How Artwork Pricing Works—and How to Know if You’re Getting a Good Deal https://ift.tt/Ym3Jvf1

$ (4), 1982
Andy Warhol
Avant Gallery

The art market is notoriously opaque, especially when it comes to pricing.

Unlike most luxury goods, art does not have fixed pricing formulas or regulatory bodies that determine value. Instead, prices are shaped by a mix of factors like supply and demand, an artist’s reputation, exhibition history, and negotiations between collectors, galleries, and auction houses.

Add to that the fact that prices are often not displayed publicly in galleries, at art fairs, or even online, and it’s easy to see why first-time buyers can feel bamboozled or even intimidated. Yet while art pricing can seem mysterious, it is not impossible to understand. With the right research and a willingness to ask questions, collectors can develop a much clearer sense of whether a price is fair.

“Feeling confident about a price ultimately comes down to research,” independent art advisor Arianne Piper told Artsy. “Naturally, the depth of the research should reflect the value of the artwork you are considering.”

Opaque, 2022
Francisco Baccaro
Kolibri Gallery

Why art pricing feels opaque

One of the most frustrating aspects of buying art is how difficult it can be to find clear pricing information. Unlike most consumer goods, artworks rarely have standardized prices. This lack of transparency has long been a feature of the art market rather than a flaw.

Private negotiations, relationship-based sales, and limited access to pricing data have historically given dealers and sellers flexibility in how works are valued and sold. As a result, if art pricing feels confusing, it’s not because you’re missing something obvious. The information is not always public.

“Historically, the market developed through personal relationships rather than open price discovery,” Johann König, founder of KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, told Artsy. “Even today, many galleries are reluctant to discuss prices publicly. People are much more comfortable acquiring works when they understand how a market functions over time. More transparency generally creates more confidence.”

Frieze, 2014
Sarah McKenzie
David B. Smith Gallery

What factors actually drive an artwork’s price?

Artwork prices are shaped by a combination of market forces and qualities specific to the object itself. For living artists, exhibition history, institutional recognition, and gallery representation are often key indicators of demand and career momentum.

On the primary market, where an artwork is sold for the first time, prices are typically set according to the artist’s track record, medium, scale, and career stage. On the secondary market, where works are resold through auction houses, dealers, or private sales, auction results play a vital role because they provide public evidence of what collectors have been willing to pay.

“Various factors are used to determine pricing for artists, starting with significant shows—both commercial and institutional—critical articles in art publications, and acquisitions by museums or important private collections,” Alice Amati, founder of the eponymous London gallery, told Artsy. “Production costs also have to be factored in, as some works are very expensive for an artist or gallery to produce.”

Li Yuan Library III, 2014
Candida Höfer
Matthew Liu Fine Arts

The characteristics of the artwork itself also matter. Larger works often command higher prices than smaller ones. Paintings generally cost more than works on paper. Condition can materially affect value. For prints and multiples, edition size is key: The smaller the edition, the greater the scarcity and, often, the higher the price.

Provenance (the ownership history of a work) can also influence value, particularly if it has belonged in notable collections or appeared in important exhibitions. Ultimately, no single factor determines price. Value is the result of multiple factors working together.

Trilafen, 2013
Alpin Arda Bağcık
Zilberman Gallery

How to do basic artwork price research

Despite the perception that the art world runs on insider knowledge, you don’t need special access to begin assessing whether an artwork is reasonably priced.

Start by checking auction results online to see whether the artist has a secondary-market history. If you’re considering a primary-market work, compare it with similar pieces by the same artist, paying attention to size, medium, date, and edition size.

You should also ask a gallery or dealer for the price. A simple “Could you share the price and any available information about the work?” is enough. “Price on request” usually means the gallery prefers to discuss pricing directly rather than publish it online; it does not necessarily mean the price is secret or out of reach.

