Art Basel, Milan (2026) Every June, Basel becomes for a few days the world capital of the art market. Galleries, collectors, institutions, curators — everyone of significance in the art world converges on the Messeplatz to take the pulse of a market in perpetual recomposition. The 2026 edition has just closed its doors with 90,000 visitors and solid sales throughout the week. But beyond the figures, it is what the fair tells us about the market — its weak signals, its tension

Venice, May 2026. The lagoon city transforms once again into the world capital of contemporary art. The 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, entitled In Minor Keys, opened its doors on 9 May 2026 and will remain open until 22 November, across the Giardini, the Arsenale and several other iconic venues throughout the city. But this edition is singular in more ways than one. It is carried by the grief of a lost vision, traversed by unprecedented geopolitical

There is a scene that few people know about, and that the major auction houses have no interest in making public. A hushed room, a few chairs, carefully hung works, and a carefully curated guest list. No auctioneer. No frenzied bidding wars. No price displayed in real time on a screen. Just a discreet negotiation between parties who trust each other, around a work that is sometimes worth several tens of millions of dollars. This market has always existed. But it has never bee

There is one image that says it all. May 2017, Sotheby's New York. The room holds its breath. On the easel, an azure and black canvas depicting a skull, painted in 1982 by an artist who died at 27, with no degree, no gallery to begin with, who had been sleeping in cardboard boxes on the streets of Manhattan just a few years earlier. In ten minutes of bidding, Untitled (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby's — a record for a work by an American art

You may have already felt that particular sensation when entering a room where a work of art awaits you. That imperceptible slowing of the breath, that slight distraction from the train of thoughts, that moment of unexpected presence. This is not sentimentality: it is biology. And science, in recent years, has begun to document with growing precision what artists and art lovers have always known — that living with artworks does us good, deeply and lastingly. What Science Says