This year’s Art Basel fair saw curators creating an exhibit that meanders through the streets of Basel, empty stores, operational shops, a hotel, a restaurant, even a brewery, exploring the topics of urban transformation and circulation.The artwork Interieur a La Fougere Noire by French artist Henri Matisse is on display at the international art show Art Basel, in Basel, Switzerland, Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
More than 280 international galleries exhibited everything from paintings and sculpture to video installations and performance art.The Art Market Report 2024, published by Art Basel and Swiss investment bank UBS, found that sales fell by 4% year-on-year in 2023, to an estimated $65 billion, against a backdrop of high interest rates, inflation and political instability.“We’ve seen a bit of a slowdown,” said UBS Global Wealth Management’s chief economist Paul Donovan.
“We’re not seeing art sales plunge off the edge of a cliff or anything like that,” Donovan said. “So ‘cooling’ is probably the right way to think about what is happening.”