Titled “Art Market Update Fall 2024: Opportunity Knocks?”, Bank of America’s latest report indicates that the art market will see an increase in collector engagement this year. The new “art market update” explains that improved conditions for buyers are due to lower auction estimates, gallery discounts, and recent interest rate cuts. These factors are energizing collectors as they prepare for the New York fall auctions and Art Basel Miami Beach.

“Collectors are more discerning than ever,” said Drew Watson, head of art services at Bank of America Private Bank, in the report. “They know that galleries continue to sell A+ works, but that terms are more negotiable on everything else. Collectors are using that knowledge to secure more favorable transaction terms: including skipping waitlists, eliminating resale restrictions and ‘buy one gift one,’ and, of course, price discounts.”

According to the report, the art market has shown signs of cooling. The first half of 2024 saw auction prices rising only 1% above their aggregated mid-estimates, the smallest figure in over seven years. Additionally, 32% of lots sold at the May auctions fetched prices below their low estimates, marking a peak in unsold lots since 2020. However, with competition at auctions waning, buyers now have more leverage to negotiate favorable prices and terms.

This is true on the primary market as well. For instance, at Independent Art Fair in New York, artworks typically priced between $20,000 and $50,000 were sold for between $10,000 and $20,000. Throughout the year, high-profile artists, including artists like Sterling Ruby and Pat Steir have seen a dip in prices in the primary market. Ultimately, this gives more collectors a chance to enter the market.

One key takeaway from the report is the notable momentum within the Latin American market. Sales of works by Latin American artists at Sotheby’s, for instance, increased by over 50% between 2020 and 2023, exceeding $250 million. The report highlights the record-breaking sale of Leonora Carrington’s Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in May 2024. Meanwhile, it points to increasingly popular cultural events such as the São Paulo Biennial and ARCOmadrid as vital primary marketplaces for these artists.

The report goes on to note that young collectors are increasingly viewing art as a crucial wealth management tool. The value of the art and collectibles market is expected to climb beyond $2.8 trillion by 2026. This projection is supported by the fact that 56% of collectors now incorporate their art buying into their financial strategies, with a huge majority (98%) of younger collectors doing so. As the younger generations inherit the wealth of their parents, the report predicts that this financial strategy will continue to grow.

Election years tend to raise concerns in the art market, particularly U.S. presidential elections, which historically coincide with fluctuations in auction activity. Auction totals in the first half of 2024 were the lowest since the pandemic shock in 2020. The report notes that while some election years, such as 2012 and 2004, saw increases in November evening sales by 27% and 37%, respectively, others, like 2008 and 2020, experienced declines during global economic crises. With the U.S. elections in the rearview mirror, this uncertainty is now over, and the broader economic conditions will instead have greater influence on the art market.

Dahn’s paintings from the early 1980s were characterized by haphazard brushwork and vibrant figuration. During this time, Dahn helped form the short-lived Neo-Expressionist group Mülheimer Freiheit, commonly known as Junge Wilde, alongside artists Jiří Georg Dokoupil, Hans Peter Adamski, and Peter Bömmels. This group rejected the established, overly intellectual language around Minimalism and Conceptual art.

Much of Dahn’s work interrogated the medium of painting itself, often criticizing an increasingly capitalist art world. His early works helped lay the foundation for the “Bad Painting” movement in the late ’70s through the ’80s. His work was featured in the 1982 edition of Documenta.

By the late 1980s, Dahn abandoned painting; he turned to screen printing, photography, drawing, and film. His screen prints—which he named “anti-silkscreens”—were never made into editions. He produced one print and then immediately disposed of the screen. These works collaged a wide range of inspirations, from famous punk albums by the Sex Pistol and The Smiths to ethnological photographs of Indigenous Australians.

From 1995 to 2017, Dahn taught painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Brunswick, Germany. His work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Venus Over Manhattan in New York, The Modern Institute in Glasgow, Sprüth Magers, and Kunstmuseum Basel, among many others. His work is currently on view at Haus Mödrath–Räume für Kunst in Kerpen, Germany.

The inspiration for Ohana Hatake came from the emotional impact of a particular scene in the Japanese manga series Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, where a spell creates a field of flowers.

“The great mage, Flamme, teaches the main character, Frieren, a spell that doesn’t seem particularly useful yet is deeply cherished—the spell to create a field of flowers,” explained Murakami. “There is an episode which shows how using this spell had led Frieren to encounter the hero Himmel. Watching this scene in the anime, I was moved to tears, and I felt gratified by my long dedication to the flower motif in my artwork.”

