To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.
Good morning!
- Art Basel opens this week in Switzerland, and dealers say they’re cautiously optimistic after several challenging years.
- Ibrahim Mahama unveils a major Münsterplatz commission as he recovers from a brutal attack in Ghana.
- Christie’s is opening a wine shop in Rockefeller Center.
The Headlines
MOSTLY BLUE SKIES IN BASEL. After three years of market correction, dealers heading into the 2026 edition of Art Basel say the mood on the ground is the most optimistic it has been in some time—though no one is ready to declare it a recovery, ARTnews’s Devorah Lauter reports. With the fair opening to VIPs at the Messeplatz Tuesday, galleries are betting on quality over volume, leaning on tightly edited stands and prudent pricing. And in an exclusive Newsmakers interview, Art Basel’s global fairs director Vincenzo de Bellis talks about the many steps the company has taken to support galleries amid a challenging environment for contemporary art, and the various experiments it has tried in the past 12 months, from launching Basel Exclusive, in which close to 200 galleries held back works to unveil on opening day, to the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, which had a distinctly different structure from other Art Basel fairs. And while there’s some excitement from dealers after a strong May auction season, collectors and advisers told ARTnews that lingering issue is pricing: the gap between primary-market asks and secondary-market reality hasn’t closed just yet.
AN “OVERWHELMING” RESPONSE. Ibrahim Mahama, the Ghanaian artist who topped the 2025 ArtReview Power 100, is in Basel this week unveiling The God of Small Things on the Münsterplatz—a vast textile installation patchworked from batakari robes, post-independence-era rubber tires, and the canvases peeled off long-haul European trucks that end up in Ghana. He’s also recovering from a brutal physical attack in March, allegedly at the hands of Ghanaian police, that broke three of his teeth and brought his international travel schedule to a halt. In an interview with the Art Newspaper, Mahama talks about the assault, his recovery, and the community response, saying that number of people who came out to protest and speak out in support of him was “overwhelming.” He added, “It made me realise that the work that I’m doing in Ghana is important after all to people.”
The Digest
A coalition of Washington, D.C.–area preservation and cultural-heritage organizations has filed a federal lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s planned National Garden of American Heroes. [The Washington Post]
Sotheby’s Paris will sell more than 1,000 “previously unseen” drawings by Karl Lagerfeld in its sixth auction benefitting the late designer’s estate, its largest Lagerfeld sale to date. [WWD]
The Trump name came down from the Kennedy Center on Saturday, but more than 60 hours later the scaffolding and tarps are still up. Center officials say the spot is staying covered until the marble facade can be repaired. [Washington Post]
Britain’s Court of Appeal has upheld the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, overturning a February High Court win for the group; more than 3,300 people have been arrested at supporting protests, and campaigners say they will appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court and European judges. [Los Angeles Times]
Christie’s is preparing to open a 500-square-foot wine shop inside its Rockefeller Center headquarters later this year, after New York lawmakers carved out a special exemption from a Prohibition-era statute that bars wine retailers from also being wine producers. [New York Post]
The Kicker
A WIN FOR THE AGES. If you, like me, were as captivated as the rest of New York by the Knicks’ recent NBA Finals win, you’ll probably enjoy the deluge of Knicks stories that have flooded the internet this week, from Ian O’Connor’s declaration that team is the greatest in New York sports history at The Athletic to Good Morning America’s illuminating interview with top Knicks players who, seem to have not stopped partying since Saturday. My personal favorite, however, has been Knicks star Mikal Bridges spilling the beans on anything and everything on Instagram Live. Enjoy!
