A seven-hour video of an American eagle lying immobilized but awake on an operating table. A 13-foot-wide Henry Moore bronze sculpture that looks like it\u2019s made out of solid gold. A philosophizing animatronic mouse.<\/p>\n
These were just some of the highlights of the 56th annual edition of the Art Basel<\/a> fair in Switzerland, the world\u2019s largest fair for modern and contemporary art, which opened Thursday after two preview days for V.I.P. visitors.<\/p>\n For decades, the Art Basel group\u2019s flagship home event in its international fair portfolio<\/a>, which this year featured 290 galleries from 43 countries and territories, has been a must-attend fixture for the world\u2019s most serious collectors. But this year\u2019s Art Basel was held in challenging conditions for dealers. It had a nervy, make-or-break feel.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Pace Gallery<\/a>, one of the international art world\u2019s four biggest dealerships, announced it was shedding 50 employees and 50 artists from its roster. Also this month, Tiwani Contemporary<\/a> in London and D\u00e9pendance<\/a> in Brussels shuttered, adding to the lengthening list<\/a> of reputable contemporary galleries that have closed in the last couple of years. Auctions of major-name modern and contemporary art have been buoyant \u2014 last month\u2019s modern and contemporary sales in New York grossed $2.5 billion<\/a> \u2014 but business for dealers has been slower. And the costs<\/a> of running galleries continues to rise.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are buying more cautiously and spending less,\u201d said Alison Jacques<\/a>, a London-based exhibitor at the fair. \u201cThe prices for young artists just got too high,\u201d she added: \u201cA correction was needed.\u201d She was referring to the speculative frenzy<\/a> for new paintings by emerging talent that created a very different atmosphere at Art Basel in the early 2020s. In 2022, auction resales of works by artists aged under 40 soared to $306 million. In 2025, equivalent sales collapsed to $48 million, according to the French database Artprice.<\/p>\n Like many Art Basel exhibitors, Jacques was showing older pieces by reputable 20th-century names alongside new works by living artists. On the first V.I.P. day, she said, her gallery sold a 1977 Robert Mapplethorpe gelatin silver print of a tattered American flag, priced at $500,000, as well as less expensive items like a painting by the young British artist Sophie Barber, for about $40,000.<\/p>\n Most sales at Art Basel are, in fact, organized in advance. Dealers email photographs of works to potential clients before the fair, and a buyer confirms a reservation once they see the work in person. This year, to freshen things up, the organizers introduced Basel Exclusive<\/a>, an initiative that encouraged exhibitors to wait until the V.I.P. preview before unveiling some pieces, and 195 exhibitors agreed to participate.<\/p>\n Magnus Resch, a New York entrepreneur who has developed an art-pricing app<\/a>, said that dealers were \u201cbringing their best works,\u201d adding that his research showed that the \u201cmedian artwork price at Art Basel is higher than at either Art Basel Paris or Art Basel Miami Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as glamorous as Paris or as festive as Miami,\u201d he added, \u201cbut the collectors who come to Basel tend to be traditional buyers focused on art rather than the social scene.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem, however, is that the focus is the other way around for many market players, particularly from the United States. The allure of Art Basel\u2019s ultrachic fair in Paris in October<\/a> prompted several U.S.-based exhibitors to drop out of this year\u2019s Swiss fair. There were conspicuously fewer Americans browsing the booths, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main American collectors are holding fire until October,\u201d said Wendy Goldsmith<\/a>, an art adviser based in Palm Beach, Fla. \u201cParis has a better selection of hotels, restaurants and shops than Basel, so if they\u2019re going to make a choice, it will now be Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n Dealers brought some exceptional works to Basel \u2014 although they didn\u2019t quite compare to the pieces by Constantin Brancusi and Jackson Pollock that made more than $100 million<\/a> each at May auctions in New York.<\/p>\n The front of Gagosian<\/a>\u2019s booth was taken up by Henry Moore\u2019s monumental 1984 bronze, \u201cLarge Four Piece Reclining Figure,\u201d one of an edition of seven, priced at about $25 million. It didn\u2019t find a buyer at the preview, but Gagosian said it had sold a large Willem de Kooning abstract.<\/p>\n The fellow mega-gallerist Hauser & Wirth<\/a> said it had sold a seven-foot-wide 1963 Picasso canvas, \u201cThe Painter and His Model in a Landscape,\u201d for $35 million.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an extremely successful first day; it needed to go well, and it did,\u201d said Iwan Wirth, a co-founder of the gallery, referring to the pressure that overhead-burdened galleries are under to make sales. Hauser & Wirth reported more than 30 on the first preview day.<\/p>\n Maike Cruse, Art Basel\u2019s director, said that because galleries were working in a \u201cchallenging market,\u201d the fair \u201cdidn\u2019t increase booth prices this year,\u201d and even offered discounts to first- and second-time exhibitors.<\/p>\n That seemed to have allowed exhibitors to show less obviously commercial pieces at unintimidating prices. The up-and-coming London gallerist Ginny on Frederick<\/a>, for instance, brought a sculpture of a lemon in three stages of decomposition by the young British artist Hamish Pearch, which sold for about $6,700, the gallery said.<\/p>\n After viewing the emerging galleries on the fair\u2019s first floor, Ann Webb<\/a>, a collector based in Vancouver and Berlin, said the quality was \u201cvery strong this year.\u201d She, like many others, was particularly impressed by \u201cEagle Eye,\u201d a mesmerizing seven-hour A.I.-animated film by the Belgian artist David Claerbout showing a paralyzed American bald eagle. Esther Schipper<\/a> of Berlin offered the work in an edition of seven, priced at 60,000 euros, or about $70,000, each, and sold one, the gallery said.<\/p>\n Another technology-generated animal that seemed to capture the strangeness of our times was an animatronic mouse that was poking its head through a wall. The latest in an ongoing series of conceptual animal sculptures by the British artist Ryan Gander, the mouse declared, \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve got anything to say,\u201d between yawns, before repeating, \u201cI\u2019m not here to make a statement.\u201d<\/p>\n