Apollonian and Dionysian, 2026
Eve Yifan Jiang
NORITO

“A good gallery should be able to explain why a work costs what it costs, how the artist’s career has developed, what the secondary market looks like, and what risks and opportunities exist,” said König.

When the price is probably right—and when to push back

There is no universal formula for pricing art, but there are signs that a valuation is grounded in reality. If a price aligns with comparable works, reflects the artist’s career stage, and can be explained by factors such as medium, scale, rarity, or provenance, it is probably worth taking seriously.

If a price seems disconnected from the artist’s track record or similar works in the market, however, it is reasonable to ask questions. Reputable galleries and dealers expect collectors to do their research. Asking about pricing, comparable works, or the reasoning behind a valuation is not rude; it is part of making an informed purchase.

Friends, 2026
Genieve Figgis
Almine Rech

“From our perspective as a gallery, a price inquiry should be the threshold of a meaningful conversation,” said Soyeon Jung and Pon Chanarat, co-founders of London gallery NORITO. “We are always highly responsive to digital inquiries regarding our price list.”

The most important thing for new collectors to remember is that asking questions does not signal inexperience. In fact, it is one of the best ways to become a more informed buyer. Art pricing may never be entirely transparent, but the more research you do and the more conversations you have, the easier it becomes to understand how value is created and whether a price feels justified.“Follow an artist’s career, see how they are developing their practice over time, speak to other collectors in your network and develop trusting relationships with galleries so that you feel they can openly discuss this matter,” Amati advised.

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Pat Oleszko wins Whitney Museum’s 2026 Bucksbaum Award. https://ift.tt/E6IWuf3

Artist Pat Oleszko has been awarded the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2026 Bucksbaum Award, a $100,000 prize recognizing an artist in the Whitney Biennial whose work demonstrates exceptional talent and the potential to make a lasting impact on American art.

Oleszko was selected from the 56 intergenerational artists and collectives featured in this year’s biennial. The award, established in 2000 by the late collector and Whitney trustee Melva Bucksbaum, is presented during each Biennial and has previously honored artists including Mark Bradford, Zoe Leonard, Pope.L, Ralph Lemon, and Nikita Gale.

For more than five decades, Oleszko has cultivated a singular interdisciplinary practice that merges sculpture, performance, costume, installation, film, and public participation. Combining slapstick humor with pointed social critique, her elaborate handmade inflatables, costumes, and sculptural environments address subjects ranging from feminism and labor to environmental crisis, consumer culture, and political spectacle.

Her presentation in Whitney Biennial 2026 encapsulates the breadth of that practice. The installation pairs Blow Hard (1995), a monumental inflatable clown head originally commissioned for the World Trade Center Plaza, with Footsi (1979), a black-and-white film in which a pair of fingers dressed in doll-sized socks and shoes wander across the artist’s body and through the streets of New York. Together, the works blur the boundaries between sculpture and performance, comedy and critique, and audience and participant.

“Pat Oleszko is a singular force in American art, who has delighted, inspired, and challenged her audiences for half a century,” Whitney director Scott Rothkopf said in a statement. “By honoring Oleszko with the Bucksbaum Award, we continue the Whitney’s longstanding commitment to recognizing artists whose work expands the field, animates the present, and opens new ways of seeing the world around us.”

Whitney Biennial co-curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer said the jury was unanimous in its decision, praising Oleszko’s originality and enduring influence. “Throughout the Biennial, it became clear that Oleszko’s work resonated not only with audiences but with many of the participating artists, who recognized in her practice a remarkable model of artistic freedom and invention,” they said in a joint statement.

Born in Detroit in 1947 and based in New York, Oleszko emerged in the early 1970s with exuberant performances that defied disciplinary boundaries. Though long regarded as an influential figure in performance art, her work has received renewed institutional attention in recent years. Earlier this year, SculptureCenter presented “Fool Disclosure,” the artist’s first major New York institutional exhibition in decades, while Artsy recently highlighted Oleszko among the artists having breakout moments in 2026 as museums and galleries reassess her contributions to contemporary art.

