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ART
Global Art Sales Fell Twelve Percent In 2024, Totaling $57.5 Billion
“’Geopolitical tensions, economic volatility and trade fragmentation’ drove the market down, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report,” reports the New York Times. “The annual report, seen as the most reliable indicator of the art market’s size and health, said that sales had fallen for the second year in a row.” “Global art market sales reached an estimated $57.5 billion, reflecting a twelve-percent year-on-year decrease as the market continued to recalibrate following its post-pandemic resurgence in 2021 and 2022,” relays Art Basel and UBS in its report.
“While buying and selling was more reserved at the high end, the broader landscape remained dynamic, with resilience in lower-priced segments fostering a more diverse market ecosystem. Both dealer and public auction sales fell in 2024, with values declining by six percent and twenty-five percent, respectively. The aggregate market decline in value was driven by cooling at the top end, including a thirty-nine-percent fall in the number of fine art works selling at auction for over $10 million.” See the extensive release here.
Art Market Scrambled By Trump Tariff Toying
“There is widespread confusion about whether or not new U.S. tariffs—and those imposed by trading partners in retaliation—apply to art and antiques,” reports the Art Newspaper.
When Pierce Brosnan Met Rashid Johnson
The New York Times (gift link) offers an affable profile of Pierce Brosnan, who’s acting in several roles right now, including genial boulevardier. Brosnan and the writer visited the Guggenheim, where the famous spiral was closed for installation. “‘That’s boring,’ he said mildly at the ticket counter. He contented himself with the works on display… Half an hour into his visit, Naomi Beckwith, the Guggenheim’s chief curator, came to offer him a tour of the installation in progress. Then she introduced him to the artist behind it, Rashid Johnson. ‘I’m a fan of yours,’ Johnson said. ‘You were my Bond.’ They chatted about art for a while.” Brosnan told Johnson “what he liked about painting as opposed to acting: ‘The innocence of it all and no expectations.’ Then he said goodbye. ‘Be bold,’ he urged Johnson.”
Alphawood Exhibitions Publishes Patric McCoy Monograph
Alphawood Exhibitions has published “Patric McCoy: Take My Picture,” an eighty-page catalog commemorating the popular photography exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in 2023. The exhibition featured fifty-two black-and-white and color photographs documenting Black gay Chicago in the 1980s. “Throughout the decade, Patric McCoy—a prolific photographer and art collector—traveled around Chicago on his bike, always with his camera. From the Lakefront to the Loop, McCoy found no shortage of Black men who wanted their picture taken. Over a ten-year period, he shot thousands of images at his subjects’ request, with McCoy’s subjects neither posed nor directed. Each had agency over how he is seen, elevating the subject’s humanity, inverting and subverting the gaze.
“As HIV and AIDS hit Black men especially hard, ‘Take My Picture’ could be seen as a marker of place, time and memory.” The softcover publication features nearly all of the photos from the exhibition, along with statements by the artist and by the exhibition curator, Juarez Hawkins, and a comprehensive introductory essay by Hawkins. Find the book ($10) here.
DESIGN
Savoring Downtown’s Refreshed “The Red”
“The former CNA Center has been given a significant refresh that includes a food court and renovated lobby space along Wabash Avenue. Now it has a new name: ‘The Red,’” writes Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey in his column. “The forty-four-story tower is the only downtown skyscraper with that distinctive color, and it’s a fairly good-looking modernist building with its grid of slit-like windows.”
Eighteen-Story Apartment Tower Opens In Printers Row
The eighteen-story Straits Row at 633 South LaSalle, which had been a vacant lot, “offers residents traditional apartments or rental of individual bedrooms in a unit,” records the Sun-Times. “Straits Row makes up almost half of the new Class A apartments that will be added to the city’s [housing] stock this year, according to appraisal and consulting firm Integra Realty Resources.”
Building Addition Permitted At South Side Community Art Center
The South Side Community Art Center has received city permits to “begin work on an addition to the Bronzeville building they’ve called home since 1940,” reports Chicago YIMBY. A demolition permit “calls for the removal of the coach house at the rear of the 1892-built structure, and a renovation permit authorizes foundation and site work for a three-story addition.”
DINING & DRINKING
What’s Next For After’s Drinks?
After, Michelin-starred Ever’s cocktail bar, has revamped its menu in collaboration “with an internationally known bartender whose bars are fixtures on the World’s 50 Best Bars list,” reports Eater Chicago. “Ryan Chetiyawardana, who goes by Mr. Lyan, is behind Lyaness and Seed Library in London, as well as Silver Lyan in Washington, D.C., and Super Lyan in Amsterdam. His bar off the Thames, Dandelyan, was ranked as the world’s top bar before it closed in 2018… Mr. Lyan’s spring menu will feature twelve cocktails, including four spirit-free options.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Countering Tariffs, China Considers U.S. Film Ban
“Two widely followed Chinese public figures—one an editor for a state media outlet, the other the son of a former party chief—released identical outlines,” relays the Hollywood Reporter, “of countermeasures Chinese authorities are said to be considering in response to Trump’s [proposed] tariffs.”
