Art Basel

Twenty years ago, Sofia Coppola upped the ante as a director with her lush, seductive, freshly spirited take on Marie Antonette. The film’s themes of desire, decadence, isolation, and rebellion have become her hallmark in projects that explore crises wrought within gilded cages, from the celeb-fixated thieving teens of The Bling Ring (2013) to the lot of the rock star wife in Priscilla (2024).

Over the past several years, the New York-based artist Drake Carr has gained a steady following for his live portrait sessions, which have been staged at galleries in New York City, Los Angeles, and Paris, and even in people’s homes. A keen observer with a love of fashion illustration, Carr renders his sitters – be they strangers or cultural luminaries such as model Pat Cleveland or actress Hari Nef – with the delicate precision of a lapidarist.

It has been impossible to ignore the headlines about galleries closing in recent months. In a single week in August 2026 alone, two established London galleries announced their closures, citing the changing, and challenging, market landscape. No one doubts that these are nervous times for many commercial galleries – a notoriously challenging sector to navigate. Yet, staying power appears to be a hallmark of this segment of the trade.

One year, on a crisp desert night, at a bit past midnight, I biked out past the chaos of Black Rock City into what is known as Deep Playa – a swath of open land stretching toward the annual festival’s roughly nine-mile perimeter. Unlike the gridded center of Burning Man, attendees do not camp in Deep Playa. Instead it serves as an open-air gallery, where large-scale creations of whimsy dot its moon-like expanse.

The 'Great Wealth Transfer' is currently a buzz word in the art market, but not all is as it seems. The popular narrative is of baby boomers passing trillions to their children, creating a new generation of wealthy collectors. In reality, much of the money will move first to women: because they tend to outlive their husbands, with some USD 9 trillion expected to pass horizontally to widows in the coming years. That matters in the art market.

‘Art has always been part of my life – every form of it. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a television, so we went to the movies all the time, especially to see Italian films. It was also the era of the French New Wave. We regularly attended the Festival d’Avignon, the Théâtre des Amandiers, and the Cartoucherie de Vincennes. Later, I became involved with the Théâtre des Deux Portes in Paris, a kind of community arts center. We traveled extensively.

By Elliat Albrecht Bouthayna Al Muftah's multidisciplinary practice is rooted in a deep connection to her Qatari heritage. Drawing on collective memories, oral history, and folklore, the Doha-based artist translates Qatari stories into a stylized visual archive of her homeland's past. As part of 'In Transit', a new series produced in partnership with Qatar Airways, we speak to Al Muftah about how travel, place, and the moments in between shape her creative practice.

What is your first memory of Portland? I came to visit my girlfriend, now my wife, in 2013, when I was living in LA. The first thing I noticed was how good it smelled. She took me to the waterfalls outside of town, and I could not believe how green it was: plants growing on plants growing on trees growing on cliff edges. So much life, so much air. Why did you choose Portland as your home? I could see having a really beautiful life here. What is the mark of a true Portlander? Loving the rain.

In the 2000s, the future felt fresh. The web was rapidly becoming mainstream, affecting how a whole generation congregated, dreamed, and created. Artworks emerged that addressed social and political shifts by engaging with this new informational milieu.

During the pandemic, online art sales boomed. With galleries shuttered and fairs canceled, the value of online sales doubled even as the market contracted, reaching 25% of the global art market in 2020. This surge, born of necessity, was greater than seen in other industries, as the art trade scrambled to build a digital infrastructure that was already commonplace in mainstream retail. Six years on, the direction of travel has significantly changed.