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British Artist Sonia Boyce Makes Art of the Unexpected https://ift.tt/QbLVUak

Sonia Boyce knows something will happen when she brings strangers into the same room, but she never knows quite what.

“The not knowing is an essential ingredient of improvisation,” said Boyce, during a video call from her London studio. “You don’t quite know where it’s going to go, but it's going to go somewhere.”

For over four decades, the British Caribbean artist has organized unscripted collaborations where she brings together musicians, artists, community groups, and activists—and then steps back, allowing spontaneous moments to unfold with tenderness, awkwardness, humor, and unexpected beauty. This process has resulted in critically acclaimed works such as Feeling Her Way (2022), which brought together the improvised vocal performances of four Black women musicians and won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Venice Biennale in 2022. It marked a major moment of recognition for the artist, who was included in the 2020 Artsy Vanguard. Next spring, Tate Britain will open the first major survey of her four-decade career.

Last month, she opened “Demonstrate” at the Queens Museum, her first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The exhibition opened concurrently with Boyce’s Times Square installation Transform (2026), a commission for the Midnight Moment program that was itself drawn from footage filmed at the Queens Museum. At the Queens Museum, Boyce transformed two days of unscripted performances and community workshops held at the museum in 2025 into an installation of 14 films, photographs, wallpaper, and sound. Sculptural furnishings and layered sound become a vibrant landscape of overlapping voices, songs, and testimonies, culminating in a seven-channel video of participants processing through the museum together.

“It’s often a little bit chaotic,” Boyce said of her methodology. “I don’t direct the performers; I don’t direct the crew. I just say, ‘Capture what you think is interesting.’” Only afterward does Boyce return to the footage, distilling these encounters into the layered multimedia installations for which she has become known.

In the early 1980s, Boyce rose to prominence as part of Britain’s Black Arts Movement and became known for her figurative pastel drawings and photographic collages. By the early 1990s, however, the artist felt the need to move beyond self-representation, opening her practice to collaboration and improvisation. The shift fundamentally changed her work, allowing her to embrace unexpected moments of imagination.

“With all of my projects, and…definitely since the ’90s, I will convene a performance to take place with the hope that the audience gets involved in the work in one way or another,” said Boyce. “There are often moments of awkwardness and people not quite knowing what they’re supposed to do. But then something happens….Something clicks and people get on board and they run with it. That’s part of what I’m interested in: how a group manages to negotiate a way to get along together.”

At the Queens Museum, Boyce captured processions and performances over the course of two days in October 2025. These ranged from the building of a Día de los Muertos ofrenda or offering to a processional performance by the Resistance Revival Chorus.

In some ways, the Queens Museum surprised Boyce. The artist has a long friendship with the museum’s outgoing director, Sally Tallant. Visiting the museum several times, she was struck by the way the institution was already an active meeting place for a variety of communities, from children’s workshops to LGBTQ+ groups.

Several years ago, while touring the institution’s storage spaces, Boyce came across the remnants of an earlier education project, which the museum called the “Empanada Spaceship.” The sculpture had been conceived and built by local children before being paraded through Corona Park. The discovery crystallized Boyce’s approach to creating in the museum, seeing the space not only as a place for exhibiting art, but a place of community imagination.

“I just love this idea that there could be this museum that was hosting lots of different communities, but they’re being brought together through the act of making,” she said. “Most of the people that were there during the days of filming already knew the Queens Museum….I wanted to find out why they come to the Queens Museum and what that making means to them.”

As the exhibition title, “Demonstrate,” hints at, Boyce is interested in both the act of showing or demonstrating and the act of political protest. Queens is recognized by researchers and linguists as the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world, with nearly half of its residents born outside the United States. Boyce knows that, in the current political climate, the work inevitably takes on additional resonance.

“I’m trying to walk a tightrope, you could say, between the wider social, political context and the vibrancy of what happens in Queens in general…So in a way, it’s impossible to ignore the politics,” she said.

