism，1946-1948）則以320萬美元的價格成交。此外，該藝廊呈獻的艾德．克拉克（Ed Clark）、亨利．泰勒（Henry Taylor）以及拉希德．詹森（Rashid Johnson）的作品均取得百萬美元級銷售成績，然而，本次展會中最重磅的交易無疑是喬治．康多（George Condo）的《Untitled (Taxi Painting)》（2011），該作品以400萬美元覓得買家。

Gallery closures (but some openings, too)

Away from the auction headlines, spiraling costs and sluggish sales forced the demise of several galleries. In July, Tim Blum, the cofounder of the Los Angeles gallery Blum (formerly Blum & Poe), announced he would ‘sunset’ the 30-year-old gallery, ‘transitioning away from the traditional gallery format toward a more flexible model.’ Then the collector turned dealer Adam Lindemann closed his gallery Venus Over Manhattan after 13 years, and the New York and Los Angeles-based gallery Clearing shut both spaces. At the same time, Kasmin Gallery closed after 35 years, though its president Nicholas Olney and head of sales Eric Gleason almost immediately relaunched as Olney Gleason. New York’s Tilton Gallery shut after four decades, and Perrotin and Pace revealed the closure of their Hong Kong outposts in October. London gallery Project Native Informant also wound up after 12 years due to an ‘extremely volatile and unsustainable environment.’

Last month, Stephen Friedman said he will shut his New York space in early 2026 due to mounting costs (the London gallery will remain open), while Sperone Westwater, a 50-year-old New York institution, terminates at the end of this year, amid a lawsuit between the cofounders Gian Enzo Sperone and Angela Westwater.

Bucking this trend, some galleries are expanding. Perrotin debuted in London in March, Thaddaeus Ropac opened a gallery in Milan in September, Waddington Custot will open in Paris early next year, while Hauser & Wirth announced it has bought a palazzo in Sicily for a new location. Several dealers also expanded in London in the autumn: Maureen Paley took on a third space; Modern Art, Sadie Coles, and Grimm expanded to bigger premises; Ben Hunter renovated an entire St James’s townhouse; Mattias Vendelmans opened in Bloomsbury, and father and son David and Jacob Gryn launched Interval Gallery in Clerkenwell. Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based Kiang Malingue opened in New York, Jack Shainman Gallery expanded to a 1,900 m² space in Tribeca, and Konrad Fischer Galerie took on a project space in Los Angeles. Stuart Shave, the founder of London gallery Modern Art, told The Art Newspaper that, rather than being fragile, the art market is ‘something that you have to navigate.’

Consolidation and collaboration

Some galleries are seeking strength in numbers. Shortly after Pace closed in Hong Kong, its CEO Marc Glimcher announced that it would collaborate with the dealer Emmanuel Di Donna and David Schrader, formerly head of private sales at Sotheby’s, to launch Pace Di Donna Schrader Galleries, specializing in secondary market sales. ‘When a business gets this crammed up between expanding operating expenses and narrowing margins, it’s time for an evolution,’ Glimcher told The New York Times. ‘It’s usually a time for consolidation as well, and this is that for sure.’

Another merger was that of four experienced advisors to form a ‘super-group,’ New Perspectives Art Partners – Hong Kong-based Patti Wong and her business partner Philip Hoffman, head of The Fine Art Group advisory, teamed up with Brett Gorvy of the gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Ed Dolman (the former executive chair of Phillips) and Dolman’s son Alex. Dolman told The Art Newspaper that the art industry is undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ and that people ‘need to come to terms with that.’

The Gulf boom

The Gulf Cooperation Council was a hot topic in 2025, with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar seen as major growth opportunities for the art market as they seek to diversify their economies. Sotheby’s bookended the year with debut sales in the region, from its first something-for-everyone auction in Saudi Arabia in February, totaling USD 17.3 million, to the inaugural Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi at the start of December, which brought in USD 133.4 million from five auctions of cars, real estate, handbags, and jewelry. The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ invested USD 1 billion in the auction house last year.

The two major art fair companies also announced they will launch fairs in the region. Art Basel Qatar debuts in early February 2026 with 87 galleries across multiple venues in Doha. Noah Horowitz, CEO of Art Basel, said in the announcement that the art scene across the MENA region ‘has undergone exponential growth in recent decades.’ In October, Frieze announced it is taking over Abu Dhabi Art, which will become Frieze Abu Dhabi in November 2026, under its new owner, the Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, who bought Frieze from his former company, Endeavor, for a reported USD 200 million in May this year. There is no shortage of money and desire to attract visitors in the region, but it remains to be seen exactly how the more nascent domestic markets will develop.

「Zero 10」作為邁阿密海灘展會首次推出的數碼藝術創新平台，一經亮相便迅速成為矚目焦點。從早期銷售情況來看，市場對數碼藝術作品表現出強烈的購買意願。Beeple Studios在預展中大獲成功，其「常規動物」（Regular Animals）系列的10件作品均以10萬美元的價格售罄。紐約藝廊Heft也獲得了良好開端，Michael Kozlowski的四件受電路板啟發的浮雕作品，每件均以2.5萬美元成交。

Art Blocks將Larva Labs的八組「Quine」列印和NFT配對作品成功售予美國和澳洲的私人藏家，每件作品的售價介於2.5萬至4.5萬美元之間。與此同時，SOLOS則以每件4.2萬美元的單價售出了泰勒．霍布斯（Tyler Hobbs）的七件演算法生成抽象藝術作品。此外，Nguyen Wahed以14.5萬美元的價格售出了Kim Asendorf的網頁動畫作品，而Joe Pease的影像作品《zero dollar man》的五個版本也以每件3.5萬美元的單價成交。

巴塞爾藝術展邁阿密海灘展會將於2025年12月5至7日舉行，在此探索2025年邁阿密海灘展會的參展藝廊。

本文作者Elliat Albrecht是一位常駐加拿大的作家和編輯。

頁頂圖片標題：2025年巴塞爾藝術展邁阿密海灘展會，kó藝廊在「藝術史事」展區展出Nike Davies-Okundaye的《The lost cat》（1973），以10萬美元出售給托萊多藝術博物館

2025年12月4日發佈