LIT
Paper For Books And Magazines Not Yet Subject To Tariff
“Many printed products are exempt from Chinese tariffs for now, and Canadian paper is also still exempt,” reports Comicsbeat. “A recently released federal document shows the many categories that are not subject to tariffs, a list that includes ‘printed matter, nesoi,’ which translates to ‘not elsewhere specified or included,’” adds Publishers Weekly. “Other items that are specifically mentioned include printed books and children’s picture, drawing and coloring books. In addition, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement remains intact, meaning that goods considered ‘compliant’—among them books and paper—will not face new tariffs.”
Independent Bookstores Rise Versus Amazon
“Amid rising boycotts of major companies, local bookstore owners find themselves uniquely poised to meet the political moment,” reports Wisconsin Public Radio. “The American Booksellers Association has reported yearly growth in membership for the past several years, with more than 200 new bookstores opening every year for three consecutive years starting in 2021.”
Publishers Weekly Will Charge $25 For Review Submissions
Since March 24, Publishers Weekly has charged $25 for every book submitted for review consideration, the vital industry publication posts. “It helps offset a small percentage of the costs of processing the large number of titles submitted… each year.”
Naval Academy Banishes 381 Books
The U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library is removing books “in response to an order from the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,” lists the New York Times. The list includes Maya Angelou’s seminal autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” plus “Memorializing the Holocaust,” “Janet Jacobs’ examination of depictions of women in the Holocaust, and ‘How to Be Anti-Racist’ by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are ‘The Making of Black Lives Matter,’ by Christopher J. Lebron; ‘How Racism Takes Place,’ by George Lipsitz; ‘The Fire This Time,’ edited by Jesmyn Ward; ‘The Myth of Equality,’ by Ken Wytsma; studies of the Ku Klux Klan and the history of lynching in America.” More from NBC News here.
MUSIC
Conductor John Nelson Was Eighty-Three
John Nelson, a conductor acclaimed for interpretations of the epic works of Berlioz, as well as other large-scale works by Bach and Beethoven, was eighty-three, chronicles Gramophone. Among his posts were music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, 1976-1987, and the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, 1985-1988, becoming principal conductor there until 1991. His final recording was of Handel’s “Messiah.”
STAGE
The Auditorium Rebrands And Announces Dance Season
The Auditorium has announced its 2025-26 dance season, “Celebrating Women Leaders in Dance,” with many companies marking milestone anniversaries. It’s a season of five dynamic dance programs by five female-led companies. More here.
The National Historic Landmark also unveiled a new identity as The Auditorium, “better representing the evolution of diversified, contemporary programming on its world-class stage. Under the direction of CEO Rich Regan since 2019, The Auditorium programming model has dramatically and purposefully evolved to incorporate a broad range of concert, film, and speaker series programming along with the venue’s longtime signature dance, theater and orchestral music presentations.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Arts And Culture Accounted For $1.2 Trillion In GDP
The Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account released the findings “from its latest economic impact study of arts and culture,” reports Broadway News, which indicates “that arts and culture sectors contributed $1.2 trillion to the United States economy in 2023.” This total accounted “for 4.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2023. This is more than the amount contributed by several non-arts industries, including agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; mining; outdoor recreation; and transportation and warehousing.” The $1.2 trillion figure is “the largest economic contribution of arts and culture to the GDP since the annual analysis began in 1998.”
Governor Makes Nine Board And Commission Appointments
Nine new commissions include “Acting Secretary Gia Biagi will serve as the Chair of Blue-Ribbon Commission on Transportation Infrastructure Funding and Policy,” reports Governor Pritzker’s office. More on the creation of the Blue-Ribbon Commission and its functions here.
San Francisco Reneges On $14 Million In Arts Grants
“The City of San Francisco has officially canceled $14.4 million in grants to more than thirty San Francisco-based cultural organizations working in social services and the arts,” reports KQED. “Organizations including the African American Shakespeare Company and San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company were notified that former grant awards and agreements under the Dream Keepers Initiative had been rescinded.” Funds were canceled to “the Chinese Culture Foundation ($200,000), the Transgender District ($375,000), Zaccho Dance Theatre ($300,000) and Fillmore Jazz Ambassadors ($210,000). The grant cancellations come as the city attempts to revamp its Dream Keeper Initiative, launched in February of 2021 as a response to the murder of George Floyd. The initiative had aimed to invest $60 million in Black communities and organizations annually.”
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