In many ways, “Demonstrate” brings together both playful and processional aspects of the Empanada Spaceship. Boyce had the chance to tap into an almost childlike creativity with the participants, as groups of strangers navigated through performances and crowded spaces.

“There’s an element of playfulness that kind of creeps in,” she said. “I’m really very interested in playfulness. And I do think as adults, we don’t take it seriously enough.”

Boyce worked with the Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women and non-binary singers known for participating in political demonstrations, to create a procession through the museum, incorporating different community groups and ending at the Queens Museum’s iconic Panorama of the City of New York (1964).

In the exhibition, Boyce transforms these performances into an immersive environment that visitors can walk through—what she calls a “journey through space.” The wallpaper, a motif in Boyce’s work for decades, is a key part of that, transforming images from the day into repeating patterns.

“I’m constantly thinking about the encounter of the work,” said Boyce. “The wallpapers are both a way of containing the space, but also…it hopefully encourages audiences to sit, to stand, to move between backwards and forwards.”

The final video shows the procession through the museum across multiple monitors, allowing visitors to experience the collective energy of the museum community. Ultimately, Boyce hopes audiences become participants themselves, “processioning” through the exhibition alongside those on screen. “We make our own world, also in a wider political sense. We are all active in our world. Joy can be an act of resistance.”

Ultimately, Boyce believes those ideas need not be in conflict. “People coming together and imagining in really creative ways, I hope, is demonstrated in the work,” she said.

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MoMA to host chess matches in honor of Marcel Duchamp. https://ift.tt/AZzdeTs

In 1923, Dadaist Marcel Duchamp famously gave up art for chess. While Duchamp secretly spent decades completing his final masterpiece, Étant donnés, the game became the defining passion of his life. On July 28, what would have been the artist’s 139th birthday, the Museum of Modern Art will celebrate that lifelong fascination by hosting a simultaneous chess match in conjunction with its major Duchamp retrospective.

The event will see Hungarian-born grandmaster Susan Polgar face 50 opponents from across the art world at once. The matches will take place in MoMA’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby, and visitors with museum admission are invited to watch. According to the museum, the event pays tribute both to Duchamp’s enduring relationship with chess and to a similar simultaneous match staged during MoMA’s landmark 1973–74 Duchamp retrospective.

Duchamp’s fascination with chess began early. His 1910 painting The Chess Game, included in the current retrospective, depicts two of his older brothers engrossed in a match, foreshadowing the artist’s lifelong devotion to the game. After moving to New York, Duchamp became a fixture at the Marshall Chess Club in Greenwich Village, competed in international tournaments, and famously remarked in 1952, “While all all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.”

Susan Polgar, who is leading the matches, became the first woman to earn the men’s grandmaster title in 1991 and remains one of the most accomplished players in chess history. Rather than competing against a single opponent, Polgar will circulate among 50 chessboards, making one move at each before returning to begin the circuit again—a demanding format known as a simul.

The event also highlights the enduring relationship between modern art and chess. Beyond Duchamp, artists including Man Ray, Max Ernst, and Carol Bove have created artist-designed chess sets, several of which are held in MoMA’s collection. (Yoko Ono, too, recently launched an online playable chess bot.) The museum’s Duchamp retrospective likewise foregrounds chess as a recurring thread throughout Duchamp's career, demonstrating how the artist regarded the game not simply as recreation but as an intellectual pursuit closely intertwined with his artistic practice.

On view through August 22nd, “Marcel Duchamp” is MoMA’s first retrospective devoted to the artist in more than 50 years. The exhibition brings together more than 300 works and traces Duchamp’'s transformative influence on 20th-century art.