Initially teased as “Murakami’s new footwear project” and introduced through three limited-edition releases in April, Ohana Hatake made an early splash with models in “Island Green” and “Blazing Yellow,” as well as a distinctive black/pink version created in collaboration with the K-pop group BLACKPINK. At ComplexCon in Las Vegas on November 16th to 17th, further versions of the Ohana Full-Bloom in new “Apricot” and “Raspberry Rose” colorways (as well as other exclusive colorways) will be showcased, as well as a “Rust” colorway of the Surippa Ohana.

Icelandic musician Björk and French artist Aleph will present a collaborative AI sound installation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, beginning on November 20th. The exhibition is part of the museum’s “Biodiversity: Which culture for which future?” forum, which will take place from November 20th to 24th.

The immersive installation, titled Nature Manifesto (2024), will feature extinct and endangered animal calls, replicated by AI, which will play through speakers in the museum’s distinctive escalator system. The calls will be overlaid with a spoken manifesto read by Björk. The two artists created the audio project, which will remain installed at the museum until December 9th, in collaboration with the French sound research institute IRCAM.

“We wanted to share [the animals’] presence in an architecture representing the industrial age, far away from nature,” Björk and Aleph said in a joint statement. “In the veins of the escalator of the museum, known as the ‘caterpillar,’ we wanted to remind citizens of the raw vitality of endangered creatures. Even though you are restlessly traveling between floors whilst listening to this soundpiece, the tone of animals’ voices hopefully builds a sonic bridge towards the listeners. And in the spirit of these animals, in the magic of how they are sensually aligned with their environment, they become our teachers!”

Björk’s advocacy for climate and environmental issues is ongoing. She recently announced a concert film documenting her “Cornucopia” tour at Climate Week in New York. Last year, she collaborated with the Spanish singer Rosalía on the song “Oral” and donated the proceeds to a legal fund combating industrial fishing in Iceland.

For its environmental forum, the Centre Pompidou is partnering with the French Office for Diversity to invite artists, researchers, and the general public to discuss the dangers of climate change and the threats to global diversity. Alongside the sound installation, the museum will present a solo exhibition by Italian artist Alex Cecchetti, titled “Le Concile des Abysses.”

“Why focus on biodiversity at the Centre Pompidou? In reality, the richness and vibrancy of life have long permeated spaces of art and culture—from Dürer’s hare to Monet’s water lilies, Franz Marc’s little horses, and Gilles Aillaud’s sea lions, artworks have shaped and transformed our understanding of life,” said Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, director of the culture and creation department at the Centre Pompidou. “If museums are schools of attention, we believe that this attention can raise awareness of the crisis facing species and ecosystems today.”

Sotheby’s in New York will auction off the oldest stone tablet of the Ten Commandments on December 18th. This ancient artifact, dating back to the Late Byzantine period approximately 1,500 years ago, is expected to fetch $1 million–$2 million. Ahead of the single lot sale, the tablet will be on display in New York starting December 5th.

The inscribed tablet, weighing 115 pounds and standing about two feet tall, is the only complete tablet of its kind from this era. It features 20 lines of Paleo-Hebrew script, comprising the Ten Commandments, which are central to the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The stone tablet was discovered in 1913 during railroad construction along the southern coast of Israel. Initially unrecognized for its importance, the tablet was used as a paving stone for three decades before its historical value was identified.

For those three decades, the stone faced upwards outside a local home and was exposed to foot traffic and natural weathering. Then, in 1943, a scholar purchased the stone after recognizing the text as a version of the Ten Commandments held sacred by the Samaritan community.

It is predicted that the original site of the tablet was likely a synagogue or private residence destroyed by either the Roman invasions of 400–600 CE or the Christian Crusades during the 11th century.

“This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts. “To encounter this shared piece of cultural heritage is to journey through millennia and connect with cultures and faiths told through one of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes.”

Last year, Sotheby’s hosted another high-profile Judaica sale, auctioning an ancient Hebrew Bible. The approximately 1,100-year-old manuscript fetched $38.1 million, making it the second most expensive manuscript ever auctioned. Known as the “Codex Sassoon,” the 26-pound book was sold to the American Friends of the ANU Museum of Jewish People in Tel Aviv. This September, Sotheby’s also sold a 700-year-old Hebrew Bible, referred to as the Shem Tova Bible, for $7 million.

Frank Auerbach, a prominent British artist known for his intimate impasto portraits, died on November 11th in London at 93. His death was confirmed by Frankie Rossi Art Projects in a press statement. Geoffrey Parton, director of the gallery, reflected on Auerbach’s legacy: “We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come.”

Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach fled Nazi Germany for Britain in 1939. His parents stayed in Germany and soon after were tragically killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1947 and pursued an arts education at Saint Martin’s School of Art during the day while taking additional night classes at Borough Polytechnic. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1955.

In the 1950s, Auerbach developed his unique approach to portraiture, characterized by thick, almost sculptural application of paint. His career flourished throughout the decade, underscored by his first solo exhibition at Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1956. He also began teaching at the Camberwell School of Art.

By the end of the 1960s, Auerbach had become one of the foremost figures of the School of London, alongside contemporaries such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. This group of artists gained prominence in the post-war era, particularly for practicing figurative painting in a time dominated by abstract and conceptual art.

Auerbach’s portraits frequently feature the same circle of models repeatedly. Perhaps the most celebrated are his portrayals of Estella Olive West, an actress with whom he had a long-term relationship. Notably, E.O.W. Nude (1953–54), on view currently at the Tate Britain, depicts the actress’s nude body rendered with thick brushstrokes against a black background.

After his inaugural solo exhibition, Auerbach staged regular shows with Beaux Arts Gallery and Marlborough Gallery, the latter of which mounted his first solo show in New York in 1969. His work gained further recognition when he became the subject of a major retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1978. Then, by 1986, Auerbach represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. There, he was co-awarded the prestigious Golden Lion prize alongside German artist Sigmar Polke.

In 2015, a retrospective of Auerbach’s work was held by London’s Tate Britain in association with the Kunstmuseum Bonn. His final solo show in the United States was mounted by Luhring Augustine in New York in 2021.

Auerbach received significant recognition this year. In February, the Courtauld Gallery hosted an exhibition of his large-scale drawings. Then, coinciding with the 60th Venice Biennale, art dealer Max Levai presented an exhibition of Auerbach’s paintings at the Palazzo da Mosto. Among the paintings were portraits of Julia Yardly Briggs Mills, a friend who modeled for Auerbach twice a week for four decades. Rounding out the year, Offer Waterman is currently mounting a solo show dedicated to the artist’s London cityscapes, on view until December 7th.

The network of forgers worked with complicit auction houses across Italy that published catalogues to lend credibility to the fake works, hosting exhibitions throughout the country to reach a broader market. Other artists whose work was forged include Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, and Wassily Kandinsky.

This major seizure of counterfeit works is a reminder to collectors of the importance of verifying artwork provenance. Sought-after artists like Banksy and Warhol are prime targets for forgeries, partly due to their high demand and limited supply.

For buyers, ensuring authenticity through independent appraisers is essential, as is consulting with trusted dealers and verifying certificates and ownership histories. For Banksy’s works, authentication through the artist’s de facto representation, Pest Control, is crucial. Meanwhile, understanding the history of Warhol’s prints is essential to spot fakes.

Jonas’s career has included numerous retrospectives, including at London’s Tate Modern in 2018 and, most recently, the Museum of Modern Art in New York earlier this year. In response to receiving the Nam June Paik Prize award, Jonas stated, “I am honored to receive this prize, especially to remember Nam June, a great artist. It will be a pleasure to work with Nam June Paik Art Center on the show in 2025.”

An international jury, chaired by Frances Morris, former director of Tate Modern, selected Jonas as the winner, with the award ceremony scheduled for November 28, 2024. “Jonas not only played a key role in shaping early video and performance art but continues to explore urgent new terrain,” said Morris, who highlighted her “immersive installations that explore themes of ecology, landscape, and kinship between humans and non-human species at a time of climate breakdown.”

To create this painting, Ai-Da painted 15 different versions of Turing’s face. After creating these works, Ai-Da chose three to combine with a painting she made of Turing’s Bombe machine, which helped decipher German codes in WWII, for the final artwork. The composite image was then digitally assembled and printed on a larger scale using a 3D textured printer, with additional texturing added by studio assistants to enhance the final piece.

British gallerist Aidan Meller created Ai-Da with the help from a team of Oxford University scientists. Named after the pioneering mathematician Ada Lovelace, Ai-Da presents as a woman with black hair wearing denim overalls.

“This auction seems an important moment for the visual arts, where Ai-Da’s artwork brings focus on artworld and societal changes, as we grapple with the rising age of AI. The artwork, AI God, raises questions about agency, as AI gains more power,” said Meller in a press statement.

