The Tamesis
Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in equilibrium state, art news Newsletter about the art market and beyond. Register here Receive it every Wednesday.
Happy Friday! Here’s a roundup of the moves and shakers in the art trade this week.
Industry trends
- Will Cary promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Barnes Foundation: Cary will oversee new revenue initiatives, Calder Gardens partnerships and a newly created branding unit that unifies communications, design and marketing.
- Bukia Vakhania gallery to open new store and rebrand in Berlin: The Tbilisi-based gallery (formerly Gallery Artbeat) will open a second space in Berlin on January 15, hosting a solo exhibition by Nina Kintsurashvili.
- Heritage reports 2025 sales of $2.2 billion: The Dallas-based auction house said it was its highest-ever annual auction total, driven by strong performance in categories such as coins, comics, sports memorabilia and illustrated art.
- Antenna Space will open a branch in Hong Kong in March 2026: The Shanghai-based gallery will launch its first overseas space in Wong Chuk Hang with a group exhibition during Hong Kong Art Week. The director of the new space is Jeff Li.
Big number: 50
This is the percentage of non-bank art lenders that will experience loan defaults in 2024, according to a recent report from Deloitte Private and ArtTactic Art and Finance Report. By 2023, this number will be only 17%. While defaults undoubtedly reflect conditions in state-of-the-art markets (and the global economy), they are nothing compared to 2020. That year, more than two-thirds of lenders experienced defaults.
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Perhaps the greatest irony of last year’s high-profile Louvre robbery is that the museum itself was built on robbery and plunder. Most of its encyclopedic collections were assembled through wars of conquest and colonial plunder. in new interview new yorkerStaff writer Julian Lucas considers this history and its lasting consequences in a conversation with French art historian Bénédicte Savoy. Savoie was appointed president of the Louvre in September — a ceremonial public intellectual role — and has made a career out of examining the history of the Louvre and other encyclopedic institutions. While the interview touches extensively on issues of restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy’s most provocative claim may be that of universalism, a core ideal of French republicanism that functions as a totalitarian ideology. Every year, the president of the Louvre holds a series of public lectures; in a country still reeling from the trauma of looting, events at the Savoy threaten to cause an explosion.