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Zohran Mamdani announces New York City mural project to celebrate the FIFA World Cup 2026. https://ift.tt/rxcYknd

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced a new public art initiative that will commission 12 community murals across the city’s five boroughs in celebration of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The commissions will be created by 12 artists working alongside local residents, community organizations, and young people. The murals will be installed in neighborhoods from the Bronx to Staten Island throughout New York City, with each project reflecting the history, culture, and identity of its surrounding community. The mural project is organized by the Groundswell Community Mural Project in partnership with the city’s Departments of Parks & Recreation, Cultural Affairs, and Youth and Community Development.

Community paint days will take place throughout the summer, inviting New Yorkers to help create the permanent artworks to commemorate the millions of visitors who have arrived for the tournament.

The lead artists include Angel Garcia, VASH, Miki Mu, Yolande Delius, Viktoriya Basina, Misha Tyutyunik, Vincent Ballentine, Peach Tao, Carlos Mateu, Colleen Kong-Savage, Mimi Ditkoff, and Lina Montoya, each paired with a different neighborhood across the city’s five boroughs.

“These murals will belong to the neighborhoods that brought them to life—from Fordham Heights to Ocean Hill to Laurelton and communities across our city,” Mamdani said in a statement. “They will showcase the creativity that makes New York unlike anywhere else in the world.”

The mural program is the latest in a growing slate of arts initiatives surrounding the FIFA World Cup. Earlier this year, the city partnered with the Whitney Museum of American Art to distribute a free, artist-designed activity guide to the World Cup designed by Rich Tu.

Meanwhile, the arts non-profit ARTS 14C partnered with FIFA World Cup 2026, to install soccer-ball sculptures by artists including Katherine Bernhardt, Hank Willis Thomas, and Tomokazu Matsuyama across New York City and New Jersey. Several New York City museums, including the Guggenheim Museum and El Museo del Barrio, have been screening select World Cup games.

Together, the initiatives underscore the city's effort to position arts and culture alongside sport as a defining part of New York’s role as a host of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

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An Art Lover’s Guide to Vienna https://ift.tt/ud0exY6

In Vienna, history is everywhere. From the city’s imperial landmarks to the legacy of Viennese modernism, centuries of cultural ambition shape its architecture and art scene.

While institutions like Kunsthistorisches Museum, Belvedere, and Albertina draw crowds to marvel at the old masters and Viennese modernists like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, the contemporary scene is “particularly vibrant and diverse at the moment,” according to artist Ramesch Daha, president of the institution Secession. “Many artists and cultural practitioners are moving to the city from elsewhere, creating an exciting sense of dynamism.”

As Viennese curator Fanny Hauser puts it, the mix of major institutions, a historically grown independent scene of artist-run spaces, and two highly respected art academies makes for fertile ground. The gallery scene in particular is strong, even attracting newcomers from abroad.

Much of the Viennese art scene can be discovered unhurriedly and on foot, with the culinary traditions the city holds in high esteem never more than a few blocks away. This guide offers a curated selection of galleries, museums, and spots to know. Click the links to see their Google Maps or Artsy pages.

The key neighborhoods for art lovers in Vienna

Three clusters anchor the Vienna art map. Each is walkable and worth a full afternoon.

Inner City

Centered around the medieval St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna’s first district, with its cobbled streets and horse-drawn carriages, is home to some of the city’s most established galleries, like Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Galerie Krinzinger, Charim Galerie, and Galerie Klaus & Elisabeth Thoman.

A younger cluster of newer additions has also formed in the past decade towards the Parkring thoroughfare, like Layr, Sophie Tappeiner, Shore Gallery, and Croy Nielsen. The Universitätsgalerie im Heiligenkreuzerhof, meanwhile, stages contemporary shows in the historical setting of an old abbey.

Schleifmühlgasse and Eschenbachgasse

Two neighboring streets flanking the market criers of Naschmarkt, easily toured together. Schleifmühlgasse is the lifeline of a laid-back neighborhood where galleries mingle with boutiques, vintage shops, and small restaurants. See Christine König Galerie, Lombardi—Kargl, Galerie3, or detour to the Margarethe Schütte-Lihotsky-Zentrum, the pioneering architect’s living studio.

