A Peek Behind the Curtain at Auction Houses

This week the art world descends on Basel, a Swiss city on the Rhine River, where the latest edition of the world's most important modern and contemporary art fair is taking place. We're talking about Art Basel, of course. Its 290 exhibitors include all the top galleries of the w ...  Show more

Roberta Smith is the exemplar of popular art criticism. For almost four decades, Smith was a familiar voice on the arts pages of the New York Times, serving for many of those years as co-lead art critic. Both feared and revered, she is known above all for close looking, precise d ...  Show more

Curious about what's been going on with the art market? Auction results in the first half of 2023 paint a picture of a market undergoing a correction of some kind, but all may not be as it seems in the secretive world of auctions.

In this midyear review episode ...

Last month, Andy Warhol's "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" sold for $195mn, making it the second most expensive piece of art to sell at auction, ever. And as prices keep going up, the art market — auction houses, gallerists, dealers, collectors — want to keep it that way. On the heels ...

Get your paddles ready, because we’re diving into the art of the auction. First up is Vanity Fair art columnist Nate Freeman, who’s taking us inside New York high society with a look at auction culture today — including a record-breaking sale that raked in over $1 billion. Later, ...  Show more

In this week's episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, Judd Tully, an independent arts journalist who contributes regularly to ARTnews and The Art Newspaper, helps us recap the busy May art market consisting of several art fairs and auctions. First, Judd identifies some of the major ta ...  Show more