Art Dealer
Art Dealers and Fair Organizers Grapple with a Roller Coaster Market
Art fairs are in-person experiences par excellence: a place where visitors gaze at artworks in gallery booths and collectors shop for them in between sips of sponsored champagne. So for the international fair business, the lockdown phase of the pandemic was, by all accounts, a nightmare scenario. Most of the 408 art fairs held in 2019 were canceled outright in 2020.
This month, Art Basel and the Treasure House Fair are opening their doors to visitors in Basel, Switzerland, and in London, and the picture is much more upbeat. A total of 359 fairs were held around the world last year, roughly one for every day of the year, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2024.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/arts/design/art-fairs-strategy-win-visitors.html
An art adviser to the stars who scammed her elite friends out of $6.4million to fund her high-flying lifestyle has opened up about her newfound misery – as she faces 20 years behind bars.
Lisa Schiff boasted Leonardo DiCaprio and a real estate heiressamong her high profile clients, before her entire scheme unraveled in 2023 when it was revealed she had been pocketing cash intended to purchase million-dollar paintings.
An art dealer and diamond smuggler accused of being a Hezbollah financier has been banned from travelling to the UK.
Nazem Ahmad, 60, is sanctioned by Britain and the US, and he has been banned along with Mustafa Ayash.
Mr Ayash is also under UK sanctions, after being suspected of providing financial support for Gaza Now, which Britain accuses of promoting the “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups”.
Barry Stern moved to Paddington in inner Sydney when it was yet to see its glory days as a centre for the arts and where contemporary Australian art was not widely appreciated or recognised. In his career, he transformed it, promoting such art, encouraging and mentoring artists and promoting their work to such an extent that he had an international clientele. His death on July 1 brought an outpouring of grief and tributes from Sydney’s art community.
“Barry was a man of taste, energy, charm and boundless enthusiasm, just what Sydney needed in the early 1960s,” said art dealer Rex Irwin. “He gave me one of my first jobs in Australia and certainly, my first job in an art gallery and consequently changed my life for ever, for which I am eternally grateful.”