Eschenbachgasse runs closer to Museumsquartier and holds, among others, MEYER*KAINER, Galerie Crone, and E X I L E.

Museumsquartier

Three of Vienna’s biggest institutions and many smaller venues surround the courtyard of the former imperial stables, which doubles as a buzzing open-air hangout on summer evenings.

The four anchors—mumok, Albertina, Kunsthalle Wien, and Leopold Museum—are profiled below.

And two galleries worth a detour…

• Gianni Manhattan, off the beaten track in the 3rd district, pairs younger positions like work by sculptor Laurence Sturla with archival pieces from estates such as that of sculptor Anu Põder.
• Galerie Hubert Winter, tucked behind Museumsquartier, was established in 1971 with a focus on Surrealism. The program has since shifted toward overlooked female artists and the administration of Birgit Jürgenssen’s estate, alongside works by younger artists like Jojo Gronostay.

The museums and institutions to know in Vienna

Vienna’s institutional depth stretches from imperial-era foundations to sharply programmed contemporary museums, joined by foundations, artist-run networks, and a handful of commercial galleries that reward a detour.

Albertina. Home to one of the world’s most important graphic art collections, housed in a Habsburg palace on the Ringstraße. Highlights include Albrecht Dürer’s Young Hare (1508) and Praying Hands (1502) as well as a modern collection featuring works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. Its contemporary sister site, Albertina Modern at Karlsplatz, is housed in the former Künstlerhaus and focuses on Austrian and international art from 1945 to the present.

Belvedere Palace. The baroque palace complex holds the world’s largest Gustav Klimt collection—including The Kiss (1907–08) alongside a sweep of Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present, framed by formal gardens between the two palaces. Its contemporary programming lives at Belvedere 21 (formerly the 21er Haus), Karl Schwanzer’s modernist pavilion originally built for the 1958 Brussels Expo.

mumok. With one of Europe’s largest collections of modern and contemporary art, mumok towers over the Museumsquartier like a black monolith. For director Fatima Hellberg, the notion of “opening” the museum is central: “mumok is a place where art is not only viewed but actively experienced—where people leave with a changed perspective.”

Kunsthalle Wien. Hidden behind a baroque façade next door, Kunsthalle Wien shows contemporary art through solo exhibitions of artists like Ibrahim Mahama and Richard Hawkins, alongside sprawling thematic group shows, most recently “Lives and works in Vienna,” a survey of the local art scene.

Leopold Museum. The white-stone counterpart to mumok, the Leopold is a good place to learn about Austrian Expressionism, home to the world's largest Egon Schiele collection. Programming includes special exhibitions of works by Gustave Courbet, Ferdinand Hodler, and Oskar Kokoschka, focused on 19th- and 20th-century painting, with the occasional foray into contemporary work in the basement galleries.

Secession. An architectural landmark in itself, the artist-run institution “sees itself as an open space within this artistic landscape: a place for presenting new artistic ideas and engaging with the pressing questions of our time,” according to its president, Ramesch Daha. Alongside solo shows of contemporary artists, don’t miss the Klimt frieze in the basement.

MAK, Museum of Applied Arts. Home to all things design, from Wiener Werkstätte to Helmut Lang, alongside shows of contemporary artists like Hito Steyerl. Its fashion-focused outpost sits at the historic villa Geymüllerschlössel.

FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3, Contemporary Art Space. A non-profit contemporary art space in a stylishly renovated turn-of-the-century tile business. With just three shows per year, its no-frills program focuses on new productions and education around artists like Oscar Tuazon, Jeremy Deller, and Lucie McKenzie.

Maria Lassnig Foundation. Located in the painter’s former studio, the foundation opens for visits on Tuesdays by appointment; it’s a rare chance to see Lassnig’s practice in the space where it was made.

