#art-basel-paris

#art-basel-paris

A new positive mood at Frieze London. Impressive eight-figure sales at Art Basel Paris. Auctions 30% up at Christie's in London. A record-breaking €90m sale at Sotheby's in Paris. Maurizio Cattelan's $10m gold toilet headlining a much-improved offering at November's marquee sales in New York. For many involved in the business of selling art, this autumn's key trading moments represented a long-awaited upturn in a market that for more than two years has seen sales stifled by geopolitical volatility.

Kermit the Frog, Even is a 20-metre blow-up figure by Venezuelan-US artist Alex Da Corte - with its head deflated at the artist's request.

Simon Fox told the Guardian that the fair, which opens on Wednesday, can benefit from having strong competition on its doorstep and replicate the mutual success of Barbie and Oppenheimer at the box office in 2023. He said: It's very convenient for collectors who can come to London, spend a weekend here and then go on to Paris. It makes for a Barbenheimer moment.

The exceptional quality of this year's projects is powerful proof of Art Basel Paris's magnetism-and of the central role Paris and France continue to play on the global art market and the world of culture at large,