AI God: Portrait of Alan Turing was the most significant sale of Sotheby’s digital art day auction, which fetched $1.48 million in total. The auction also featured pieces from Pak, XCOPY, and Refik Anadol, among others. The lot with the highest estimate was XCOPY’s DOOM Party (2020), estimated at $800,000 to $1.5 million. The work was passed over.

Spoerri continued to explore culinary themes through his concept of “Eat Art.” In 1968, Spoerri established an eponymous restaurant in Düsseldorf, with a menu characterized by unusual ingredients such as rattlesnake or elephant’s trunk, before opening the Eat Art Gallery upstairs two years later. There, he exhibited food-related, experiential artworks by himself and other artists like Joseph Beuys and Dieter Roth, thereby highlighting the dialogue between art, food, and social commentary.

In recent years, his work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Galerie Krinzinger, Anne Barrault, and Galerie Henze & Ketterer. He moved to Vienna in 2008, where he lived and worked until he died.

Sotheby’s will host its first auction in Saudi Arabia on February 8, 2025, marking the first international auction to take place in the country. This landmark sale, “Origins,” will be held in the historic town of Diriyah, located on the outskirts of Riyadh.

“This is an important milestone in our relationship with the Kingdom, and we look forward to hosting our inaugural auction to mark the occasion, fittingly in a historic location of such immense cultural significance,” said Charles F. Stewart, CEO of Sotheby’s.

The two-day evening auction will feature a selection of work by Saudi artists alongside international figures. In addition to artwork, luxury items such as jewelry, watches, cars, sports memorabilia, and handbags will be on offer. The lots featured in “Origins” will be on view in a free public exhibition from February 1 through 8, 2025.

“We wanted to inaugurate our official new home in Saudi Arabia with a taste of what Sotheby’s can bring to the doorsteps of both those who have started their own collections, and others who are about to enter this world for the first time,” said Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of sale and contemporary art specialist. “As such, we wanted this first sale both to serve as an introduction to our offering and to embody the cross-category spirit we pride ourselves on curating.”

The decision to host the auction follows Sotheby’s formal incorporation in Saudi Arabia at the end of last year. A new Sotheby’s office is set to open in Riyadh’s Al Faisaliah Tower, the first skyscraper in the country.

“This is a very dynamic time for culture in Saudi Arabia. Sotheby’s has been active in the Kingdom for a number of years now, and we’ve witnessed the blossoming of the cultural scene with great interest,” said Stewart. “In committing to a physical presence in Riyadh, we’re supporting the enrichment of the artistic landscape of the country, which will empower the large youth demographic of Saudi.”

Sotheby’s presence in Saudi Arabia can be traced back to 2013, when the auction house hosted a highlights exhibition in the country. Sotheby’s went on to host Saudi Arabia’s first-ever charity auction in 2017, and later supported its first Contemporary Art Biennale and participated in the Riyadh International Book Fair.

Just last week, Sotheby’s closed a deal with the Abu Dhabi–based wealth fund ADQ, which delivered a $1 billion investment in the auction house. Shortly thereafter, the auction house announced that it had closed a deal to acquire the Breuer building on New York’s Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which will become its new global headquarters.

Born in 1993 in Nottingham in England, Cunningham attended Loughborough University. Her childhood home neighbored woodlands, where she nurtured a bond with nature that greatly influenced her work. Cunningham started off making collages and, most significantly, paintings, that critiqued the fixed categories invented by scientists and celebrated nature as a unified system.

Cunningham was celebrated for her kaleidoscopic landscapes, characterized by her expressive mark making and explosive color palette. Often focusing on forests, her dense, gestural paintings veered into abstraction as swathes of blue, green, red, yellow, white, or black intentionally obscured the details of these natural scenes. “I am interested in creating this sense of place only to tear it down—and then build it up again,” Cunningham said in her Artsy Vanguard 2023–24 interview. “The way you ontologically separate these things—animal, human, tree—I’ve always found that way of thinking problematic.”

After attending the La Wayaka Current Artist Residency in Panama, she attended the Royal College of Art in London, where she graduated in 2022.

Cunningham mounted her first solo show with Almine Rech in New York just months after graduating from the Royal College. By 2023, Lisson Gallery had announced its representation of the artist, giving Cunningham a London solo show, “The Crystal Forest,” that November. She had her second solo show with the gallery in Los Angeles, “Flight Paths” this past summer.

In response to the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Atlanta-based nonprofit South Arts has launched the Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund. The new initiative aims to provide immediate financial assistance to artists across multiple states in the South, followed by longer-term recovery efforts within the arts community.