The Independent Space Index. Since 2017, Vienna’s exceptional density of artist-run and project spaces has organized itself as the Independent Space Index, a self-managed network of small venues dotted across every district. Programming tends to be more experimental, with newly commissioned work and research-driven exhibitions the norm. Laurenz Space, Prosopopeia, Pech, and Kunstverein Gartenhaus are among the most ambitious. The Index’s annual festival in May is the easiest way to encounter the full network.

Where the art world in Vienna eats, drinks, and shops

The places where Vienna’s art world gathers reflect the city’s habit of blending centuries, from grand cafés to modernist bar rooms and family Gasthäuser.

For dinner

Salzamt, with its chic interior by Austrian architect Hermann Czech, is one of the art-world mainstays; mumok director Fatima Hellberg brings international guests here for Austrian cuisine, and served “a delicious vegetarian goulash, along with other wonderful treats” at her inaugural opening dinner. Skopik & Lohn puts a twist on the classics with a sharing-plate format, and turns out the best schnitzel in town, according to Hauser, who also highlights the Otto Zitko interior painting, the wine list, and the cozy garden in the heart of the Jewish quarter.

For a more affordable Viennese classic, Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman director Eva Oberhofer recommends Gasthaus Steindl, a recently revitalized family-owned Gasthaus (a traditional tavern) popular with the theatre crowd.

For drinks

After openings, the Viennese scene gathers in bars and coffeehouses; as Fanny Hauser puts it, “Expect long nights, but no dancing.” The tiny Art Deco Loos American Bar—Adolf Loos’s 1908 American Bar—remains her top late-night pick. Curator Monika Georgieva picks Café Savoy: “A Vienna classic since 1897 and a queer institution. Inside for glamour, outside for flirting and people-watching.” Café Engländer is another traditional coffeehouse where the scene lingers once shows have wound down. Lepschi, newly opened, serves tinned-fish snacks alongside creative drinks (Oberhofer’s recommendation), while the New Bar—the closest thing Vienna has to a dive—hangs a changing mix of emerging local paintings on the walls. Above the city, Das Loft in the Jean Nouvel–designed SO/ hotel is worth a visit for the Pipilotti Rist ceiling installation alone.

For shopping

For fashion, artist Kristina Deska Nikolić recommends the concept store Song, praising owner Myung Saba-Song’s “authenticity and care.” For textiles and scents, Oberhofer sends clients to Duft und Kultur for its selection of avant-garde fragrances.

Where to stay

The recently restored 1930 modernist Villa Beer can be booked for overnight stays, a rare chance to experience early modernist living first-hand, down to the sound of the light switch.

Top tips for art lovers visiting Vienna

● When to go: Mid-September for Curated By, the gallery festival that fills the city with international curators and artists. For a deeper look at the emerging scene, come in May for the Independent Space Index Festival. Some galleries also go on extended summer breaks from the end of June to the beginning of July.

● How to navigate: Nothing is ever truly far away in Vienna. The city is highly walkable, and public transport is affordable and often the quickest option. Weather permitting, the most scenic way to enjoy exhibition hopping is by cycling on a Wienmobil bike, taking in the architecture along the way.

● What locals know: Make appointments for project spaces, and note that galleries have shorter Saturday hours and are typically closed Mondays (as are most museums). Weekends are sacred in Catholic Austria: reserve Sundays for a jaunt into nature, or for architectural pilgrimages to Wotruba Church, the Ernst Fuchs Museum, or Otto Wagner’s Church, followed by local wines at one of the Heurigen in the vineyards.

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For This Couple, Falling in Love Sparked a Lifelong Journey of Art Collecting https://ift.tt/I0r3wBs

In some ways, Johanna and Friedrich Gräfling have grown up together while collecting.

Today, the Frankfurt-based collectors, now in their thirties, hold nearly 650 works in their collection, including pieces by major names such as Alicja Kwade, Michael Sailstorfer, and Laure Prouvost.

But when their collecting journey began more than 15 years ago, they were still university students, newly dating. The couple met at a party hosted by a mutual friend in London. Friedrich was living in London, where he was a student at the Architectural Association. Johanna was visiting, then an art history student studying abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. “At that time, I wanted to work in the art market, which I always found super fascinating,” she told Artsy. “I spent all my time at museums.”

Friedrich had become involved in the street art scene as a teenager in North Bavaria. By the time he met Johanna, he was spending his free time going to studio visits, exhibitions, and hanging out with artists in his circle.

Soon, the young couple was traveling back and forth between Paris and London.

“We clicked through this interest in art,” said Johanna. “Art was always something that connected us from the very beginning. From the moment our relationship began, Friedrich asked me about art and showed me what he was interested in. We began to discover artists together.”

For the Gräflings, collecting has never been simply a matter of acquisition. It has become a way of building long-term relationships with artists, living closely with their work, and inviting others into that experience. What began as a shared curiosity between two young students has since grown into a broader ethos of art as something to be lived with, shared, and supported over time.

A communal collection

In 2013, the couple founded Salon Kennedy, an impromptu apartment salon staged in one room of their home.

“We’ve always liked to entertain in a way, to have people over, cook for them, to bring people together. Historically speaking, we liked the idea of the salon culture,” said Johanna. “We shoved all the furniture away, invited the artists to hang their works, and invited people over who we thought could be relevant for them to get to know the artists’ works.”

Salon Kennedy still exists, in a more formalized way, as a permanent exhibition space in the couple’s Frankfurt apartment. Today, Johanna and Friedrich also run Gräfling, a Frankfurt-based design studio that works across architecture and design, as well as Kunstverein Wiesen, a nonprofit art institution in rural Germany, focused on a slower rhythm of making and connecting with art.

“You actively have to decide to come to drive out to Wiesen, in the countryside, to visit the exhibitions,” said Friedrich, “It’s a different way of looking at art when you don’t have anything else to distract you.”

Collecting with consideration

Despite busy schedules and two children, the couple never rushes to collect. Instead, they’ve cultivated a rigorous process of purchasing art that prizes deep connection over fleeting thrills. Purchasing a first work by a new artist can take the Gräflings years to decide upon.

“We don’t buy works in a moment of passion,” said Friedrich. “There’s a long journey until we are committed, and we know we are 100 percent sure we want to follow this artist as long as we can financially.”

The aim is never to own just a single work but to grow alongside an artist, collecting their oeuvre in depth. Today, the Gräflings hold deep collections of works by artists including Sailstorfer, Paul Czerlitzki, Kwade, Jorinde Voigt, Prouvost, Grace Weaver, Christian Jankowski, Gregor Hildebrandt, and Sung Tieu. They continue to discover new artists through exhibitions, fairs, and other artists, some of whom have become friends.

But while the couple espouses an intellectual approach to building their collection, art has found its way into the most intimate moments of their lives.

“In the dining room, we have a huge painting by Grace Weaver, which is very colorful and very personal because this was our wedding gift,” said Johanna. “She painted the scenery of our wedding in her way. This is the most dominant piece in the dining area.”

Meanwhile, in their bedroom, among works by Prouvost, Andreas Gursky, Taryn Simon, and Kwade, are two paintings by Hildebrandt, made as presents for the births of their children.

The couple doesn’t limit themselves to a single medium or aesthetic when collecting, but focus on works by contemporary artists that they believe will be of historical significance well into the future.

The Gräflings acknowledge that the way they live with art is continuing to evolve. The couple once lived with a Petersburg-style hanging, the apartment’s walls covered in art. After redoing the space, they pared back, putting some work in storage. Now, the work has begun to accumulate again. “The works keep coming,” Johanna said, with a laugh.

This deep pleasure is what has inspired, and continues to inspire, the Gräflings to welcome potential collectors into their home. “It is always nice if we can encourage or transmit the spark we have for art and for buying art and for living with art to people who haven’t had that so far,” said Friedrich.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/VD1e5XG