North Carolina alone suffered approximately $53.6 billion in damages from Hurricane Helene—a Category Four storm—according to the state’s Governor Roy Cooper. In particular, Asheville’s River Arts District faced significant damages, with approximately 80% of its buildings destroyed or damaged, the New York Times reported.

The fund was inaugurated in collaboration with regional partners such as Alternate ROOTS, Mid Atlantic Arts, and the National Performance Network. Artists across multiple disciplines residing in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia can apply for grants starting at $500. South Arts will distribute the grants for all states except North Carolina, where Arts AVL and the North Carolina Arts Council will manage them.

“This is a pivotal moment for our region’s cultural landscape. While we are providing immediate relief through this program, we recognize there is still much work ahead,” said Susie Surkamer, president and CEO of South Arts. “Our goal with this emergency fund is to act swiftly in supporting the artists that are vital to the South and also directly impacted by recent devastation. To fully realize this mission, we hope to engage both applicants and potential donors who can help strengthen and sustain these efforts.”

In addition to grant applications, South Arts is also soliciting donations to bolster the fund. Contributions can be made through the website, with all proceeds directed towards artists in designated disaster areas as determined by FEMA. The organization has shown the importance of community support in enhancing the stability of the regional arts sector.

“We are fortunate to have strong partners on the local, state, regional, and national level who have mobilized to provide resources for those affected by Hurricane Helene,” said Jeff Bell, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council. “Together, we will continue to prioritize smart investment to stabilize and strengthen this region, where art is so vital.”

On November 21st, Sotheby’s in New York will auction off 31 subway drawings by Keith Haring at its contemporary day sale. These works, estimated to fetch between $6.3 and $9 million in total, will be presented at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries in the exhibition “Art in Transit: 31 Keith Haring Subway Drawings from the Collection of Larry Warsh” from November 8th to 20th.

The auction comprises 31 of Haring’s subway drawings, executed from 1980 to 1985. These pieces, which will make their auction debut in November, originated from the private collection of Larry Warsh, a prominent collector and published author who has maintained these works for the last four decades.

Haring began creating these artworks in chalk on black advertising panels that had been left blank throughout New York City’s subway stations. This earned him the anonymous moniker “Chalkman.” For five years, this practice became a daily ritual for the artist. His early drawings often featured simplistic motifs that would become familiar in his later work, like UFOs and radiant babies. After partnering with art dealer Tony Shafrazi in 1982, Haring wrote: “I have been drawing in the subway for three years now, and although my career aboveground has skyrocketed, the subway is still my favorite place to draw.”

“Keith Haring’s subway drawings are his ultimate, years-long love letters to New York City,” said Ashkan Baghestani, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art day auction in New York. “Drawing dozens of works almost daily, Haring’s legacy unfolded in front of millions, as he transformed the everyday experience into the extraordinary through his lexicon of instantly identifiable imagery. They sometimes stemmed from world events and other times from new technologies or were about life, love, and death.”

The full suite of these subway drawings was last exhibited in 2012 at the Brooklyn Museum for “Keith Haring: 1978-1982.” Following the exhibition, the drawings were also featured in the book Keith Haring: 31 Subway Drawings, published in partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation.

The upcoming exhibition at Sotheby’s will recreate the 1980s New York City subway environment, complete with turnstiles and subway benches. Alongside the 31 drawings, the auction house will also present archival footage of Haring at work.

The Discoveries sector will host 22 exhibitors, including Asia Art Center and Jhaveri Contemporary. More than half of these names are emerging galleries established within the last decade. This sector is dedicated to fostering the visibility of up-and-coming talent in the art world. Insights, another sector, will present 24 curated projects from galleries, such as Tokyo’s Yutaka Kikutake Gallery and London’s Flowers, focused on Asia and the Asia Pacific region, emphasizing photography from the 1970s to the present.

“The impressive line-up of galleries participating in our 2025 Hong Kong edition reinforces the fair’s position as a cultural crossroads and vital anchor in Asia’s ever-growing art scenes,” Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong, said. “We’re committed to continuing to strengthen our ties with the local art scene and its rising stars.”

This edition will also introduce the MGM Discoveries Art Prize, supporting emerging artists with a $50,000 cash prize shared between the artist and their presenting gallery, plus an opportunity to exhibit in Macau, China. Art Basel has also co-commissioned a project with Hong Kong Museum M+, presented by UBS: Ho Tzu Nyen’s Night Charades (2024), which will reimagine famous Hong Kong film scenes in animation, will be projected on the museum’s facade during the fair.

For the complete list of galleries, follow this link.